Overcoming Love of the Material World
Today we contemplate the grace of choosing eternal truths over temporal desires, learning how to surrender our love of the material world. Join us for our first meditation inspired by St. Hildegard’s Book of the Rewards of Life—Part 1—to anchor your soul in the love of God.
Welcome to the Saint Hildegard Virtue Series
Before we begin, I would like to personally welcome you. You are about to experience a profound spiritual journey through the mystical writings of Saint Hildegard of Bingen. This 35-week series is designed to help you transform your spiritual life by systematically confronting the hidden vices that weigh your soul down and replacing them with holy virtues.
Each week, you will receive a single, deep, long-form meditation specifically structured for a powerful 35-minute Holy Hour. You can expect a beautifully consistent rhythm designed to guide your heart step-by-step: an intimate opening prayer, an exploration of Saint Hildegard’s visions, deep scriptural reflections, and practical templates to help you form concrete daily resolutions.
Our mission here at I Am Jesus is entirely devoted to helping you discover, adore, and rest in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. We believe that true holiness is built one quiet hour at a time at the feet of our Lord. Whether you are praying this in a quiet adoration chapel or in the silence of your home, we are honored to walk this 9-month path to spiritual renewal alongside you!
Join Us On a Journey: Symphony of the Soul
St. Hildegard famously saw the spiritual life not as a rigid set of rules, but as a magnificent, heavenly symphony. In her mystical visions, she heard the angels singing in perfect praise and realized that God created every human soul to be a unique instrument in that divine orchestra. When we are in a state of grace, practicing virtue and loving God, our lives play a beautiful, resonant melody that blends in harmony with the Creator.
However, when we let the noise of the material world distract us—our instruments don’t just go out of tune—we literally lose our ability to sing. It is important to note that the vices only speak or create noise. We see the same inability to sing in the Devil as well in St. Hildegard’s writings. Our spiritual life becomes discordant and anxious when we are unable to sing in harmony with God. This is why it is necessary to grow in virtue.
As you begin this 35-week journey today, think of this Holy Hour as a quiet tuning room. Bring your heart to Jesus in the Eucharist and ask Him to retune the strings of your soul, so that your thoughts, words, and actions can begin to play in beautiful harmony with His divine love.
Are you ready to begin this amazing journey? Let’s go!
Opening Prayer
Lord, today I am renouncing love of the material world. Please help me have the virtue of inner love of the spiritual. Love of the material world is a constant struggle for me. I desire success, to be accepted by others and be known for my abilities and the things that I do. I want so many things in life. Sometimes I imagine myself being praised because I want to be appreciated. I want others to look up to me. These things give me pleasure and I use them to measure my self-worth. I long to be accepted and loved by others. I don’t want to be despised, or rejected, or found lacking in anything.
Jesus, you know these faults that I have. I want true freedom from these attachments so that my self-worth is no longer attached to my successes and failures in my life, or that I don’t desire things to make me feel happy. Lord, if you give me inner love of the spiritual and help me overcome my love of the material world, I can start seeing myself through your eyes rather than my own. Help me see myself as a person destined for eternal life with you so that I view my life in the right light.
The deeper I come to understand your love for me, the more I am aware I need an inner love of the spiritual in my life. I have so many hidden sins. You see them all, and you know my heart. You know everything I lack. Not one desire or thought escapes your knowledge.
I know that you love me and if I ask for the grace to change you will give it to me. In every failing I have ever had in this life you have been there for me. You have never betrayed me or forsaken me. Please, Lord, increase in me the virtue of inner love of the spiritual so that I might overcome my love of the material world.
AMEN.
“Christ’s disciples are to conform themselves to him until he is formed in them.”
Catechism, 562
What is the Virtue of Inner Love of the Spiritual?
In the celestial tapestry of Saint Hildegard’s visions, the inner love of the spiritual, or Heavenly Love, as she is called in both Liber Vitae Meritorum and Ordo Virtutum, is the virtue who helps us deliberately tune our soul to God’s divine frequency. Hildegard teaches that the human person was created to fulfill a magnificent function of praise, stepping into the heights of blessedness to live in perfect harmony with the Creator. When a soul cultivates this inner spiritual love, it recognizes its true identity as an eternal being made in the image and likeness of God. It treats the interior life not as an afterthought, but as a sacred sanctuary. This virtue anchors our desires firmly in things unseen, allowing us to perceive every daily duty, every trial, and every cross through the lens of eternity.
