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Dear Father Angelo,

I really appreciate your contribution on the web. I wanted to ask you two questions to clarify some doubts.

1. It happened to me, clearly because I did not guard my senses well enough or because I did not push back the pleasure for creatures instead of fulfilling God’s Will, to gradually  get infatuated with a girl, although I had long since decided to become a priest. However, even though I suffered from nostalgia and other similar feelings, I did penance, even corporal penance, to submit my infatuation to my priestly vocation. In fact, since I do not love this person, but wish for her good, just as I hope for everyone, it is convenient for me to do my best rather than just the good. Can you tell me how can I suppress these motions permanently, and what sin is this? How bad is it? I am sure it is sin, because I felt the emotion at the height of my belly, as if it was spiritual indigestion.

2. What does mortification of the senses practically consist of? I know that I must guard and placate my appetite for pleasures, by controlling them rather than eliminating them. Can you give me some practical examples? And when mortification becomes very hard due to many spiritual and corporal penances, or because one is constantly in an inner and outer solitude, is it preferable to continue with tenacity, or to ease the burden? In fact, sometimes I feel like I must solve an extreme dilemma: either the cross or the noose around my neck, either the way of Jesus or the way of Judas. Many times, I seem to take the Christian way, others the traitor’s way. I  look forward to your precious answer. Thank you.

Answer from the priest

Dear Marco,

1. I am happy that the Lord has fixed his eyes on you and has loved you with a preferential love, by inspiring your vocation.

2. Vocation, as indeed faith, is a very precious treasure that the Lord has placed in our hearts and that resembles an earthen vessel (2 Cor 4:7), easy, therefore, to break if it is not well guarded. That is why Saint Peter says: “Therefore, brothers, be all the more eager to make your call and election firm, for, in doing so, you will never stumble.” (2 Pet 1:10).

3. Not safeguarding one’s own vocation by letting oneself to be driven by feelings is certainly an ungrateful behaviour towards God and therefore a sin. Even for those who are certain that they have received their vocation  and  have not become priests or have not been ordained yet, it is recommended to apply the  advice that John Paul II addressed to priests about fidelity to one’s own calling: “Keeping one’s word is, at one and the same time, a duty and a proof of the priest’s inner maturity. (…). It is shown in all its clarity when this keeping one’s promise to Christ, (…), encounters difficulties, is put to the test, or is exposed to temptation—all things that do not spare the Priest, any more than they spare any other Christian.”

4. Making our call ever more steadfast means rekindling the wonder and fascination felt when the calling was first perceived.

And we can only do this by seeking support in prayer, which means in union with Jesus, in being with Him, in trying to  listen to His word  through silent and mutual love. Without the rekindling of this fascination and beauty one remains exposed to all kinds of infatuation.

5. Convinced that our vocation and priesthood are exposed to continual temptations we must be careful not to betray our first love, that for Our Lord.

This requires an attitude of humility, being aware of the possibility of making a shipwreck as we have seen it in many other people.

We must never feel too secure even when friendships are spiritual.

6. And we must also be aware that the Lord, who is the sovereign King over everything, even over the motions of the heart, allows infatuations and temptations so that in the trial we may renew our commitment with an ever purer and ever more tenacious love.

As in marriage, fidelity is sometimes subjected to a test similar to a trial by fire, so it also happens several times in the history of one’s vocation.

God has the right  to require from us a response of increasing fidelity in the various trials through a  more prolonged prayer and greater circumspection.

That is how the sincerity and purity of our vocation is rekindled and preserved.

7. As regards the degree of sin you have committed; I do not feel like casting a judgment. It is sufficient that you have exposed all this to your confessor and have regained the fervour of your vocation.

8. You asked me to say a word about the mortification of the senses.

With regard to mortification, first of all, it must be said that it is not a matter of considering evil what God has given us as a gift., but rather of being warned about the inclinations of our heart, which after the original sin are not perfectly healthy.

Instead, they are inclined to evil, to that threefold concupiscence of which Saint John speaks in 1 Jn 2:16: the attractiveness of riches, of the flesh and of the pride of mind.

9. It would be too long to speak about the circumspection we must have on these three combat fronts.

However, I think I am getting to the heart of the matter if I quote a statement by Clement of Alexandria, a Church father who lived at the turn of the second and third centuries: “For those that do all that is lawful, quickly fall into doing what is unlawful.” (The Paedagogus, book II, chapter 1).

10. So learn to control yourself with food, with entertainment, with conversations, and with reading….

It is not sufficient to say: there is no sin, so let’s move on.

Always ask yourself: “Is it appropriate? Is it conducive to my sanctification and that of my neighbor? Is it the narrow gate of which the Lord speaks in the Gospel?

In the ordinary circumstances of life, we can figure out whether we are exaggerating in one way or the other.

11. If, on the other hand, it is a matter of corporal mortifications that go beyond what the Church asks in its penitential dispositions, such as fasting, sleep deprivation and other corporal practices, never do it on your own, but always speak with your confessor and follow his instructions.

In fact, you make more progress by being obedient, which is a sacrifice especially pleasing to God, than by doing things in which pride can be hidden.

Wishing you a blessed progress in your vocation, I remember you to the Lord and bless you.

Father Angelo