6 “The third said, I have married a wife.” This is the pleasure of the flesh, which is a hindrance to many: and I would that it were so only without, and not within! There are men who say, “There is no happiness for a man, if he have not the pleasures of the flesh.” These are they whom the Apostle censures, saying, “'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.' Who has risen to this life from the other? Who has ever told us what goes on there? We take away with us, what in the time present makes our happiness.”
He that speaks thus, “has married a wife,” attaches himself to the flesh, places his delight in the pleasures of the flesh, excuses himself from the supper; let him look well to it that he die not by an inward famine. Attend to John, the holy Apostle and Evangelist; “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” O you who come to the Supper of the Lord, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” He did not say, “Have not;” but, “Love not.”
You have had, possessed, loved. The love of earthly things, is the bird-lime of the spirit's wings. Lo, you have desired, you have stuck fast. “Who will give you wings as of a dove?” When will you fly, whither you may in deed, seeing you have perversely wished to rest here, where you have to your hurt stuck fast? “Love not the world,” is the divine trumpet. By the voice of this trumpet unceasingly is it proclaimed to the compass of the earth, and to the whole world, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
Whosoever loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of life.” He begins at the last with which the Gospel ends. He begins at that, at which the Gospel made an end. “The lust of the flesh, I have married a wife. The lust of the eyes, I have bought five pairs of oxen. The ambition of life, I have bought a farm.”
Source: Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament (New Advent)