In stark contrast, an outer love of the material world, or Worldly Love, as she is known in Liber Vitae Meritorum, acts as a suffocating, black fog that completely blinds the soul to God’s presence. Heavenly Love warns that those who obsess over earthly status, material security, and the superficial anxieties of life are like a naked figure clutching a great flowering tree, picking its blossoms—until the root dries up and the whole thing topples into the dark (Liber Vitae Meritorum Part 1, Section 2, Para. 11). By obsessing with desire for material things, we fall into an empty void of spiritual exhaustion. While love of the material world enslaves us to an endless cycle of self-gratification and anxiety over what we might lose, the inner love of the spiritual grants a radical, Christ-like freedom. It gives us the grace to stand unshaken amidst earthly storms—much like the holy patience of Job—knowing that our true treasure is hidden securely in the heart of God.
A Note on Worldly Love: Why We Say “She”
Throughout this series, you’ll notice each vice takes a pronoun—”he” or “she”—never “it.” These aren’t faceless forces; they’re vivid figures who appear to her, speak, and reveal themselves fully in her visions, the same way the virtues do. We follow St. Hildegard’s own vision closely rather than assigning gender at random.
Worldly Love appears to St. Hildegard as a woman standing beside a great flowering tree, gathering its blossoms into her hands even as its roots quietly dry up beneath her. So this week, and in the weeks ahead, you will be introduced to virtues and vices that are personified.
Man is Dear to God
by St. Hildegard of Bingen
Man is thus exceedingly dear to God, Who made him truly in His own image and likeness; he was to exercise all the virtues in the perfection of holiness, as indeed God formed all creatures to do, and to work in humble obedience to do acts of virtue, and so to fulfill the function of praise among the more glorious orders of angels. And thus, in this height of blessedness he was to augment the praise of the heavenly spirits who praise God with assiduous devotion, and so fill up the place left empty by the lost angel who fell in his presumption.
St. Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, Book 3, Vision 2, Chapter 19 (Trans. Hart/Bishop)
A Note on Viriditas: The Virtues Never Leave God’s Harmony
Watch closely what Heavenly Love never has to do: defend herself. She simply is—“the pillar of heavenly harmony,” in constant agreement with God, needing no argument to prove it. This is viriditas—literally “greenness”—St. Hildegard’s word for the living vitality that flows from the Holy Spirit into a soul that stays in harmony with Him. Every virtue we meet across these 35 weeks will speak this same way: rooted, alive, never straining to convince anyone of anything, because her life and God’s will are simply the same movement.
Worldly Love, by contrast, reaches for that word—“since I have all viriditas in my hands”—but she is not in harmony with God at all; she has only borrowed His word for a moment. The moment she finishes speaking, the tree’s root dries up, because nothing she claimed was ever actually alive. This is worth holding onto as we walk through all thirty-five of these weeks together: the virtues are never performing life—they simply live it, in unbroken agreement with the Holy Spirit. Watch for that constancy every week in your walk with Christ; it’s the surest way to tell a virtue from anything only pretending to be one in your life.
No Root, No Fruit: The Parable of the Sower
Jesus tells a strikingly similar story about a tree that only looks alive. In the Parable of the Sower, He describes seed that “fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep, and when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots” (Matthew 13:5-6). He later explains what this represents: a person with no root in himself, who holds on only “for a while,” and falls away the moment trial and hardship arrives (Matthew 13:21).
This is Worldly Love, exactly. She clings to her tree and insists she has “all viriditas” in her hands—but there was never any root beneath what she was holding onto. The moment she finishes speaking, the tree dries up from the root and collapses, because it was never alive the way she claimed. Whatever we cling to that isn’t rooted in God will do the same to us: it will look green for a season, and wither the instant we are tested.
Reflection:
What is the virtue of inner love of the spiritual? How can I turn away from my love of the material world and more closely imitate you, Jesus?
An outer love of the material world is a destructive mindset. The soul with this vice will care more about life’s externals: a career; an unholy attachment to someone or something; an obsession with looking young, healthy, strong, rich, good-looking, etc. An outer love of the material world makes the soul care more about external things than its relationship with God. Love of the material world makes the soul enter into selfishness and self-gratification. This soul forgets about loving God and cannot properly love others through the life God has given it. This mindset causes a soul to lack faith in God. Sometimes it causes souls to lack the desire to have a spiritual life at all.
