Summary of the Morrow's Meditation
After having meditated upon the excellence of purity and the care we ought to take in order to preserve it, we will meditate upon the horrible vice which is its opposite, and we shall see: 1st, that it is supremely odious to God; 2nd, that it does man an incomparable evil. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to be on our guard against all dangerous occasions, above all against idleness and too great freedom in the use of our eyes; 2nd, to send away the temptation at the very instant that it presents itself, not by combating it in a direct manner, but by making a diversion. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of St. Timothy: "Keep thyself chaste" (I. Tim. v. 22).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore the infinite holiness of God, supremely detesting sin, and amongst all sins pursuing the sin of impurity with special hatred. Let us at the same time adore His justice, visiting the vice of impurity with His most terrible chastisements, often even in this life, but above all in hell. Let us render our most fervent homage to His holiness and His justice.
FIRST POINT
Impurity is Supremely Odious to God.
Of all vices it is the one which excites in the highest degree the horror and the vengeance of God. It is the vice which buried the human race beneath the waters of the deluge (Gen. vi. 3), which made fire from heaven descend upon Sodom and Gomorrha, and which still every day calls down upon earth so many private misfortunes, so many public calamities. No vice, in fact, is more opposed to the infinite purity of God; none more directly profanes His temple and His dwelling, seeing that our bodies are temples of God wherein His holy Spirit dwells (I. Cor. iii. 16), and that by communion they become living ciboriums, tabernacles animated by the Holy Eucharist; a horrible profanation against which the Holy Spirit has pronounced the anathema: "If any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy" (I. Cor. iii. 17). No vice attacks in a more direct manner the very person itself of the Incarnate Word, since these bodies which we soil, which we cast into the foulest mud, are as the members of Jesus Christ (I. Cor. vi. 15); none more deeply insults the Divine Majesty, because the man who is impure, putting into the balance God and infamous pleasure, gives the preference to all that is most filthy and vile over God. No vice, lastly, is more opposed to the divine plan, because God has given us a wholly spiritual soul, His image and resemblance, that it might live the life of angels here below, and enjoy the delights of His love, making in this way, as it were, its novitiate for the life of heaven; and behold, by means of this impure vice we degrade the image of God, we drag His image in the mud, we plunge into filthy pleasures the soul which was created to enjoy the pure delights of paradise and to be absorbed in the contemplation and love of the divine perfections. What an overthrow of the divine designs! No, we shall never be able to conceive what horror impurity excites in the heart of God. Let us pray to Him to infuse into our soul something of this supreme horror.
SECOND POINT
Impurity Causes Man an Irreparable Evil.
We might first say that it injures his body, because it exhausts and wears out its strength, makes it grow old and die before the natural term of existence, and often occasions the sudden deaths which are as a clap of thunder; but, independent of this reason, impurity makes a man vile in his own eyes and takes from him self-respect, which is the pathway leading to all the vices; it withers all right sentiments in the heart; there is no more filial piety, no more compassion for misfortune, no more nobility of soul, nothing elevated and generous in this degraded heart. It engenders disgust of prayer, of virtue, of all duties, of God Himself. It makes charity die within the soul, and substitutes for it a cruel egotism which has no bowels of compassion, kills hope, which it replaces by the desire of annihilation, and destroys even faith, the pure doctrine of which is incompatible with corruption of the heart (Ps. xiii. 1). Lastly, of all the vices, once the habit of it is contracted, it is the most incurable. Can there then be anything more dreadful for man than impurity? Is it thus that we detest it?
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.