X — TEMPERANCE

Presence of God. — Teach me, O Lord, to mortify my flesh so as to live fully the life of the spirit.

Meditation

1 — Man can deviate from duty either through fear of the difficulties and sacrifice he encounters, or through the attractions of pleasure. In the first case fortitude comes to his aid; in the second, temperance. Temperance is precisely the virtue that moderates in us the disordered desire for sensible enjoyment, containing it within the limits set by reason and faith.

Given the deep disharmony produced in us by sin, by which the lower part tends to rebel against the higher, craving things contrary to the spirit, we could not defend ourselves against pleasure’s attractions without the help of this virtue, which God has infused into our soul precisely to make us capable of restraining the unruly tendency to enjoy. As fortitude, with its related virtues of magnanimity, patience, and perseverance, is a support for our weakness, so temperance, with the virtues that derive from it — sobriety, chastity, continence, modesty, etc. — is a bridle for our concupiscences.

Yet although it is a bridle, it has not only a negative task — to moderate, contain, and restrain disordered pleasure — but also a positive one: to regulate passions and permit us the use of the senses in perfect harmony with the spirit’s demands, so that our spiritual life is not disturbed at all. It is precisely thus that temperance, together with grace and the other virtues, heals and elevates our nature, restoring in us the harmony destroyed by sin.

This, however, cannot be realized without our cooperation, which in the field of temperance consists above all in mortification of passions and senses. “If you live according to the flesh, you shall die; but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live” (Rom. 8:13). The virtue of temperance has been infused in us precisely to make us capable of “mortifying the deeds of the flesh” — a death that is not an end in itself, but an indispensable condition for the life of the spirit.

2 — The beauty of temperance lies precisely in helping us retrace backward the path taken by our first parents because of sin: from perfect harmony between spirit and matter they fell into profound disharmony, and from this we must rise again to that. As a rider before galloping first bridles his spirited horse, so we, to undertake this path, must place on our flesh the strong reins of mortification, so as to master all its movements and appetites.

One easily understands how mortification is necessary in chastity. To live chastely without mortifying one’s body is an illusion, because neither virtue nor vow of chastity changes our nature, nor does it render us insensible to the allurements of sense, world, and devil. Less understood is the necessity of mortification regarding the sense of taste. In this area even souls tending to perfection are generally rather ready to indulge sensible pleasure, considering it wholly innocent and without consequence for spiritual life. But it is not so, because every disorder, even slight, in the life of the senses weighs down and weakens spiritual life to some degree.

In fact disorder exists whenever, in the use of food and drink, we let ourselves be determined in some way by the taste we find in them: taking more than needed when we like them, showing discontent or refusing them when they do not match our preference. This too is slavery to the senses; it is allowing oneself to be dominated by sensible pleasure and therefore leaving open in us a door for rebellion of sense against spirit. St. Paul warns us: “Be not deceived ... what a man sows, that shall he reap; for he who sows in his flesh, of the flesh shall reap corruption; but he who sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Gal. 6:8).

Whoever in his life sows sensible pleasures, of whatever kind, sows corruption, because everything that is merely sensible is destined to pass away and leads to ruin. How then can a soul aspiring to high spiritual life submit itself, even in light matter, to satisfactions of sense? “Be convinced,” says St. John of the Cross, “that you will never enter into the delight and sweetness of spirit unless you apply yourself to mortification in all things you desire” (AM. 38).

Colloquy

“I, Lord, do not marvel at human disorders, since You have wounded this heart of mine with your most perfect charity and guarded it with the custody of purity. Oh, if blind mortals would taste the sweetness and suavity of your holy love! I think they would at once detest and conceive dreadful nausea and disgust for pleasures of sense, and would run eager and thirsty to drink at the fountain of your sweetness. Why then do they not run after the traces of your perfumes?

“I understand, eternal Truth. If they with attentive meditation considered and kept always present in memory the immense daily benefits You dispense to them, they would easily let themselves be drawn by the ineffable sweetness of your love and would be seen running with anxious desire to delight in the fragrance of so many of your sweetnesses” (St. Catherine of Siena).

“One thing alone I desire, O Lord: to seek You! And to seek You I will never stop to gather the flowers I meet along the way, that is, I will never stop to taste the pleasures offered me in this life, because they would draw me from continuing my journey. I will not set my heart on the riches and goods the world offers, nor admit the delights and satisfactions of my flesh, nor linger in the sweetnesses and consolations of my spirit, lest I be held back from seeking You, my God and my Love, over mountains of virtues and labors. Grant, Lord, that my soul be truly enamored of You, that it esteem You above every other thing; then, trusting in your love and your help, it will have strength to cast down all natural attachments and sensitive appetites” (cf. G.C. C. 3, 5-10).