Overcoming Disordered Passions of the Flesh
Today we contemplate the grace of choosing purity over fleeting passions, learning how to surrender our disordered desires and unruly urges to God. Join us for the final meditation of Part 3, our Week 22 meditation on the virtue of chastity, from St. Hildegard of Bingen’s Liber Vitae Meritorum, to anchor your soul in divine love and conquer the temptation to lust.
Opening Prayer
Lord, You have created me for the virtue of chastity but in my fallen nature I have struggled with the urge to lust. I humbly ask you for the grace to guard my heart, mind, and eyes so that I can overcome the sins of the flesh and the urge to lust. Please hear my prayer and help me overcome the evil desires of my heart.
Jesus I beg you to give me the grace needed to overcome all my unchaste desires. Help me guard my heart and my mind. Help me control bodily urges. Let me practice temperance in my sexuality by overcoming intrusive lustful thoughts that lead me toward sinful behaviors.
God, please take away my urge to lust. I know it is sinful to lust after others and these intrusive thoughts lead me to commit sins. Help me think pure thoughts and desire pure things instead. Please change the desires of my heart and give me the gift of temperance. Teach me to call upon the Name of Jesus when I feel overcome by the urge to lust. Jesus, you alone can give me the strength I need to overcome sins of the flesh. I trust in you, Lord, to deliver me from these evil desires.
I am beautifully and wonderfully made, and you love me deeply. Lord, please give me the grace to see the one I am tempted to lust after as a person deeply loved by you and deserving of the virtue of chastity and purity. Help me reject the desire to indulge in behaviors that give me physical pleasure and instead let me be holy and chaste.
AMEN.
“Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man’s belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman. The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.”
Catechism, 2337
What is the Virtue of Chastity, St. Hildegard Explains:
To truly understand the virtue of chastity, St. Hildegard’s vivid visions must be paired with the solid foundation of Catholic moral theology. In the Church’s tradition, chastity is not about suppressing our design—the original, pure purpose for which God created our bodies and our sexuality—but successfully integrating our bodily drives with our spiritual souls. It elevates our desires, ensuring our energies are ordered toward true, self-giving love rather than the self-centered objectification of others. As we saw in an earlier meditation on Foolish Joy, the soul can be drawn toward almost anything the world offers; here, that same restless reaching narrows to one demand in particular—the flesh—and refuses to be told no.
St. Hildegard frames this battle as a contest between two very different ways of living. The vice of lust calls itself wide open and unrestrained— a life with no edged, free to chase whatever it wants, wherever it leads. The virtue of chastity answers with a life that looks, on the surface, smaller and more disciplined, but which St. Hildegard describes as genuinely joyful—even harmonious, like a kind of music the soul makes when it isn’t fighting itself. Lust, by contrast, can only manage noise: boasting, self-justifying arguments, the sounds of something straining to convince itself it’s free. As we go deeper into St. Hildegard’s words below, we’ll see exactly how she builds this contrast— and how a few small but important differences in translation actually sharpen, rather than soften, the case she’s making.
The Virtue of Chastity Controls the Urge to Lust
by St. Hildegard of Bingen
The Words of Lust
And [Lust] said: “ I will surround God’s image with filth, which is a very troubling thing to God; I can thereby destroy all things. For I am a glorious and high one and I draw all things to myself, as allowed by the nature I was born with.
Why should I restrain myself and why should I tear myself away from the favors of a luxurious life…? If I accomplish only a small part of what I want to do, is this blameworthy? If, however, I do not do what my flesh demands, I will be angry, sad, deceitful, tormenting, and entangled with unrest….
The Response of Chastity
Again I heard a voice from the storm cloud, as it were, from the diadem of the king, giving a response… “I am not indifferent, as you are, o filthy one, you who always play with wantonness, for I do not lie on the bed on which you lie, you who bring disgrace to yourself. I also do not send out poisonous words from my mouth that teach slippery baseness. Instead, I draw a drink of the sweetest water from the well of blessing since all my works have the coolness of God. For I sit in the sun and I look at the king of kings when I perform all my good works freely. I do not want the tail of the scorpion that wounds you with uncleanness.
