when desire becomes overwhelming

We all heard about original sin – that this sin came from our first parents, the this sin is taken away by baptism, that this sin leaves some traces of itself in us. But how do we know that there is original sin in us? How do we know that we are continually affected by the consequences of this sin? Proof is this: we are constantly hounded by an intense form of human desire – hounded by intense human desire. There is nothing wrong with human desire. In fact there will be something wrong if you don’t have human desires. When we are hungry we desire to eat. We need this to survive. When we are cold, we desire warmth, a blanket perhaps. When we are warm we desire ventilation, air, cool air. But concupiscence is not just human desire – it is intense human desire, a desire which becomes unreasonable. There is nothing wrong to desire to eat when you are hungry. By all means eat. But when that desire becomes overwhelming, so much so that when you see food you get everything, take everything, leave no room on your plate, taking all the choicest parts for yourself, only to realize later that you could not finish it, and afterward throw everything to waste – the desire to eat has become irrational, one has succumbed in fact to the intensity of the desire, so much so that his response becomes unreasonable.


We all need a means of transport. Some of us can afford a car. By all means acquire a car. But if the desire for a car goes beyond its practical use, when it becomes not just merely a need for transport but a need to show-off, or the need to look luxurious or the need to acquire more than what you really need, then the acquisition becomes overwhelming. The intensity of the desire makes one respond irrationally.
We need to earn money. By all means do. But when the desire becomes overwhelming, when our need to acquire makes us steal, when our need for more makes us do injustice to others, when our need makes us cheat, then the desire becomes unreasonable. It has overwhelmed us.
All these are parts of the heritage of sin in us. These are little examples of the heritage of sin that is in us, concupiscence, we call it, which we can see in a big way in our gospel today – the irrational, overwhelming desire to amass wealth, to amass convenience, to amass food, to amass earthly goods.