Prayer for Purity: based on groundbreaking Theology of the Body

I have feedback that this prayer helps people live chastity and get rid of a nasty sexual addiction, turning around their lives towards a life of purity. 

Lord Jesus, I beg you for the grace and joy of purity, for without you I can do nothing.

Grant me the gift to reverence my body and the bodies of my sisters and brothers in Christ. Help me to recognize the truth of each human body: a sacred incarnate spirit, a sublime image of God, a temple of the Holy Spirit, a person worth all your blood, and a child of God created by you, the first human and the only model of all human bodies. 

Teach me, Jesus, to see you in each human body. May I protect each one from evil, and serve each one with your benevolent, saving love.

Deliver me, Lord, from the disgusting and addicting evil of lust—the sin of seeing and using my body and the bodies of your beloved daughters and sons as mere things and objects for my own selfish ends. 

May I reverence human sexuality as a sacred image of your divine self-giving to form your family, your design to create immortal souls for your bride, the Church. I am deeply sorry for my sins of selfishness which offend you, make you suffer the greatest pains, and destroy my very self.

Help me, my only Savior, to remember that you love me with infinite love at every moment, and to often recall the center of my life: your supreme love for me in your fierce suffering and death on the cross that you make present in the Eucharist. 

My merciful Mother, through your all-powerful prayer, help us your children to live with the dignity of children of God, masters of our feelings, urges, and desires. Help us to quickly flee from any temptation and turn at once to my Crucified and Risen Savior, who is Infinite Love and Infinite Beauty, the only source of the greatest possible happiness. Amen. 

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John Paul II’s theology of the body has been called “a kind of theological time bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences ...perhaps in the twenty-first century.” This prayer is a way of helping set off that time bomb.

This prayer is based on insights found in a little book, Achieving Chastity in a Pornographic World, written by Fr. T.G. Morrow who based his insights on John Paul II’s theology of the body. The prayer is intended to facilitate the practice of a method that Fr. Morrow suggested to uproot sexual addiction and to build a sturdy habit of chastity.

In a nutshell, the method means repeating the values and reasons of chastity (several times a day) so as to convince the sexual appetite, permeating it with reason, until it is converted and is at peace.

I thought of integrating the reasons into a prayer which can be said regularly, especially during days when one is most tempted. Or if one has a deeper problem, perhaps pray it three times a day (morning, noon, nighttime). This is the reason for this given by St. Mother Teresa: "purity is a fruit of prayer." The Catechism also states: "chastity is a gift from God, a grace, a fruit of spiritual effort."

Benedict XVI quoted St. Benedict of Nursia's Mens nostra concordet voci nostras, our mind must be in accord with our voice. "The word, the voice, goes ahead of us," explained Pope Benedict, "and our mind must adapt to it. For on our own we human beings do not know how to pray as we ought." This prayer has that intention: to help the mind to be shaped by truth that we say in prayer. And so the convinced mind will be able to regulate the sexual appetite through reason and so our desires will embrace chastity from within, freely,  consciously and peacefully. And at the same time we acknowledge our powerlessness in achieving the virtue of chastity and need of God. 

On this St. Augustine has personal experience and clear doctrine: "I thought that continence arose from one's own powers, which I did not recognize in myself. I was foolish enough not to know . . . that no one can be continent unless you grant it. For you would surely have granted it if my inner groaning had reached your ears and I with firm faith had cast my cares on you."

St. Josemaria said it succintly: "It is not possible to lead a clean life without God's assistance. He wants us to be humble and to ask for his aid."

This prayer is a sample of what people can personally compose, as a way of doing what Fr. Morrow suggested, i.e. to make a list of reasons which one reads and reflects on several times a day. You can also give me feedback so this particular prayer can be of more help in bringing back purity to this pornographic world.

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Fr. Morrow's book has been praised by eminent theologians and spiritual writers:

Dr. William May calls this book “eminently practical,” one that gives “great hope” to people struggling with sexual temptations and addictions.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR said, the book “effectively brings spirituality and morality together with the best contemporary psychological thinking.”

Father John F. Harvey, OSFS, the Founder of Courage said: “Father Morrow concentrates on presenting a spiritual strategy which will help the person on the long road back to inner freedom. That strategy includes not only deep honesty with one’s self but also a life of reflective prayer, known as prayer of the heart.”

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According to Fr. Morrow, these are the basic values or the goodness of chastity, which we can remind ourselves of frequently "so as to alleviate any interior resentment and find peace in the chaste decision":

1. Sex is holy, not a plaything. It should never be trivialized.

2. Created in the image of God, I can live by reason, not just by urges (as the animals do).

3. Persons are to be loved, not merely used as objects of enjoyment.

4. I must not treat persons as objects, even in the mind, lest I become a user of persons in practice.

5. Unchaste activity destroys my most precious friendship, that with God, the source of all happiness.

6. Unchaste activity brings pleasure but not happiness.

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A key must-read article: Purity and the Best Remedy For Lust 

Further reading:

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0109.html

http://www.cfalive.org/ChastPornW506.pdf