Overcoming Sexual Desires by St. Thomas Aquinas

We must realize that the avoidance of concupiscence demands much labor, for it is based on something within us. It is as hard as trying to capture an enemy in one’s household. However, this desire can be overcome in four ways;

Firstly, by fleeing the external occasions such as, for instance, bad company and in fact whatever may be an occasion for this sin: “Gaze not upon a maiden lest her beauty be a stumbling-block to thee … Look not around about thee in the ways of the city, nor wander up and down in the streets thereof. Turn away thy face from a woman dressed up, and gaze not about upon another’s beauty. for many have perished by the beauty of a woman, and hereby lust is enkindled as a fire.(Sirach (ecclus.) 9:5-9)

The second way is by not giving an opening to thoughts which are occasions of lustful desires. And this must be done by mortification of the flesh: “I chastise the my body, and bring it into subjection.”(I cor. 9:27)

The third way is perseverance in prayer. “Unless the lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it”(Ps. 127:1). “This kind is not cast out except by prayer and fasting”(Matt. 17:20).  All this is like a fight between two persons, one of whom you desire to win, the other to lose. You must sustain one and withdraw all support from the other. So also between the spirit and the flesh, there is continual combat. Now if you wish the spirit to win, you must assist it by prayer, and likewise you must resist the flesh by such means as fasting; for by fasting the flesh is weakened.

The fourth way is to keep oneself in wholesome occupations; “Idleness hath thought much evil” Sirach(ecclus.) 33:27. St. Jerome says: “Love to study the scriptures and you will not love the vices of the flesh.”

St. Thomas Aquinas, Pray for Us.