I am sure that you have heard somebody say - or maybe you have said - “I am only Human” to excuse themselves from judgment after falling into sexual sin or struggling with repeated sin. I find this an odd answer, because it presupposes that being human means they had no choice in the matter or no possibility of better action.
The opposite is true.
Animals act instinctively. They eat when they are hungry and procreate when they are in season. They will fight other animals - even those in their family, pack or tribe - who dare to get in the way of these needs being met.
As humans, we are above animals. We do not respond instinctively to needs as they do. We are rational beings with an intellect and will. We have the freedom to love and worship. We can discern right from wrong. We are free to choose good or evil.
When we make a bad decision, we do so freely. To say, “I am only Human” makes no sense. Precisely because you are human, you have the capacity to choose. You have the capacity for better action.
Unlike the hungry lion, who will fight even his family for a piece of meat, I have the capacity to sacrifice my food for my children even when I am hungry. In like manner, if I experience a sexual attraction towards another, I am capable of rising above the instinctive response to satisfy it, and can choose to respond rightly. We are not powerless to discern how to respond to our sexual desires precisely because we are human!
Karol Wojtyla writes in Love and Responsibility, “Man is not responsible for what happens to him in the sexual sphere, since he is not himself the cause of it, but he is entirely responsible for what he does in this sphere".
The time you experience a temptation to sexual sin, remember that it is precisely because you are human that you have the ability - with the grace of Our Lord Jesus - to overcome the temptation, be master of your desires and choose the good.
