Overcoming Desire for Sinful Pleasures
Today we contemplate the grace of choosing the virtue of desiring God over the sinful pleasures of the world and the daily temptations of concupiscence. Join us for our 29th meditation, from Part 4 of Liber Vitae Meritorum, inspired by St. Hildegard of Bingen to anchor your soul in an intense longing for Jesus Christ.
Opening Prayer
Lord, I humbly ask for the virtue of desiring God. I no longer want to desire sinful pleasures, especially the sins of concupiscence or all the vices that lead to desiring the pleasures of the world – money, power, influence, prestige, honor, and having authority over others.
Please, Jesus help me become a saint. I want to desire the things of heaven and look forward to an eternity with you. Take from me all my desires for sinful pleasures that are an offense to your holiness. Help me reject every temptation to desire the pleasures of the world. I ask you to protect me from evil so that I do not risk my eternal soul for worldly pleasure.
Lord, you know me. You know every thought, every word I speak, every desire in my heart that offends your holiness. Please help me be chaste, and pure, and have a humble heart full of love for you. Do not let me have love of the world and vainglory. I want to lay every material gift you have allowed me to obtain at your feet for your glory.
Eternal Father, every material thing I have earned, every honor, all that the world has offered me, I lay it all down at your feet. I promise to use the gifts and talents you have given me for your glory, beginning today. I want to lay down my earthly desires for the kingdom of God and replace them the holy virtue of desiring God.
I ask all this by the Holy Name of Jesus and through the power of the Holy Spirit.
AMEN.
Yet certain temporal consequences of sin remain in the baptized, such as suffering, illness, death, and such frailties inherent in life as weaknesses of character, and so on, as well as an inclination to sin that Tradition calls concupiscence, or metaphorically, “the tinder for sin” (fomes peccati); since concupiscence “is left for us to wrestle with, it cannot harm those who do not consent but manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ.” Indeed, “an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.”
Catechism, 1264
A Note on St. Hildegard’s Virtues: Two Weeks, One Word
You’ll notice “desire” doing double duty in this series — Week 27 gave us Heavenly Desire (Desiderium Caeleste), and this week gives us Contempt of the World answering plain Desire (Desiderium) itself. They aren’t the same virtue wearing two names; they’re two different points in Part 4’s chain, and St. Hildegard connects them precisely.
Desire, this week’s vice, “walks behind the obstinacy of the mind”—St. Hildegard’s own words for how it arrives (Liber Vitae Meritorum, Part 4, Section 34, Para. 45, trans. Hozeski). A heart that has hardened into stubborn refusal doesn’t stay empty for long; it starts grasping instead, the way an ox that won’t be led will still wander toward whatever field looks greenest. Heavenly Desire, two vices earlier in the chain, answered the anxious grip of Care of Earthly Things — the fear that God won’t provide. Contempt of the World, this week, answers something further down the same road: the grasping grip of plain Desire—the belief that having more will finally make you whole. One heals worry about the future; the other heals hunger for what isn’t yours. Same root sickness—the heart looking to the world instead of God — showing up at two different stops on Part 4’s chain.
Desiring God over the Pleasures of the World
by St. Hildegard of Bingen
The Words of Desire for Worldly Riches
“This image said: ‘I desire intensely and am intensely eager to attract to myself each and every thing that is rich, that gives honor, and that is beautiful… I am known to be wise and honest because of my beautiful rings, necklaces, earrings and other riches… If I did not have all these things, I would not have all the goodness and honesty I have…’ ”
The Response of Contempt of the World
“From the storm cloud I again heard a voice respond to this image: ‘O worst snare… Certain generations of men have extended their souls to the riches and honors available to them in this life… What use is such vanity to them? Where are their riches and honors and lands now? In hell… I, however, sit with the figure of the Holy Spirit… I walk in his ways everywhere and I call him my father. I cast the fleshly desires for particular pleasures away… When the burning flame of the Holy Spirit kindles me, all the things of the world are consumed in me, and so I travel to heavenly things in a celestial chariot.’ ”
St. Hildegard of Bingen, Liber Vitae Meritorum (The Book of the Rewards of Life),
Part 4, Sections 13-14, Paras. 19-20 (Trans. Hozeski, Abridged)
The Face Of Desire, And What Contempt Of The World Frees Us For
St. Hildegard sees Desire in the form of a woman down to her shins — her feet and lower legs hidden entirely in darkness, her head covered “in the manner of a woman,” dressed in white. It’s a striking image precisely because it looks so respectable: nothing monstrous, nothing overtly grotesque, just a woman in white, reaching for rings and necklaces and honor. That’s the danger of this vice — it rarely announces itself as ugly. Contempt of the World, true to the pattern of every virtue in this series, receives no physical image at all; she is voice only, already free of the very weight Desire is still gathering around herself.