I have the joy of honesty and modesty in a pleasant life, for the pleasant life that I have does not restrain me with the blasphemy of baseness nor does it wound me with unclean lewdness. You, however, o most filthy one, are the gluttony of the belly of a serpent, you who sprang from the ears of Adam and Eve who listened to the serpent and then let obedience vanish. But I have sprung from the highest Word of the Father…
St. Hildegard of Bingen, Liber Vitae Meritorum (The Book of the Rewards of Life),
Part 3, Sections 15-16, Paras. 22-23 (Trans. Hozeski, Abridged)
The Face of Luxury and the Fire of Chastity
St. Hildegard sees Luxury in the form of a woman, reclining on her right side with her legs drawn up, like someone lying idly in bed. Her hair is flames of fire; her eyes are white as chalk; her feet are wrapped in coverings so slippery she can neither walk on them nor stand. Poisonous foam breathes from her mouth. At her right breast she nurses a puppy; at her left a viper. With her hands she plucks flowers and breaths in their scent, gathering pleasure the way a woman gathers blossoms—for no purpose beyond the taking. She wears no other covering at all: she is, in St. Hildegard’s own words, tota ignea—entirely fiery. And her fire doesn’t warm anything. It dries up everything near her, the way summer heat withers hay in a field.
Chastity gives us no physical image at all—true to the pattern of every virtue we’ve met so far. She doesn’t need a body to be described. She only needs to say where she sits: “in sole sedeo, et regem regum inspicio”—”I sit in the sun, and I look upon the King of Kings.” That’s the whole contrast, held in one image. Luxury is fire—consuming and consumed by what she consumes. Chastity is dwelling in Christ’s own light, the Sun of Justice himself—the fire that never consumes what it touches. Luxury’s fire dries and destroys; Chastity’s fire is the very source she gazes into, and it only ever gives life.
Reflection:
When studying the virtue of chastity, St. Hildegard’s ancient words strike a powerful chord for the world we live in today. As I reflected on the virtue of chastity, the Lord reminded me that we have to guard our eyes. In the last 80 years evil has bombarded our eyes with digital images that destroy our innocence and purity. Mankind collectively sees indecency on a daily basis. It is everywhere. We can carry it in our pockets on our ‘smart’ phones and stream videos, music, and podcasts that are an abomination to chastity. Let’s take a careful look at the roots of this vice from Liber Vitae Meritorum.
In her own words, Luxury justifies herself by appeal to nature: “I am a glorious and high one and I draw all things to myself, as allowed by the nature I was born with” (Hozeski). She frames restraint as something almost unreasonable — tearing herself away from what she calls the comforts of a wide-open life and a restless, leaping mind. (Note on translation: Hozeski’s published English renders this second phrase as “a saving mind.” The Latin — saltantis mentis — actually describes a mind that leaps or dances, not a mind that saves. The correction matters because Hildegard appears to be setting up a deliberate echo: Luxury claims a lata vita, a “broad” or “wide” way, which Chastity will answer two lines later with a laeta vita — a “joyful” way. That wordplay is lost if “saving mind” is left standing. Source: Pitra, Analecta Sacra, Vol. VIII, p. 113, n. 1.)
Luxury goes further, building herself a kind of cosmic alibi: heaven has its own justice, she argues, and earth performs its own duties — so why shouldn’t the flesh be allowed to perform its own? She closes her argument with a claim about God himself: if her nature were truly offensive to him, he would have made the flesh incapable of what it desires in the first place. Since he didn’t, she takes that as permission. (Note on translation: Hozeski’s English renders these two sentences as “earth seeks its own favors” and “he would do what it cannot accomplish” — both of which obscure Luxury’s actual reasoning. The Latin officia sua faciat means earth “performs its own duties,” not that it “seeks favors,” and the closing line states that God himself would have made the flesh unable to accomplish what it desires, had he found it troubling — the reverse of what the English suggests. Source: Pitra, Analecta Sacra, Vol. VIII, p. 113.)
Chastity’s answer doesn’t argue point by point — she simply names what she is instead. “I am not indifferent, as you are, o filthy one… for I do not lie on the bed on which you lie” (Hozeski). She draws her life not from indulgence but “from the well of blessing,” and describes that life in a word worth pausing on: in the Latin, she calls it a simphonia— a symphony— of honesty and modesty, not merely a “pleasant life” as the English softens it. It’s a small word with a large echo: throughout St. Hildegard’s visions, the virtues consistently sing, while vice can only make noise. Chastity isn’t just calm here— she’s harmonious, joined to something larger than herself (Source: Pitra, Analecta Sacra, Vol. VIII, p. 113.)
What are “Near Occasions of Sin” that Lead to Lust?
All humans have concupiscence due to original sin. The Church describes concupiscence as the tendency to sin, and St. Augustine of Hippo further describes it as sinful lust. Ever since the original sin of Adam and Eve, mankind has been tempted by lust to commit sins of the flesh. Today, more than any other time in world history, it is much easier to fall into this temptation. This is due the prevalence of pornography and the general collapse of morality in many cultures. It is mostly seen in the west where a global multibillion dollar entertainment industry produces shows, videos, songs, podcasts, and movies to promote the objectification of human bodies for sexual pleasure that is consumed worldwide.
