Lust

Lust is the vice of indulging in unlawful sexualpleasures.

The use of sex is not always lustful or sinful. Thereis a good and virtuous use of sex in marriage, when husband and wife perform their normal and natural function of sex without anyinordinateness (that is, without anything that is in conflict with reason) and, therefore, without employing any unnatural or artificial means of thwarting the natural effect of their action. The only lawful and chaste use of sex is its lawful use in marriage.

Lust consists in disregarding the order and modedictated by reason for the use of sex. Therefore, lust conflicts with reason, and is a sin. The habit of lust is a vice.

Lust is listed with the capital sins because many other sins flow from it as from their source.

St. Gregory (Moral. xxxi) enumerates “the daughters of lust” as follows: blindness of mind;thoughtlessness; rashness; inconstancy; love of self; hatred for God; worldliness; dread of a future life.