But notice what Contempt of the World actually frees a soul for. She doesn’t call us to empty our hands so we can sit with them empty—she calls us to empty them so they’re finally free to be used for someone else. This is the heart of Part 4: every virtue here is aimed outward, toward a neighbor, a community, a world entrusted to our care. A soul still clutching rings and honors has no hands left to feed the hungry or clothe the poor. Contempt of the World isn’t a rejection of the world God made—it’s the clearing-out that finally makes room for us to love it rightly, giving what we’ve been given instead of hoarding it for ourselves. This is what it looks like to become, in St. Hildegard’s own vision, not just a disciple learning to love God, but an apostle sent out to love him through everyone else.
From Obstinacy to Desire: When Refusal Turns to Grasping
St. Hildegard tells us plainly how we arrived here. Desire “walks behind the obstinacy of the mind,” she writes (Liber Vitae Meritorum, Part 4, Section 34, Para. 45, trans. Hozeski). A heart that has spent long enough refusing to bend eventually stops refusing and starts reaching instead—the same hardness that once said “no” to God simply redirects itself toward whatever the world is offering. Obstinacy clenched a fist against grace; Desire opens that same fist toward rings, honors, anything that promises to fill what refusal left empty. It’s the same closed heart, just facing a different direction.
In Part 1, Week 7, we met Foolish Joy — one soul quietly making a habit of good things instead of God, justifying it with “God gave me this life.” She was the last vice of the heart, and her feet were hidden in darkness: deeds never brought into the light, never tested against what is true.
Here in Part 4, that same soul has grown into something larger. Desire makes the same argument — “people benefit from my possessions” — but now it isn’t one person’s private pleasure-seeking. It is a steward’s systematic grasping at wealth, honor, and beautiful things, wrapped in the language of service. St. Hildegard gives Desire the same feet-hidden-in-darkness signature she gave Foolish Joy. The deeds are still unexamined. The justification still borrows from God. The scale is simply much, much bigger.
Reflection:
St. Hildegard reminds us that chasing after fleshly desires and earthly honors is a dangerous snare. When we cultivate the virtue of Contempt of the World, we allow the burning flame of the Holy Spirit to kindle our hearts, casting away the restless tinder of sin so that we turn away from the false, hollow pleasures of the world and cling to our true Master.
The world constantly tells us that we need to be rich in material goods, and we falsely think that worldly wisdom makes us wise in God’s eyes. But the Bible reminds us that our ways are not God’s ways:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways—oracle of the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways,
my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
St. Hildegard warns us that chasing after these temporal goods and passing honors is pure vanity; when we put our trust in ourselves and seek only selfish pleasures, we leave ourselves spiritually bankrupt at the end of our lives.
Why Worldly Concupiscence is Just Vanity
When you die and face God, what riches will you take with you? How many years will go by before you are completely forgotten by men still living on the earth? Some say it is no more than 100 years, for most people, because in that time most everyone who knew you in life will also die and there will be no one left to mourn you. “There is no remembrance of past generations; nor will future generations be remembered by those who come after them” (Ecclesiastes 1:11).
In her vision, St. Hildegard pulls back the veil on this collective amnesia, observing how the proud accumulate wealth only to leave it behind. She asks us bluntly:
“What use is such vanity to them? Where are their riches and honors and lands now?”
Liber Vitae Meritorum, Part 4, Section 14, Para. 20, trans. Hozeski
When we lack the virtue to resist, we let the passing honors of this world crowd out our true calling. We choose not to assent to the divine will of God, turning away from his invitation in order to chase temporal satisfaction.
