Of Some Remedies against Impure Temptations

SOME such remedies we mentioned in the treatise On Temptations; others we put off to this place, and shall treat of them now. To begin with, prayer is one of the chief remedies that Holy Writ and the saints prescribe for all temptations, and Christ Himself teaches us in the Gospel: Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation (Matt. xxvi. 41). Bede says that, as the thief runs when he hears cries, and all the world is getting up and coming to the rescue, so the cry of prayer makes the devil fly, and rouses the angels and blessed saints to come to our succor and aid. We read of St. Bernard that, when they came to rob him of his chastity, he cried out, ‘“‘“Robbers, robbers!” and therewith the robber fled. Now, if crying out and calling upon men puts a robber to flight, how much more will that robber, as cunning as he is old, who seeks to rob us of the spiritual riches of our soul, take to flight upon the cries for help that we put forth to God and His saints!

It is a special and singularly effectual remedy for this purpose to betake ourselves to the consideration of the Passion of Christ and hide ourselves in His wounds. ‘There is no remedy more powerful and efficacious against impure temptations,” says St. Augustine, “than to think of the Passion and death of Christ our Redeemer. Nowhere have I found such an efficacious remedy as to take refuge in the wounds of Christ; there I sleep securely and there I come to life again.” A grave doctor notes and reflects very happily that the evangelist did not say that the side of Christ was wounded, but that it was opened, that we might understand that here was the way opened to penetrate to the heart of Christ, and that there must be our refuge and place of safety, in those holes of the rock (Cant. ii. 14), which is Christ (I Cor. x. 4). St. Bernard also assigns this remedy and says: “When you feel this temptation, gather yourself together at once to think of the Passion of Christ and say: My God and my Lord is nailed to a cross, and am I to give myself over to pleasures and amusements?” This is like what that faithful servant answered when the king bade him go and take his ease and enjoy himself at home: The ark of God and my lord and captain Joab are in the field and under canvas, and am I to go and eat and take my pleasure in my own house? Please God, never will I do such a thing (II Kings xi. 11). That is what we should say: “Thou, O Lord, art on the Cross in expiation of the pleasure that men take in sinning; I have no mind to take pleasure at such cost to Thee.”

Some help themselves in these temptations by the memory and consideration of the last things, according to that saying of the Wise Man: In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin (Ecclus. vii. 40). Some profit by the consideration of hell, reflecting on that saying of St. Gregory: “A pleasure lasting for a moment followed by an eternity of torment.” To go deep into the study of this eternity, in which the wicked shall be for ever and ever, so long as God is God, is a very efficacious means to keep off sin, according to that saying of the prophet: They shall go down alive into hell (Psalm liv. 16). To go down alive into hell in thought and reflection is a great safeguard against going there after death. Others help themselves by the consideration of heaven, thinking what a folly it is, as indeed it is, to give up God in exchange for a passing pleasure, and so lose everlasting glory. And what greater folly could there be than to give over doing what God commands us, while He invites us to heavenly glory for doing it, and go and do what the devil wants, inviting us to hell for the doing of the same? Others find great profit in the remembrance of death and the last judgment. All these are excellent considerations; let each one have recourse to that from which he finds he derives the greatest benefit. Sometimes he will find it in one, sometimes in another; and so we are to get help from all. It will also be a great help in these temptations to make the sign of the cross on your forehead and your heart and call with devotion on the holy name of Jesus. Wonderful effects have been seen to follow from this, and many miracles, which we have in the histories.

Devotion to Our Lady is a help everywhere; so there Should be no one who does not practise it or fail to have recourse at once to this sovereign Virgin with great confidence. She cannot cease to be merciful who bore for nine months, enclosed in her womb, Him Who is mercy itself. She is the Mother of Mercy and Advocate of Sinners, whom she loves because she sees how much her Son loves them and at what a price He has bought them. Above all, she sees that sinners were the occasion of the Eternal Word’s taking flesh of her flesh, and of her becoming Mother of God. For this reason she looks upon them with compassionate eyes, and intercedes for them with her Son, and obtains of Him all that she asks. What can a son refuse his mother, and such a Son such a Mother? This brought St. Bernard to utter that celebrated sentence: “Let him be silent about thy praises, glorious Virgin, who has invoked thee in his troubles and necessities, and remembers thy aid to have been denied him”—Sileat misericordiam tuam, Virgo beata, st quis est qui invocatam te in necessitatibus suis sibi meminerit defuisse. But though in all temptations and on all occasions this remedy is very effectual, it is particularly so in this matter of which we treat, so pleasing is purity and chastity to the most pure Virgin. Some doctors say that the virginal purity which St. John the Baptist possessed in so high a degree that they say he never sinned even venially against it, was due to Our Lady’s visit to St. Elizabeth, a visit which lasted three months and was, as St. Ambrose says, “a visit at once corporal and spiritual. Friendship and relationship was not the only cause why the Virgin stayed so long in the house of her cousin; it was likewise for the spiritual good of so great a prophet.” If at the outset her visit was followed with so great benefit that the child rejoiced and was sanctified in his mother’s womb, and St. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost at hearing the Virgin’s greeting, what must have been the fruit and profit of her presence and conversation extending for so long a time!

Father Master Avila testifies to having witnessed, in persons troubled with this temptation, many beneficial effects gained through Our Lady the Virgin by the daily recitation of some prayer in honor of her Immaculate Conception and the virginal purity wherewith she conceived and bore the Son of God. Much to this purpose are some verses which the Church sings: “After childbirth thou didst remain a virgin inviolate. O Mother of God, intercede for us; Virgin of Virgins, meekest and mildest of all, keep us clean of sins, and make us meek and chaste.” Here putting before her her own immaculate and perpetual virginity, we beg her to obtain for us this virtue, the better to please her and her most exalted Son.

A good remedy also is devotion to the saints and their relics. Caesarius relates a thing which he says was related to himself by the very person to whom it happened, a religious of the Cistercian Order named Bernard. Before he entered religion, going on a journey, he said that he carried with him, hung round his neck, a reliquary containing relics of the holy martyrs John and Paul. On his way an occasion of impurity occurred, and at the time he did not so much notice it, but still was negligent in resisting the temptation and repelling the thoughts that went with it. Then the holy relics began knocking at his breast, whereof, nevertheless, he took small heed, and saw nothing in it. The temptation ceased, and with it the knockings. But a little while after that the temptations returned, and at once the holy relics began their knockings again, as if to bid him see what he was about and cast off those evil thoughts. Then he fell in with the warning and recollected himself, and set about diligently resisting the temptation.

It is also a very helpful devotion frequently to visit the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar, and beg Our Lord’s aid to obtain the victory, and above all the frequent reception of this Divine Sacrament is a signal remedy, according to those words of the prophet: Thou hast set before me a table to give me virtue and strength against all my persecutors (Psalm xxii. 5). The saints say that this is a grand remedy to meet all temptations, but particularly to overcome temptations of the flesh and preserve chastity. For this Divine Sacrament abates that incentive to sin which is called fomes peccati; it diminishes and appeases the motions of the flesh and the ardors of concupiscence, as water does fire, as St. Cyril says. They quote to this effect that text of the Prophet Zachary: What is the good gift of God, and what the beautiful gift of the Lord, but the wheat of the elect and the wine that beareth virgins? (Zach. ix. 17), of which we have spoken in its place.