Why We Experience Emptiness
When the soul doesn’t focus on the inner love of the spiritual that soul will experience emptiness. We are wired to know and love God, so this vice creates an empty void in a soul’s life. A soul with love of the material world who lacks inner love of the spiritual is filled with anxieties and insecurities. Without God at the helm, the soul becomes its own god, and struggles to remain on top in all things, and this will exhaust it. When a soul focuses only on love of the material world it is no longer looking at its life in truth. It is not living as God has created it to live. This vice causes a soul to lack fulfillment and purpose in life.
Immersion in selfish worldly wants surrounds us with darkness. St. Hildegard writes about this. Heavenly Love tells us that those who love the material world have no light and are surrounded by a black fog. The Lord tells her interiorly that those who live this way, live only a moment, like a worm whose marsh dries up, and so they fall into the lake of destruction.
Our Focus Should be On Our Eternal Life
When we love the inner life of the spiritual we understand that this earthly life is very short. Eternal life with God is the ultimate goal and when we orient our lives toward this ultimate goal, we see things differently. Our thoughts, our words, and our deeds begin to take on a cosmic meaning, an eternal and communal one. We grow to understand that what we do in our individual lives not only has personal eternal consequences but will also affect the spiritual realm all around us. We profess this belief in the invisible when we recite the Nicene Creed, “I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.”
In the life of Job we see the virtue of inner love of the spiritual. He exhibited this virtue throughout his life. Despite losing everything, his house and his children, Job remained faithful to the Lord. He fell to the ground and worshipped at the terrible news, saying, “Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD!” (Job 1:21). His friends chastised him and tried to make him feel like his misfortune was his fault, but he stayed close to the Lord and never wavered in his faith.
Going Further:
Job is a wonderful book to meditate on this week in your daily prayer. If you want to do ‘extra’ you may spend some time reading the Book of Job and writing some prayerful thoughts to the Lord about what touched your heart. If you do this, be sure to give the Lord time to respond to you by offering time to listen in silence.
Piercing the Black Fog:
Take a moment to pause, drop your defensive walls, and settle into the absolute stillness of this adoration chapel. An outer love of the material world is a deceptive, suffocating trap—a restless hunger for possessions, careers, and superficial status that creates a black fog over the soul and blinds us to God’s presence. When we let worldly anxieties and the need for human applause dominate our hearts, we exhaust ourselves trying to remain on top and dry up like withered hay. Before we open the Word of God, let us offer up a sincere prayer of petition—asking for the profound humility to pierce through this darkness, master our worldly attachments, and reclaim our true identity in Christ.
Prayer for Inner Love of the Spiritual
Eternal Father, You are the Supreme Creator who formed my soul to live in perfect harmony with Your divine love, yet You know the insecure, selfish, and materialistic corners of my heart. I confess that I have often succumbed to the love of the material world—measuring my self-worth by worldly successes, chasing empty validation, and letting external anxieties crowd out my relationship with You. Forgive me for the times I have forgotten my eternal destiny and neglected the sacred sanctuary of my interior life. I cannot shatter this attachment to temporary things by my own fragile willpower. I desperately need the cleansing fire of Your grace.
Lord Jesus, grant me the supernatural virtue of the inner love of the spiritual. Send the Holy Spirit to retune the strings of my soul so that I may view my life through the clear lens of eternity. When sudden temptations to find security in worldly things or to seek human praise flare up this week, catch my thoughts and anchor my heart firmly in Your love. Deliver me from the empty void of spiritual exhaustion. Grant me the holy patience of Job to stand unshaken amidst earthly storms, keeping my gaze fixed completely on things unseen until my entire life becomes a beautiful symphony of Your praise.
AMEN.
Now, let’s take all these intentions, step away from the noise of the world, and rest at the Master’s feet. Take a slow, deep breath, quiet your mind, and listen to Jesus speak these words directly to your heart in tonight’s Gospel.
As you slowly read His prayer, imagine Him looking at you with complete, unconditional love. If a specific word or phrase catches your attention, pause there. Let it echo in your soul. Don’t rush. When you are ready, slip into silence and ask Jesus to show you how to trade your earthly anxieties for His beautiful, inner love of the spiritual. Write whatever He whispers to you in your journal.
The Prayer of Jesus
from the Gospel of John Chapter 17
When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven and said,
“Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began. I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.
I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled.
But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one.
They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth. I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.
Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”
Let us Pray:
Jesus, you raised your eyes to heaven. The love you have for the Father is complete. My love for you is incomplete. I am distracted and I find myself doing things without raising my eyes to heaven. How often do I do this when I am on the verge of an important task? Please, Lord, remind me to pray. Protect me from the vice of having a distracted, worldly mind.