What is the Virtue of Desiring God?
The virtue of desiring God is walking in the Lord’s ways everywhere and regarding him as Father. This means participating actively with the Holy Spirit daily. When you assent to God’s will in this way, you will be guided through every temptation. Your heart places no value in your worldly possessions. You will not care whether you are honored and praised or dishonored and rebuked by others. You will only want the approval of God and unity with his Spirit.
When we have the virtue of desiring God we have the power to resist the temptations of the world. St. Hildegard encourages us to recognize the temptation and to respond to it by enkindling the burning flame of the Holy Spirit with prayer. When we invoke the Holy Spirit in prayer it will consume us with heavenly desires, and in some instances, we may receive graces and experience a small taste of heaven in this life.
Be a Saint
Strive with your whole heart to live a life of virtue in imitation of Christ. Many saints have taught about living a life of virtue over the centuries. Virtue is the only way to conquer the devil and overcome the targeted, daily temptations of concupiscence. It’s also the only way to truly come to love God and want to obey him in your heart. We must pray intentionally and learn how to cultivate Desiderium Dei (Desiring God), or we will never overcome our immediate desires for the passing pleasures of the world.
To help us stay anchored in this daily fight, St. Hildegard reminds us that God constantly gives us spiritual lifelines. She writes:
“God shows various miracles to his holy ones and prophets in every age of the world so that man’s soul does not completely stray from heavenly desires, but so that through faith man might remember eternal life”
Liber Vitae Meritorum, Part 6, Section 42, Para. 64, trans. Hozeski
When we invoke the Person of God in the exact moment of temptation, we allow these divine reminders to take root.
Keep God near your heart by having his Holy Name on your lips every morning and every night, carrying him with you throughout your day as a shield against the tinder of sin. When you are faced with a sudden temptation or a difficult decision, immediately offer a prayer to the Holy Spirit asking for direction. Give deference to God in all your actions, turning every choice into an act of desire for Him.
Going Further:
If you want to do ‘extra’ you may spend some time reading Isaiah 55 and writing some prayerful thoughts to the Lord about what touches your heart. If you do this, be sure to give the Holy Spirit time to respond to you by offering time to listen in silence.
Purging the Tinder of Worldly Ambition:
Take a moment to pause, drop your defenses, and settle into the absolute, healing stillness of this adoration chapel. Worldly concupiscence is a deceptive predator—an exhausting, restless hunger that acts as a tinder for sin within our fallen natures. When we chase after passing honors, material riches, and worldly prestige, we turn our backs on our true Master and leave our souls completely bankrupt. Before we open the Word of God, let us offer up a sincere prayer of petition—asking for the spiritual grace to reject these fleeting vanities, give complete deference to God in all our actions, and transform our hearts into a holy sanctuary
Prayer for Heavenly Desires and a Burning Spirit
Eternal Father, You are the Supreme Architect who created my soul to be a holy workshop under Your supreme craftsmanship, yet You know the weak, ambitious, and worldly corners of my heart. I confess that I have often succumbed to the pull of concupiscence—longing for passing pleasures, money, power, and the praise of men rather than seeking Your approval alone. Forgive me for the times I have trusted in my own human ingenuity, and for the moments I risked my eternal inheritance for temporal satisfaction. By my own fragile willpower, I cannot tame these lower appetites. I desperately need the cleansing fire of Your grace.
Lord Jesus, grant me the supernatural virtue of desiring God (Desiderium Dei). Enkindle the burning flame of the Holy Spirit within my mind so that it may completely consume my worldly attachments. When sudden temptations or the desire for empty prestige flare up this week, catch my impulses immediately and give me the strength to invoke Your Holy Name as a shield. Grant me a pure heart and a humble spirit that places no value on material possessions or worldly rebukes. Let me participate actively with the Holy Spirit daily, walking in Your ways everywhere and regarding You as my true Father, so that I may taste the sweetness of heaven even in this life.
AMEN.
