He who sees a woman with lust: Mary and the purity of gaze

**Quote:**> “He who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart.” (Mt 5,28)**Text:**Matthew 5:27-32 presents the second antithesis of the Sermon on the Mount: the radicalization of the commandment against adultery to the level of interior desire. “You have heard it said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you, anyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart.” (Mt 5,27-28). This radicalization, which Pope Paul VI will comment on in *Humanae Vitae* and John Paul II will elaborate extensively in the “Theology of the Body,” has implications far beyond the regulation of sexuality: it touches the fundamental question of how humans look at others, as persons or objects, as images of God or as means to their own ends. Mary, celebrated by tradition as Virgin, is the model of an gaze that contemplates another in sacred dignity, without reducing them to their function or utility.**I. The Second Antithesis: From Act to Desire**The antithesis on adultery repeats the structure of the previous one (on murder): Jesus does not abolish the commandment “Do not commit adultery,” He goes to its root. The “lust” (epithymia) that Jesus condemns is not aesthetic or affective attraction for another, but the gaze that uses another as an object for gratification, reducing them to a “means” without recognizing their dignity as an “end.” This distinction between attraction that respects another’s dignity and desire that instrumentalizes them is the key to the theology of Mt 5:28.John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body” (1979-1984) developed this text extensively: the “gaze of lust” is what uses another instead of loving them. The “purity” Jesus asks for is not emotional indifference or asexuality, but the ability to look at another with the “original gaze” of Adam who saw Eve and recognized her as “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gn 2:23): an attitude of admiration and recognition of the dignity of another, not possession or instrumentalization. This “purity of gaze” is the fruit of heart conversion, proclaimed as a beatitude in Mt 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”The reference to cutting off one’s “right hand” and plucking out one’s “right eye” if they cause scandal (Mt 5:29-30) is clearly hyperbole. Jesus isn’t prescribing self-mutilation. The hyperbole emphasizes the gravity of the issue: it’s worth making any sacrifice to preserve heart integrity. “Eye” and “hand” are metaphors for the ways lustful desire expresses itself, objectification through gaze and exploitation through action. The symbolic “amputation” is the ascetic discipline that deliberately refuses occasions that fuel lustful desires.

Versicles regarding the dismissal of a wife (Mt 5:31-32), though connected yet distinct, continue the same theme: love that respects human dignity does not abandon when it ceases to be “useful” or “pleasing.” The prohibition against dismissal is based on the inviolable dignity of the human person that love should protect, not instrumentalize. Jesus “exceeds” Mosaic permission (Dt 24:1) not through legalistic rigorism but through radical love: love that goes “to the end” (Jo 13:1) does not dismiss, it remains.

II. Mary, Virgin: Theology of Virginity

Mary’s virginity, professed since the earliest centuries of the Church as perpetual, is not a negation of human sexuality nor an escape from the body. It is, in Catholic theology, a specific and radical form of love: love that gives itself entirely to God, reserving no form of possession or “return” for oneself. Virginity is love in its most absolutely free and completely surrendered form, love that does not calculate, negotiate, or demand reciprocation.

The “pureness of heart” proclaimed by Mt 5:8 as a beatitude finds its radical expression in consecrated virginity. However, Mary’s consecrated virginity is not merely a “marital status,” it is the sign of a total inner orientation towards God. When Mary says “I do not know man” (Lc 1:34) in response to the angel’s announcement, she is not simply indicating a biological state, but signaling an orientation of her entire life. She who “does not know” in the sense of the intimate knowledge designated by Hebrew Scripture as yada, is the one oriented towards a “knowledge” of a different nature, the knowledge of God in total love.

Mariological tradition, since the earliest centuries, has seen in Mary’s virginity not only a personal privilege but a sign for the whole Church: consecrated virginity is an eschatological anticipation of the “state of resurrection” (Lc 20:35-36: “neither do they marry nor are given in marriage”) where human love finds its definitive form, not possession of the other, but full communion with God. The Virgin Mary is the “sign” that humanity has a destiny transcending the biological family, a destiny of communion with God’s infinite love.

III. Mary’s gaze: Contemplation vs. Concupiscence

Mary “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lc 2:19, 51). This “keeping and pondering” (dietêrei and symballousa) describes Mary’s way of “gazing”: not the consuming gaze that discards, but the one that keeps, that deepens, that allows reality to reveal its deepest sense. This contemplative gaze, opposite to the gaze of concupiscence, is what enables Mary to “see” in the events of Jesus’ life what others do not: the profound meaning, God’s movement in history.

The “purity of gaze” of Mary has a epistemological dimension that transcends morality: he who gazes at the other with the “concupiscence” that objectifies cannot truly “see” the other, he only sees what he desires to see, the projection of his own desires. He who looks with the “purity” that respects the otherness of the other can “see” the other as they truly are, in their dignity, in their needs, in their suffering, in their joy. This pure “vision” is the foundation of true compassion: to see another’s suffering as real (not as an inconvenience to our plans) and respond to it with genuine love.Mariology has developed this theme: Mary is the model of “theoria,” contemplation that sees reality through the eyes of God. This contemplation is not intellectual passivity, but the most intense activity of the human spirit, which allows one to “see” reality in its depth, “see” the other in their sacred dignity, and “see” events in their salvific meaning. It is this pure “vision” that forms the context within which the Magnificat is possible: only he who “sees” with purity can proclaim God’s action in history with the intensity that Mary does.Mary, whose gaze has never been used by anyone but always contemplated the other in their sacred dignity, is the model of the heart’s purity that Jesus proclaims blessed—purity that is not absence of love, but love in its most intense and most respectful form.**References:** – Pope John Paul II, *Theology of the Body* (1979-1984 catecheses). – Vatican Council II, *Lumen Gentium* n. 63-65 (1964). – J. Galot, *Mary: The Woman in the Work of Salvation* (1984). – U. Luz, *Das Evangelium nach Matthäus* vol. I (1985).