We are inundated with the temptation to lust, and it comes to us through our smart phones that we carry with us everywhere we go. We are tethered to this sin and as weak and imperfect souls we give into this temptation daily.
How do we overcome this?
Near occasions of sin are things in our life that make it easier for us to fall victim to a temptation. If you struggle with lust and you truly want to be freed from it you must follow your prayer today with active efforts to become chaste. Give the Lord time to speak to your heart and reveal to you the things he wants you to get rid of in your life. When you know what he is asking you to do, follow through and obey him. The Lord is gentle and he will not force his will on you. Without obedience to God you will not have the ability to overcome lust. It’s that simple. This means that you have to follow through and do your part so that you can be delivered from the urge to lust.
How do I Overcome the Urge to Lust?
Jesus heals all wounds. He is the great physician. I encourage you to commit yourself to regular prayer in Eucharistic adoration; this is the most efficacious way to overcome habitual sin. In Eucharistic adoration you are coming to sit at the feet of the Lord. You are in his Real Presence. I recommend 100 holy hours of Eucharistic adoration. This is 100 visits, each visit for a minimum of one hour. Try to go twice a week. Bring a Bible, and avail yourself of the library of books available to you in most chapels. Use the prayers on this website. Contemplate. Sit in silence with a heart open and humble. Be with Jesus and soak up the grace. Give this burden to Jesus and let him conform you and renew your mind. He will advise you and give you the grace you need for transformation. You will fall deeply in love with him.
Is Jesus asking you to replace your smart phone with a phone that cannot access music, images, videos, and internet access? Is he asking you to avoid someone who leads you to sin? Is he telling you to avoid places that make it easy to commit sins of the flesh? Is he drawing you toward a deeper prayer life and more intensive prayers? Are there subscriptions to cancel, images to delete, and phone numbers to ‘lose’? Do it. Purge every single thing he brings to mind.
You are waging a war against evil desires. You are rejecting pleasure and you are seeking chastity. Decide, purge, and replace the sinful indulgences with prayers. Trust the process, and if you find yourself taking a step back, repent, and take another step forward. You may lose a battle in the process but you have to win the war. Be determined and God will reward you with the grace needed to win.
Why is it so Hard to Overcome the Urge to Lust?
Chastity is a form of temperance. It involves control of your heart, mind, and body. Chastity begins with your heart and a full surrender to God. Your heart will best be converted through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Confession rids you of demonic obsessions. Go and keep going until you have overcome the urge to lust. It’s a process and it involves hard work to create new thought patterns and to consent to the will of God over the desires of the flesh.
God will give you the grace. He desires your holiness. Your mind will be converted over time through daily prayer and a firm resolution to overcome the urge to lust. To get control of your mind you must fully surrender it to God. Recognize your intrusive thoughts as part of the human condition and a weapon of the devil. Do not entertain them or give yourself an outlet to commit more sin through a near occasion. Every time you receive an intrusive thought immediately rebuke it by calling upon the Name of Jesus. Ask him for grace. Pray until the thoughts wane. Pray when the thoughts return.
In the beginning this will take up much of your time and may even be exhaustive. All things are possible with Christ. Do not quit. You are waging war with the devil and you have to be strong and committed.
Going Further:
Take some extra time to meditate on James 1:12-18. Read the passage on temptation and then prayerfully reflect on it, rereading the phrases that speak to your heart. Have a dialogue with God and ask him things from your heart. Spend a few moments listening to what the Holy Spirit is speaking to your conscience. If you wish, journal about this experience.
Guarding the Integrity of the Soul:
Take a moment to pause, close your eyes, and drop the frantic, hyper-stimulated pace of your day. Lust is a deceitful and aggressive vice—a quiet rebellion of the flesh that seeks to wrap God’s beautiful image in filth, cloud our intellects, and fracture the sacred unity between our bodies and our spirits. When we carry temptations in our pockets, scrolling mindlessly through digital content that promotes the raw objectification of human souls for passing pleasure, we compromise our innocence and separate ourselves from divine grace. Before we open the Word of God, let us offer up a sincere prayer of petition—asking for the spiritual purity to slam the door on every near occasion of sin, master our bodily urges, and anchor our hearts in holy moderation.
Prayer for Perfect Chastity and a Clean Heart
Eternal Father, You are the magnificent architect of human nature, who created my body to be a holy temple of the Holy Spirit, yet You know how easily my fallen heart gets swept away by disordered passions. I confess that I have often succumbed to the deceptive pull of lust—allowing my eyes to wander, my mind to entertain intrusive thoughts, and my desires to be shaped by a self-absorbed world that treats human beings as objects for physical pleasure. Forgive me for the times I have compromised my purity, ignored Your promptings, and coddled the near occasions of sin that drain my interior peace. By my own human willpower, I cannot tame these wild appetites. I desperately need the cleansing fire of Your grace.
