Saturday, July 11, 2015

PURITY AND THE BEST REMEDY FOR LUST

How to be cured of the deadly sin that leads to hell "more than any other sin" (Our Lady of Fatima) and live a pure life of happiness!

Download the one-page Executive Summary HERE for mass distribution. This contains the result of research on several othe best books on porn addiction, the writings of the saints on this topic, and my experience of mentoring many men in the struggle to keep pure.

All men are born wounded, inclined to evil, a tendency called “concupiscence”, a rebellion of the flesh against the spirit–the very root of the Culture of Death. “Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative [baby-making] and unitive [bonding] purposes.” (CCC 2351)  

To get cured of lust we take three steps: 1) Go to the best doctor.  2) Take the best medicines. 3) Live a healthy lifestyle

By doing these, we grow in the beautiful virtue called chastity or holy purity.

GO TO THE BEST DOCTOR: Ask Jesus to heal you.

For any illness of the soul, there is only one best doctor: Jesus, who said, Without me you can do nothing. “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.” (St. Josemaria)  Beg Jesus to grant us the virtue of chastity, the intelligent leadership of our sexual desires and the freedom of true love.

"Purity is the fruit of prayer," taught St. Mother Teresa. To attain purity, we have to cease trying to rely on ourselves (Benedict XVI) and cast our cares on God. (St. Augustine) A short biblical prayer is “If you wish, you can make me clean.” In the net, you can find many prayers for purity. The key is to repeat them with the humility of a powerless child.

TAKE THE BEST MEDICINES: Allow Jesus to heal you.

Jesus’ most powerful remedy for lust is his wounds. “By his wounds we are healed,” says the Bible. To heal us, Pope Francis taught, “Jesus invites us to behold these wounds, to touch them as Thomas did.” St. Josemaria advised: “Enter into the wounds of Christ crucified. There you will learn to guard your senses. You will have interior life.” “If an impure thought strikes me, I resort to the wounds of Christ. If the heat of lust rises in me, it is extinguished by recalling the wounds of Christ. I have not found a more effective remedy. In them I sleep soundly and rest unafraid,” wrote Abbot John of Fécamp, the most popular spiritual writer during the Golden Age of Christendom. St. Thomas, the teacher for everyone, points out that we overcome all temptations by going to Jesus on the cross. 

Recalling the passion and the wounds of Christ gives us (1) contrition for our sins that caused those painful wounds, (2) gratitude for all the graces that come from those merciful wounds, the source of the entire Church, and (3) love, in return for God’s ultimate expression of love.

Purity is pure love. And the key to love, life’s most important subject, said Pope Francis, is not our loving, but “allowing ourselves to be loved.” So let us center our life on the one truth behind all that exists: God loves us, died to save us and rose to give us his life. Making our minds and hearts revolve around Jesus’ loving deeds in Calvary is the secret to the sweet joy of daily life and our deep conversion from lust.

Always carry a crucifix and kiss it. Etch in your memory images and films such as the Passion of the Christ, which portray Jesus’ bloody sacrifice, and console him, and rejoice in his rising. His passion and rising are made present in the sacraments, giving us grace. Go often to Confession and the Eucharist. At Mass, “in your mind’s eye transport yourself to Calvary,” (St. Padre Pio) the outpouring of God’s infinite love.

Included in Jesus’ healing love are the truths about sexuality. He teaches these through his Catholic Church’s Theology of the Body. We need to flush out the diabolical lies that poison our culture and instead remind ourselves many times of God’s liberating truths—about Happiness, Love, Bodies, Sex, Chastity, and Holiness (HLBSCH).

Truth 1: HAPPINESS only comes from true love. Not from selfishness. Selfishness only produces the sadness of guilt. God who is love and supreme joy made us in his image: with mind and freedom. We brim with supreme joy by loving intelligently and willingly, like God.

Truth 2: LOVE means willing the good of the other person and total self-giving. Not fleeting, selfish feelings. Not animal instincts. Practice self-sacrifice to always prevent evil and do good to another.

Truth 3: BODIES are persons  to be reverenced, served and saved. Not objects to be used for selfish ends. A look of lust, taught Jesus, is “adultery in the heart”. Instead, thank God for the beauty of human bodies, and see Jesus in them.  

Truth 4. SEX is a sacred gift that enables us in marriage to make a gift of ourselves and of immortal beings. Not a toy. Humans are incarnate spirits. So we express total self-giving love not just by our souls, but also by our bodies, and sexuality. In marital sex, one expresses this love in the life-long gift of self and in the gift of children, working with God himself who creates their souls, making them his children.