Jesus, keep me in your name. Protect me and guard me from the vice of love of the world. Do not let me be lost. Do not let me be like the son of destruction. Please protect me from this world. Give me a pure heart, mind, and eyes that look to heaven daily. Help me imitate you in the way you prayed in this scripture passage. I want to be one with God in my heart, mind, and through my actions.
I do not want to belong to this world. Consecrate me in the truth. Send me, Lord, into the world and help me be one with the Holy Trinity and one with my brothers and sisters in Christ.
Jesus, you are a gift to me. Thank you for being present to me. Give me the grace to be present to you and to grow in the virtue of inner love of the spiritual. 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.
Together as a group we will pray for each other and strive to make good resolutions and keep them. Remember, it’s your heart that God wants to capture. Your efforts are out of love for him and a desire to imitate him as best you can in holiness.
If you fail, do not quit trying. Be merciful to yourself and learn to love the process of striving to be more like Jesus every day. Just take it one day at a time, and stay in the present moment with Jesus, especially in the moment you are tempted, and if you fail, immediately afterward. Keep your gaze on Jesus. When you confess your sins he forgives you, so be merciful to yourself and forgive yourself of every sin you have already confessed and immediately after you commit a new one. Being virtuous is a process. No one is perfect, so just start anew every time you fail.
Bringing the Melody into the World: Your Week 1 Send-Off
Now that we have spent this holy hour contemplating Saint Hildegard’s vision of the spiritual symphony, confronted the heavy fog of material attachments, and lifted our hearts in prayer, a beautiful shift must take place. True inner love of the spiritual isn’t a passive feeling—it is a holy habit we must intentionally build. God is incredibly generous with His grace, but He expects us to actively pick up our instruments and practice playing His melody in our daily lives.
As you prepare to leave the silence of this chapel and step back into the busy, demanding world, remember that transforming your life is a beautiful partnership between your daily efforts and God’s divine power. To understand how we practically weave this virtue into our everyday habits, let’s take a look at how the Church beautifully defines this life of spiritual practice in the Catechism:
“A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions. The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God. The virtuous man is he who freely practices the good. The moral virtues are acquired by human effort. They are the fruit and seed of morally good acts; they dispose all the powers of the human being for communion with divine love.”
Catechism, 1803-1804
Make a Resolution
Take a moment to reflect on the virtue of inner love of the spiritual. 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).
Your Invitation to Go the Distance: Commit to the 9-Month Journey
You have just completed Week 1 of the Saint Hildegard Virtue Series—congratulations on taking this first, crucial step! But as St. Hildegard teaches us, cultivating a virtuous soul is not a one-time event; it is a steady, intentional process of transformation.
This prayer challenge is designed as a complete, 35-week spiritual ascent. Over the next nine months, you will climb the ladder of virtue step-by-step, allowing the Holy Spirit to systematically uncover hidden faults, heal your attachments, and anchor your heart in deep, lasting peace.
Nine months might feel like a long runway, but a soul is not built in a day. Those in our prayer community who have walked this entire path will tell you: it is worth every single week. We gently challenge you today to make a holy resolution to go the distance. Commit to showing up for these 35 meditations. Make your weekly appointment with Jesus in the Adoration chapel a non-negotiable anchor for your soul. Let’s walk this 9-month journey together and see how beautifully Christ transforms your life from the inside out! To join, scroll down below the comments and click the red “Start My Virtue Journey (Free)” button.
See you in Week 2—stay strong, stay present, and keep your eyes fixed on Jesus!
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4 Responses
The lord leads the way and brought me to you
Thank you amen
I began these reflections, but got really unwell and couldn’t keep up with them. But now 26rth October I’ve decided to begin at the beginning again and endeavour to follow them consistently . I see the value in what you have prepared in all these meditations but haven’t been able to them justice , by the grace of God I can now begin again and grow in virtue which I am sadly lacking
Thank you Margaret. I plan to go back and do them again after finishing all 35. I lack virtue too, and although I keep up every week with the meditations, I find myself ‘forgetting’ past virtues and falling back into bad habits, too. I think this is part of being human and having fallen natures. God loves us so much and I know it pleases him to see us strive to become more like him. When we pray for virtue, he is very generous with his grace. At least this is what I have experienced so far this year. I am sorry to hear that you have been unwell. Please know that the community is praying for you and for everyone who starts these meditations. I will also lift you up in my private prayer as well. May God continue to bless you and keep you close to his heart.
Im Grateful I have found this sight . The timing does not feel like a coincidence, Thank You