Lord Jesus, grant me the supernatural virtue of chastity. Teach me to successfully integrate my sexuality with my spiritual soul, preserving the absolute integrity of who I am. When temptations or intrusive thoughts flare up this week, catch my impulses immediately and give me the clear strength to rebuke them by calling upon Your Holy Name. Deliver me from the slavery of fleeting physical urges. Give me a pure mind, a vigilant conscience, and a modesty of heart that sees others exactly as You see them—deeply loved, honorable, and deserving of respect.
AMEN.
Take a slow, deep breath and settle into absolute, reverent stillness. Let go of your daily checklist, your anxieties, and any lingering feelings of shame or unworthiness you brought with you today. As you prepare to encounter Jesus in this radical passage from the Sermon on the Mount, remember that Christ cares deeply about your interior freedom—He doesn’t just judge our outward behaviors, but peers directly into the hidden intent of our hearts.
Do not rush through these verses. Read the words slowly and let the sharp, uncompromising clarity of Christ’s instructions pierce through the noise of modern culture. Look at the dramatic weight He places on the purity of our vision, warning that looking with lust is already a betrayal in the heart. Notice the radical urgency of His remedy—to cut off and tear out whatever causes us to stumble rather than risk losing our eternal inheritance in Gehenna. Ask the Lord to show you exactly which apps, devices, relationships, or habits are acting as near occasions of sin in your life, and where He is calling you to perform a total spiritual purge this week. When you are ready, pick up your pen and write His promptings directly into your prayer journal.
You Have Heard that it was Said
from the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 5:27-30
[Jesus said] “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna.
And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna.”
Let us Pray:
Jesus, please give me a clean heart. I commit myself to you, body, mind, and soul. Send me your Spirit and give me a strong resolve and a good conscience. I want to be chaste and holy. I want to see others as souls who are loved by you and deserving of eternal life. Take from me every near occasion of sin that leads me toward the urge to lust and let me be pure in body, mind, and soul.
I want to overcome the intrusive thoughts that come into my mind and lead me to the sin of lust. I am ashamed of having the sin of lust and I need the strength only you can give me. Help me to avoid lustful thoughts and the sins I commit because of them. Give me the grace to recognize the sin of lust in the things I watch, listen to, and do. Enlighten my conscience about everything I do that is against the virtue of chastity. Be with me when I am tempted and help me turn away from it and choose you instead. I need you to help me purge lust from my life. Convict my heart of everything that leads me into this temptation and make me aware of how this sin puts my soul in danger.
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.
The Mantle of Grace: Week 22 Send-Off
Thank you for committing to Week 22 and for your profound dedication throughout this virtue meditation journey. Confronting disordered passions of the flesh—shattering the pull of lust and choosing the inner unity of holy chastity—takes incredible spiritual grit, and Jesus sees every single hidden effort you make to guard your eyes and mind. Overcoming habitual urges is a slow process of daily conversion and retraining your thoughts, not an overnight shift. Be gentle with yourself, take immediate accountability if you stumble, and run straight to the Sacrament of Reconciliation to let His mercy wash your soul completely clean.
As you walk out of this chapel and step back into a hyper-sexualized, loud world that constantly rewards the raw objectification of human bodies and demands that you satisfy every passing physical impulse, guard your interior peace. True chastity isn’t a passive life of cold restriction; it is an act of ultimate spiritual freedom that allows you to draw a refreshing drink of the sweetest water from the well of blessing. To see exactly how the Church defines the boundaries of this battle let’s look in the Catechism:
“Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.”
Catechism, 2351
Make a Resolution
Take a moment to reflect on the virtue of chastity. 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.
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2 Responses
Please pray for Me- Alfred O. Brown Jr…I am 74 years old. I was born Dec 1, 1947
I am suffering from Bain cancer. I have been in the hospital for 2 weeks or so….It has not been easy.
Heavenly Father, we lift up our brother Alfred O. Brown Jr., who is suffering with brain cancer, and we ask you to fill him with peace and give him grace to walk with you during this time of suffering. Surround Alfred with your holy angels to care for him and comfort him as they did Jesus while he was tempted in the desert.
Please, Lord Jesus, send Alfred your Holy Spirit to guard and guide his heart, mind, and soul during his hospital stay. We ask that you give wisdom to the doctors and nurses caring for Alfred so that they make good decisions and can offer Alfred the best care possible. Graciously hear us, Lord Jesus, we pray in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.