Truth 5: CHASTITY is a joyful Yes to true love freed from selfishness through self-mastery. Not a negative. Since you cannot give a gift that you do not have, you have to master your body to be able to give it freely as a pure gift. Chastity is intelligent leadership of our emotions and sexual urges. As we discipline our appetite intelligently by eating right to be fit and healthy, we channel our sexual urges to be able to give real, flourishing and joyful love.

Truth 6:  SANCTITY is man’s great calling: to be one with God in the total gift of ourselves in marriage or in apostolic celibacy.  The quickest route to union with God is uniting ourselves with Mary, the one closest to Jesus. It is very effective to often offer your eyes, your heart, your desires, your urges, your whole self to Mary, as St. John Paul the Great did: Totus tuus, Maria. I am all yours, Mary. 
 
LIVE A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE: Live Jesus’ life of love.

Be immersed in God’s love. Center your heart on Jesus’ boundless love for us, engrave in your mind his truths, and live a Christian life: prayer, service, generosity, hard work, sobriety, sincerity in spiritual direction and bouncing back at once after a failure since God's infinite mercy never wanes. When he pointed out that the “flesh is weak,” he urged us: Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. So strive to pray at all times. (Mt 26:41; Lk 18:1)  Pray the Rosary by meditating on Christ’s life and words. 

Very important: preventive Confession and mentoring. When you feel weak, receive divine help offered in Confession. This is a very effective habit. St. Josemaria taught that humility (“I need help”) and sincerity form the foundation of victory: “if you open your heart wide, you will not be defeated.” An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. And Confession is Jesus' strengthening power. 
 
Strengthen your motivation to choose purity over lust. Emotions and urges are like noisy passengers in your car. No matter how noisy and nagging they may be, you are still in control of your free will, and responsible for your actions. Feeling a temptation is not the same as choosing it. Clearly, eternal hell is not an option; while God is Infinite Beauty, Deepest Happiness, and the Sole Satisfier of our hearts’ desires. Make a list of motives that will make you hungry to win the fight in purity and recall them again and again: to be capable of true love, to be a good, joyful and trusted person, etc. Remember: the hungrier fighter wins.

Scorn impure urges and fly away at once to Jesus and Mary. Sexual sins are filthy: shamefully egoistic, irrationally animalistic and destructively addictive. The “one last sin” is a poisonous trap that only leads to more and worse sins: a joyless spiral. Show forceful repugnance to the piggish temptation (“Yuck!”) then shun it fast. “You do not win by resisting, because the more you think about it, the more it sways you. You win by fleeing, avoiding unclean thoughts completely,” (St. Thomas Aquinas) and running to embrace Jesus on the cross, where we receive infinite love and boundless joy. Our mother Mary hugs us there.

Identify and avoid the triggers to lust. Avoid occasions of sin: images, sights, situations of boredom and loneliness. Check the moral content of movies (e.g., free CNS movie guide) and use computer filters (e.g. K9 Filter is free).

Be an active advocate of the New Sexual Revolution of the Theology of the Body.  If you live only to survive, you will fall off the edge pushed by the wild, raging current of the present Culture of Death. Take part in the exhilarating adventure of bringing about a new culture of true, total self-giving love. Read more about it (Chastity.org; Chastityproject.com). Spread it. You can, for example, spread the use of this article as a first step. :) 

Download the one-page Executive Summary HERE for mass distribution. 

Saturday, July 4, 2015

PRAYERS FOR PURITY: A COMPILATION

These prayers for purity are classified as:

I. Short biblical prayers
II. Prayers to God
  • Prayer for Purity (Traditional)
  • Prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas
  • Prayer for Chastity (from Catholics United for Faith)
  • Prayer for Chastity (from Reason)
III. Prayers to Jesus, Our Lord
  • Prayer for the Virtue of Chastity
  • Prayer for Purity of Heart (from Christopher West)
  • Prayer for Redemption of Sexual Desire (from Christopher West)
  • Prayer in a Moment of Temptation to Lust (from Christopher West)
IV. Prayer to Jesus, Mary and Joseph
  • Prayer for Purity
  • Prayer for Purity
V. Prayers to Mary
  • Blessed be Your Purity
  • A Prayer for Purity
VI. Prayer to St. Joseph
  • Prayer to St. Joseph
VII. Prayers to St. Maria Gorretti
  • Official Prayer  
  • Prayer before a dance  
  • Prayer before a date

