For those earnestly striving to enrich their spiritual lives, The School of Christian Perfection serves as an invaluable resource charting a course to Heaven. In this excerpt, St. Alphonsus explains how to discern if you have consented to a sinful thought or temptation.
With regard to evil thoughts, there may be a twofold delusion. God-fearing souls who have little or no gift of discernment, and are inclined to scruples, think that every wicked thought that enters their mind is a sin. This is a mistake, for it is not the wicked thoughts in themselves that are sins, but the yielding or consenting to them. The wickedness of mortal sin consists in the perverse will which deliberately yields to sin with a complete knowledge of its wickedness and with full consent. And therefore St. Augustine teaches that when the consent of the will is absent, there is no sin. However much we may be tormented by temptations, the rebellion of the senses, or the inordinate motions of the inferior part of the soul, as long as there is no consent, there is no sin.
For the comfort of such anxious souls, let me suggest a good rule of conduct that is taught by all masters in the spiritual life. If a person who fears God and hates sin doubts whether he has consented to an evil thought or not, he is not bound to confess it, because it is morally certain that he has not given consent. For had he actually committed a mortal sin he would have no doubt about it, as mortal sin is such a monster in the eyes of one who fears God that its entrance into the heart could not take place without its being known.
Others, on the contrary, whose conscience is lax and not well-informed, think that evil thoughts and desires, though consented to, are not sins provided they are not followed by sinful actions. This error is worse than the one mentioned above. What we may not do, we may not desire. Therefore an evil thought or desire to which we consent comprises in itself all the wickedness of an evil deed. As sinful actions separate us from God, so wicked thoughts rob us of His grace. “Perverse thoughts separate us from God,” says the Book of Wisdom (1:3).
From what has been said, it follows that not all evil thoughts are sinful and not all sinful thoughts are equal in malice. We must therefore distinguish between an evil thought that is a mortal sin, one that is venial, and one that is no sin at all. With regard to sins of thought, three things are to be taken into consideration: enticement, pleasure and consent. By enticement, or allurement, is meant the first thought that prompts us to commit the sin suggested to our senses. This enticement or suggestion is no sin; indeed, if it is rejected at once by the will it becomes a source of merit. “As often as you resist temptation,” says St. Antoninus, “so often do you merit a crown.”
Even the Saints were tormented by such thoughts. To overcome a temptation of impurity St. Benedict rolled himself in a bed of thorns, and St. Peter of Alcantara plunged into the ice-cold water of a pond. St. Paul tells us he was tempted against holy purity! “And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me, there was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me. For which thing thrice I besought the Lord, that it might depart from me. And he said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee: for power is made perfect in infirmity.” (2 Cor. 12:7–9).
“When a thief is trying to break in a door,” says St. Francis de Sales, “it is a sign he is not yet in the house. So, too, when the devil continues to tempt a soul it is a sign that soul is still in the grace of God.” St. Catherine of Siena was once violently assaulted by the devil for the space of three days with temptations against holy purity. When Our Lord appeared to her to comfort her she cried out: “Ah my Saviour, where hast Thou been these three days?” Jesus answered: “I was in your heart, and it was I who gave you strength to resist those temptations.” Our Lord then gave her to understand that her heart was purer after the assault than before.
Next to the enticement comes the pleasure. If the temptation is not rejected at once, a certain pleasure is experienced, and this it is that hurries one on to consent. As long as the will does not fully acquiesce, there is no mortal sin; at most it is venial. But if instant recourse is not had to God and every effort made to resist the temptation, the will is very apt to yield full consent and fall into grievous sin. A certain woman who was regarded as a saint was tempted one day by an evil thought. Failing to reject it at once, she became guilty of grievous sin. From false shame she neglected to confess the sinful thought she had yielded to, and shortly after, died. Now the Bishop of the place had considered her a saint, and accordingly he had her buried in his own chapel. On the following day the unfortunate soul appeared to him and declared that, owing to a sinful thought to which she had consented, she was eternally lost.
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This article is taken from a chapter in The School of Christian Perfection by St. Alphonsus Liguori which is available from TAN Books.