Take a slow, deep breath. Settle your mind, clear away your daily anxieties, and completely lay down the heavy burden of worldly ambition. As you prepare to encounter Jesus in this monumental passage from the Gospel of Matthew, look past the familiar text and peer directly into the ultimate standard of perfect resistance against concupiscence.
Do not rush through these verses. Read the words slowly and step directly into the harsh, silent sands of the Judean desert alongside Christ. Watch how the tempter approaches Him at His weakest moment of physical hunger, craftily twisting Scripture to offer Him immediate physical comfort, spectacular validation, and all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence. Notice how Jesus effortlessly rebukes the devil each time, asserting that one does not live by bread alone but by the ultimate worship of God. Ask the Lord to reveal exactly which worldly honors, material riches, or immediate pleasures are acting as the tinder of sin in your life, and where He is calling you to enkindle the burning flame of His Spirit this week. When you are ready, pick up your pen and write His promptings directly into your prayer journal.
The Devil Tempts Jesus With Sinful Pleasures of the World
from the Gospel of Matthew 4:1-11 (NABRE)
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry.
The tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.”
He said in reply, “It is written: ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.’”
Then the devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you’ and ‘with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus answered him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’”
Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, “All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.”
At this, Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan! It is written: ‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.’”
Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him.
Let us Pray:
Jesus, please help me recognize the sinful pleasures of the world and help me not desire them. Let me keep the Holy Spirit enkindled in my heart and help me to reject every evil temptation that comes into my mind.
Lord, you showed me by example how to rebuke the devil and how to recognize that even he can quote Scripture and come to me with temptations that seem good.
Jesus, help me have good discernment of spirits and the virtue of desiring God so that I am not deceived by the devil and tricked into making decisions that will harm my soul and lead to the loss of heaven and eternal separation from God.
Eternal Father, in Jesus’ Name I ask for the wisdom to know the difference between a sweet temptation from the evil one and an inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Please be merciful and grant me the grace to follow your divine will for my life even when it is difficult. Help me be holy and do what is right even when I am in the desert and tempted by the devil.
AMEN.
A Prayer for an Increase in Virtue for Others
Lord Jesus Christ, you say that when two or more are gathered in your name, you are with us. Jesus, in your name I lift up every person who has joined this prayer challenge or will join it in the future. I ask you to give us all the grace we need to grow in virtue and holiness so that we may love and serve you in our lives and through the people we love and care for. Help us in our thoughts, our words, and our actions. Guide us all by your Holy Spirit and give us the strength to overcome every temptation from the evil one. We ask all this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
Way of Perfection: Your Week 29 Send-Off
Thank you for your incredible dedication to Week 29. Confronting the restless tinder of sin—shattering the pull of worldly concupiscence and choosing a heart filled with the virtue of desiring God—takes intense interior warfare. When you feel worldly ambition creep back in, or catch your desires chasing after passing honors, material riches, and empty prestige this week, do not let discouragement take root. Overcoming concupiscence is a gradual retraining of your thoughts.
True desire for God transforms your soul into a beautiful workshop of the supreme craftsman. You are called to actively govern your senses, give complete deference to God in all your actions, and enkindle the burning flame of the Holy Spirit out there in the real world. To see exactly how this spiritual progress requires an ongoing ascetic struggle, let’s look at the Catechism:
The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is
no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes:He who climbs never stops going from beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end. He never stops
desiring what he already knows” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, Hom. in Cant. 8: PG 44, 941C).Catechism, 2015
Make a Resolution
Take a moment to reflect on the virtue of desiring God. What are the ways you can freely practice this virtue this week? Ask the Lord to give you opportunities, and when you feel the Holy Spirit prompting you, take action. Write down your resolutions for this coming week in your prayer journal. Remind yourself to complete these resolutions daily for this entire week, and as the Spirit prompts you, feel free to write about your experiences with this virtue throughout the week.
In My Thoughts:
Jesus, this week I promise to take time daily to conform my thoughts by… (make your intention).
In My Words:
Jesus, this week I promise to take time daily to conform my words by… (make your intention).
In My Actions:
Jesus, this week I promise to take time daily to conform my actions by… (make your intention).
Pray the Litany of Virtues prayer.
Join our Virtue Meditation Prayer Challenge
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