On The Road to Freedom

By: Steve P.

When many people hear the phrase "theology of the body" (TOB) for the first time, it strikes them as a little strange. They ask, "What does the body have to do with theology?" Commentators on Venerable John Paul II's revolutionary catechesis on human sexuality respond, “Everything!”— to which I reply with a resounding heart and voice, “Thank God!” For TOB was not on my radar growing up, and if the glorious splendor of God's plan for human sexuality had been presented to me, how much pain I could have been spared!

For most of my youth, I grew up without a father. This absence became particularly difficult when I was introduced to pornography in seventh grade. While I was excited and wanted to keep watching, the more I saw, the uglier I felt. I began experiencing intense feelings of guilt. Because of my frequent viewing of pornography and lack of a strong male role model to address coming-of-age issues, I didn't know how to view women. As I slowly became hooked on these "beautiful" images, I came to see women as an object to be used, abused, and discarded. Needless to say, I was uncomfortable being around them. I also found myself disposed to blame women. Just as Adam blamed “the woman” immediately after the Fall, I looked on women with disdain due to their beauty, blaming them for “doing this to me.” As much as I wanted to believe that my lusts were their fault, the accusations weighed heavier upon my soul and I was covered in deep and abiding shame.

Pretty soon, this attraction became an addiction. Over the years, I tried everything to get free, but nothing seemed to work. I thought I would have to carry this cross for the rest of my life. Thankfully, in 2002 a friend gave me a tape that would change my life. It was Christopher West presenting a vision of life that I never knew was possible – and it was everything for which I had been searching for! Christopher's unveiling of God's glorious plan for our lives brought about a mixture of emotions. On the one hand, I experienced great hope and realized God had not abandoned me in my struggle for sexual purity. On the other, I felt a deep pain because I was so far from where I needed to be, and saw no way of breaking free from the chains that bound me. I could intimately relate to the words of St. Paul, "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (Romans 7:15). My body and soul were crying out, “How long, O Lord?”

It was not until I came to Franciscan University in Steubenville that things began to be different. In 2003, I went to a Festival of Praise charismatic prayer event, where I heard Isaiah 43:19, "Behold I am doing a new thing…do you not perceive it?" Through a crack in my stony heart, living waters were beginning to bubble up.

A few weeks later, while praying after Mass, I experienced an intense moment of gratitude for what God was doing in my life. Then it hit me. I was moved to gratitude not only for Jesus in the Eucharist, but God the Father. God was the Father I had been longing for my whole life. This union with God was what I had been searching for in all of those empty pornographic images for so many years. The One who I thought had abandoned me actually desired to bring me close and tell me that He loved me far beyond what I could imagine. He had always wanted to hold me and tell me I was His own. I heard in my heart the most beautiful phrase of my life, "You, Steven, are my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." The Father is pleased with me? With everything that I've done? Just when I thought my cup was overflowing with too much love, he gave me a tremendous gift. Freedom. For the first time in my life, I received a tangible experience of freedom from sexual addiction. He had brought me to Himself, a beauty which pornography could never contain. The false way I had been viewing women had been replaced by a desire to serve the women in my life with humility, and to love them as my sisters in Christ.

Despite the extraordinary healing I experienced, I wish I could say that from that moment I had no problems. Yet like Peter on the water, I took my eyes off Christ and I stumbled on the waves. I listened to the "pull of the flesh" and slipped back into the septic tank of our culture, allowing lust to grip my heart. Thinking back as to why God allowed this to happen, I realized that He was preparing me for something even greater. Over the course of five years, I was blessed to study twice at with Theology of the Body Institute. TOB Institute's Certification Program helped deepen my understanding of the mystery of our embodiedness and how our sexual desire is ultimately a call to communion with the love that totally satisfies. Furthermore, I was led to Theophostic Prayer, a mind-renewal prayer ministry that gets to the root of our wounds, intensive trauma therapy, therapy that heals past memories, and meditation upon sacred art, the antidote to power of pornography.

Because of these heart and head "medicines," by the grace of God, I stand before the world and proclaim: I have no desire to look at pornography. I have truly been set free! Today, the very thought of looking at pornography does not make me lust but weep at the thought of beauty so degraded.

In response to this incredible gift, I have established TOB Ministries, which is dedicated to proclaiming the life-saving message of TOB to the world. We focus on freeing men from the bondage of sexual addiction. If men can reclaim the meaning of their masculinity and pledge their sacred honor to the dignity of all women and children in their lives, we will see the culture of life blossom forth in all its fullness.

May my message bring hope and light to those in chains, and glorify the Word made flesh!

Steve attended the first "Head & Heart" Immersion course in 2004. In addition to being the director of TOB Ministries, Steve Pokorny is the Associate Director in the Office of Marriage and Family Life & NFP in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, Texas. He also serves as Associate Editor of Catholic Exchange's Theology of the Body Channel (tob.catholicexchange.com). He and his wife, Valerie, live in San Antonio. Steve can be reached at tob_ministries@yahoo.com .