I. SHORT BIBLICAL PRAYERS

If you wish you can make me clean. – Luke 5:12

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. – Psalm 51:10

II. PRAYERS TO GOD

Lord, inflame our hearts and our inmost beings with the fire of Your Holy Spirit, that we may serve You with chaste bodies and pure minds. Through Christ our Lord. Amen

Prayer for Purity (Traditional)

O my God, thou who hast given me a body to keep pure and clean and healthy for thy service and my eternal happiness, forgive me for all my unfaithfulness in this great responsibility. Forgive me for every mean use which I have made of thy gifts in thought, word or deed since my rebirth as thine own son in Baptism and my registration as a soldier of Jesus on the day of my Confirmation.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and give me a steadfast will that I may be a strength to others around me.Teach me to reverence my body and the bodies of my fellow creatures. Help me to see the glory of perfect manhood in Jesus Christ and of perfect womanhood in Mary Immaculate. Inspire me with such love for the ideals for which our Savior lived and died, that all my passions and energies will be caught up into the enthusiasm of His service and evil things will lose their power. May my body be the servant of my soul, and may both body and soul be Thy servants, through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas

Dearest Jesus! I know well that every perfect gift, and above all others that of chastity, depends upon the most powerful assistance of Thy Providence, and that without Thee a creature can do nothing. Therefore, I pray Thee to defend, with Thy grace, chastity and purity in my soul as well as in my body.

And if I have ever received through my senses any impression that could stain my chastity and purity, do Thou, Who art the Supreme Lord of all my powers, take it from me, that I may with an immaculate heart advance in Thy love and service, offering myself chaste all the days of my life on the most pure altar of Thy Divinity. Amen.

Prayer for Chastity

Father in heaven, You have created us for love, and given our bodies nuptial meaning. You have enabled us to share in Your creative love in the sublime act proper to the sacrament of matrimony. Help us to see the beauty and dignity of this noble and profound act, and to never trivialize so precious a gift.

I firmly believe You are with me in this journey, that You will lead me home to sexual sobriety, if I am open to Your truth, Your grace, and Your ministers of love. Help me to be honest with myself, and with You, that I may know the peace of love rather than the chaos of unchastity.

Jesus, You showed us the truth about personhood in Your own life on earth. Help me to model my life on Yours, that within my own unique personality, I may come to imitate Your purity, Your love and Your peace.

Spirit of love, help me to welcome You into my life, that I might live by Your gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel and courage. May they bring forth the fruits of self control, modesty and chastity in my life.

Mary, queen of peace and model of purity, bring my prayer to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that I might live always in His light, and rejoice forever in His love. Amen.


Prayer for Chastity

Lord Jesus, I beg you for the grace and joy of chastity, 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 the blood of Christ, 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, protect each one from evil, and serve each one with your benevolent, saving love.

Deliver me, Lord, from the disgusting and addicting evil of lustthe 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 an image of your divine self-giving to form your family, your design to procreate 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.

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. Amen.

Source:  Reason

III. PRAYERS TO JESUS, OUR LORD

Prayer for the Virtue of Chastity

Jesus, Fortress of mankind,
You are Immaculate as God and Man!
Bless me with Your infinite graces,
That I may remain in a state of purity.
Strengthen my body, spirit and soul
To continually reflect Your chastity.
Protect my soul in its daily struggles,
Guiding it to ponder on Your Godliness.
Defend me from the forces of evil,
Those that seek to acquire my soul:
I am truly Yours forever and ever.
Holy is my King, the Conqueror of sin

Prayer for Purity of Heart

Lord, help me to accept and receive my sexuality as a gift from you.

Grant me the grace to resist the many lies that distort this divine gift and help me to live my sexuality according to the truth of self-giving love.

Grant me purity of heart so that I might see the image of your glory in the beauty of others, and one day see you face to face. Amen.

Source:  Christopher West

Prayer for the Redemption of Sexual Desire

Lord, I praise you and thank you for the gift of my sexual desires.

By the power of your death and resurrection, untwist in me what sin has twisted so that I might know sexual desire as you created it to be as the desire to love freely, totally, faithfully, and fruitfully. Amen.

Source: Christopher West

Prayer in a Moment of Temptation to Lust
Lord, thank you for the beauty of this person whom you made to be loved never to be treated as a thing for my gratification.

I renounce any tendency within me to use this person for my own pleasure, and I ask you to set my desires aright. Amen.

Source: Christopher West


IV. PRAYER TO JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH

Prayer for Purity

Jesus, Lover of chastity, Mary, Mother most pure, and Joseph, chaste guardian of the Virgin, to you I come at this hour, begging you to plead with God for me. I earnestly wish to be pure in thought, word and deed in imitation of your own holy purity.

