Desire is not the same as lust. Lust is using sex to satisfy desire. Desire is a natural, God-given experience. It springs from the fact that human beings are incomplete beings – we need other people. Sexuality is a limitation of our personality, an imbalance of our being. This however is a positive thing because it means that each one of us finds his or her completion or fulfilment outside ourselves – each one of us is made for someone. Acknowledging this limitation is the key to understanding the most important dimension of human life - our relationship with God. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven" – this is the basis of life in Christ.

Love as desire is the experience of longing for a person; the desire that love should be perfected in me. This longing must be protected from lust because desire has a great role to play in a relationship. Desire should set in motion the true project of a relationship, where dating is received as a God-given task. This means that I am called to allow my sexual feelings to be harnessed by love. Remember, I am much more than my feelings, I am a person, and desire is actually a call placed upon me, the call to mature, to integrate all the elements of my personality and so to be able to use my freedom: to make a gift of myself to another. If I do marry, this same project will continue in a new way in married life.