This probably won't be long enough, and it certainly won't be profound enough to warrant a title like "On Cussing," but it was easy and the point isn't the title.
I cuss. Personally, for me, it's not a sin. When people cuss around me, I appreciate it. I think it's lively, and colorful, and it indicates a certain amount of comfort and self-assuredness which I like to be around. At least that's how I interpret it. That's not so say that there aren't certain words, or certain ways of cussing which don't offend me. Certainly there are.
Earlier this year I seriously curtailed my cussing for the first time in my adult life that I remember. In a way that encompassed all contexts. Even at home with my wife who is as fond of cussing as I am. Ironically, I started cussing again in an earnest way at a group retreat I was at in June. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure it was pride. I think I was trying to show people you could be good and cuss. Indeed I firmly believe you can, and I do so in a very matter of fact, non-ironic way. As support, I was watching to a Fr. Mike Schmitz video where he basically said cussing is only a sin when the people around you are offended by it. Barring, of course, any particular words or phrases which are intrinsically bad.
That rings very true to me. Having been in the military we just cussed. It was zero problem, zero thought was given to it, and (unless we were angry) it was never meant as an attack of some sort, but more of a little salt or pepper in a conversation. Or a lot of salt and pepper.
But I've been cussing for the wrong reasons. I've been cussing to teach people to cuss. To desensitize them to cussing so they will gain a more durable faith. As if I had something to teach them. I didn't read that anywhere. I didn't glean or intuit that from something I consumed from much holier people. That's a 'Squatchism. All by myself I decided people needed to know. That's not living Beatitude. That's not sowing peace.
Lord, give me the grace to stop cussing. It's not simply superfluous, it's bad. It shocks people. It makes me less credible when I'm trying to do Your work in the world. I want to stop for love of others. Please align me with whatever grace is here. I think it's to stop cussing, so I ask for that.
Amen.