Obtain for me, then, a deep sense of modesty which will be reflected in my external conduct. Protect my eyes, the windows of my soul, from anything that might dim the luster of a heart that must mirror only Christlike purity.

And when the "Bread of Angels becomes the Bread of me" in my heart at Holy Communion, seal it forever against the suggestions of sinful pleasures.

Heart of Jesus, Fount of all purity, have mercy on us.

Prayer for purity

Mary, Mother most pure, and Joseph, chaste guardian of the Virgin, to you I entrust the purity of my soul and body. I beg you to plead with God for me that I may never for the remainder of my life soil my soul by any sin of impurity. I earnestly wish to be pure in thought, word and deed in imitation of your own holy purity. Obtain for me a deep sense of modesty, which will be reflected in my external conduct. Protect my eyes, the windows of my soul, from anything that might dim the luster of a heart that must mirror only Christ-like purity. And when the “Bread of Angels” becomes my food in Holy Communion, seal my heart forever against the suggestions of sinful pleasures. Finally, may I be among the number of those of whom Jesus spoke, “Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.” Amen.



V. PRAYERS TO MARY

Blessed be your purity

Blessed be your purity,
May it be blessed for ever,
For no less than God takes delight
In such exalted beauty.
To you, heavenly Princess,
Holy Virgin Mary,
I offer on this day
My whole heart, life, and soul.
Look upon me with compassion;
Do not leave me, my mother. 

A Prayer for Purity

Mary, loving Daughter of God the Father, I give my soul to your care. Protect the life of God in my soul. Do not let me lose it by serious sin. Protect my mind and my will so that all my thoughts and desires will be pleasing to God.

Hail Mary...

Mary, loving Mother of God the Son, I give my heart to your care. Let me love you with all my heart. Let me always try to love my neighbor. And help me avoid friends who might lead me away from Jesus and into a life of sin.

Hail Mary...

Mary, loving Spouse of the Holy Spirit, I give my body to your care. Let me always remember that my body is a home for the Holy Spirit who dwells in me. Let me never sin against Him by any impure actions alone or with others, against the virtue of purity.

Hail Mary...



VI. PRAYER TO ST. JOSEPH

Prayer to St. Joseph

St. Joseph, father and guardian of virgins, to whose faithful keeping Christ Jesus, innocence itself, and Mary, the virgin of virgins, were entrusted, I pray and beseech you by that twofold and most precious charge, by Jesus and Mary, to save me from all uncleanness, to keep my mind untainted, my heart pure, and my body chaste; and to help me always to serve Jesus and Mary in perfect chastity. Amen.



VII. PRAYERS TO ST. MARIA GORETTI


Oh Saint Maria Goretti who, strengthened by God's grace, did not hesitate even at the age of twelve to shed your blood and sacrifice life itself to defend your virginal purity, look graciously on the unhappy human race which has strayed far from the path of eternal salvation. Teach us all, and especially youth, with what courage and promptitude we should flee for the love of Jesus anything that could offend Him or stain our souls with sin. Obtain for us from our Lord victory in temptation, comfort in the sorrows of life, and the grace which we earnestly beg of thee (here insert intention), and may we one day enjoy with thee the imperishable glory of Heaven. Amen.

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father, etc.
St. Maria Goretti, pray for us!


Dear Saint Maria Goretti! The world teaches that we must please others in order to be popular. Conscience demands that I please God more than one who asks an evil thing in the name of false love. Teach me by your example to instill into others a real respect for modesty and purity. Through your powerful intercession, help me to make of this evening an occasion for helping others to become spiritually stronger. Grant that others may see in me reason to change their ways, if that be necessary, and that I may have the courage to resist any temptation to sinful conduct. Let others be led closer to Jesus and Mary by my example.
Oh Little Saint who wanted to be popular only with your Divine Master and His Blessed Mother, help me to imitate you. Amen.

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father, etc.
St. Maria Goretti, pray for us!


Dear Little Saint Maria Goretti! Teach me that God must be my first love and that all other love is based on Him and Him alone. Obtain for me the grace to cease toying with the occasions of sin and to remember that my body and the bodies of all in grace are temples of the Holy Spirit, destined someday for a glorious resurrection.
Through your beautiful example, teach me the value and dignity of Christian modesty. Grant that I may never be the occasion of dragging others into Hell, by suggestive words or evil deeds of any kind. Through the merits of your Martyrdom, obtain for me the grace to turn aside from sin, no matter what the cost, so that one day I may enjoy Heaven with you and all the other saints. Amen.

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father, etc.
St. Maria Goretti, pray for us!