“Oh, if only I could control my thoughts!” It is not too much to say that there is hardly anything which causes good people more distress than this fact that they feel that they are not masters in their own house. “My thoughts,” they think quite truly, “are my real self; if I cannot control them, it means that there is a traitor in the inmost citadel of my soul.”

There are two special ways in which this failure to control our thoughts is most obvious and most distressing. The first is that our thoughts wander when we try to pray. That difficulty is dealt with in Tract No. 33, “I can’t say my Prayers.” But for many people there is another trouble which seems harder to bear still: and that is the continual surging into their minds of thoughts which are positively harmful and corrupting. They may be thoughts of envy and jealousy and ill-will, or thoughts of pride; or, again, they may be impure imaginations and lusts. Sometimes, indeed, these two forms of lack of control are combined, and the time when we kneel down to say our prayers turns out to be a time of conflict with the devil, or even of shameful surrender.

Now, when people look back on a failure of this kind, they say to themselves, “Is it really possible that it was who occupied my thoughts in such a way? I who so truly desire to give myself to God, did I really immerse myself [1/2] like that in what I knew to be utterly hateful to him? However could I do it? It almost seems as though I were several different people all
at once, and sometimes one comes to the top, and sometimes another. I wonder which is the real I?”

Precisely. That is exactly what is wrong. I am not one, but many. Part of me is pure animal. Part of me is cave-man. Part of me is self-seeking human. Part of me is combative. But part is also loving and protective. And part is akin to God. Any one of these sets of impulses by itself might work out into a creature of some nobleness; it is the mixture that produces such conflict and instability. If I were pure animal I should not think at all. My impulses would be instincts, and would work automatically. It is because I am partly animal and partly rational that I get thinking about my animal instincts, and so inflame and exaggerate them. All the different parts of my complicated self get working against each other, and there is much noise and friction, and damage is done. I am like an engine in which a screw has worked loose. My nature has ceased to work harmoniously towards a single object. In fact, it would not be far from the truth to say, that I, like most other people, have a screw loose somewhere. Certainly it is impossible to give any rational account of the way I behave. My outward conduct may seem sane and orderly enough. But my thoughts!

And it is very little good telling me that I ought to control myself. Who am I? What is myself? I just can’t, and that is the end of the [2/3] matter. You talk about my will, but it is exactly my will that is enslaved. St. Paul knew all about this when he cried, “The good that I would I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do. ... O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?” I am not one, but many, and this will which ought to be in control is at the mercy of inconsistent motives and desires. It is like a circus-rider trying to ride four horses at once, and failing.

“Who shall deliver me? ... I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” In Christ we may hope for deliverance from slavery. For in Christ alone is human nature as it ought to be, controlled by God. We need, as he himself taught us, to be regenerated, born anew, by his Spirit. The Spirit is really free, blowing, or breathing, where he will. “So is everyone that is born of the Spirit”: free as the wind. We who have been baptised, born of water and the Spirit, have the secret of freedom within ourselves, if we could but use it. We do not need to embark on the impossible task of acquiring self-control: we have to give ourselves up to be controlled by the Holy Ghost who dwells within us. So we find unity within ourselves and peace.

“Well, that’s all very fine,” you may say, but I want to know how to get rid of these bad thoughts, whether impure, or jealous, or spiteful, which are spoiling my life.”

Now, to begin with, very often these thoughts are not sins at all, but merely temptations to sin. Very likely we ought still to be ashamed of them, for they may be the result of giving way [3/4] to sin in the past. They may be, but again they may not. Many of the saints have had a dreadful time with temptations of this kind. We must not expect to win our crown without a struggle. There is no sin in any kind of thought, however vile, until we give way to it, until—that is to say, our will consents to it.

But only too often we know that our will does consent, and then we do well to be ashamed. Even then, we must remember that we must not measure the real shamefulness of a sin of thought by the amount of shame we naturally feel when we come to ourselves and see that it was wrong. It is easy to feel shame about unclean thoughts. It is not so easy to feel it about uncharitable ones. Yet in the sight of God these are at least as evil as the others.

“Still,” you say, “you have not told me what to do about it.”

No, but I will.

I. Try to get it fixed firmly in your mind that you belong to God. You are not only his creature, but, as a Christian, his very temple, consecrated to his service by Holy Baptism, ennobled and sanctified by Holy Communion. In every prayer-time renew the dedication of yourself. Fix your intention and purpose firmly on the side of God, and conceive a real horror of letting it stray away from him. Make acts of self-dedication again and again.

2. Pray about it. But do not be content with saying, “O God, give me purity: give me love.” You must do this, of course; but it is even more, important to pray, “O God, keep me safe now, in this moment of temptation.” If you know [4/5] that you are likely to be tempted, pray that you may have grace to resist on this particular occasion. If, for instance, you know that you are often tempted to bad thoughts at night, pray against them earnestly just before you go to bed and lie down with the might of God’s protecting presence all round you. And school yourself to lift your heart to him at once as soon as ever you feel temptation coming on.

3. Do not parley with the enemy. It is your only chance. If you can take the thought of God into your heart and keep it there instead of the bad thought, so much the better. But most of us unfortunately find that the bad thought is at the moment more attractive to us than the thought of God. Therefore we must be prepared with some other train of thought which is interesting and attractive, and use it to entice our wayward fancies away from thoughts of evil. It matters not at all what it is, so long as it is innocent and interesting. Some people are really more interested in football than anything else in the world. Well, then, let them imagine themselves the heroes of a match.

Other people will find relief in thinking out a chess problem, others in planning out gardens more gorgeous than those of the Hesperides. Anything will do, so long as it gets your mind off the temptation.

4. Avoid temptation. Remember that your
passions are terribly inflammable, and that therefore you have to be careful about going
too near the fire. In plain language, there are books you must not read, plays and revues you must not see; magazines you must not look at, [5/6] films you must avoid. These things can instil poison into the soul which will damage and weaken it for years. It is no business of yours to judge authors or painters, readers or audiences. You know what is safe for you and what is dangerous: and knowing your own weakness you dare not run into unnecessary temptation.

5. Never despair. If you have got into the habit of bad thoughts, you may not be able to break it off all in a moment. So long as you hate them, and determine by God’s grace never again to give way to them, there is no irreparable damage done. And a Catholic has always at hand the wonderful remedy of Confession and Absolution. Even if we have fallen into the vilest thoughts of hatred or of lust, there is always waiting for us, not only forgiveness, but a new start. And it is true for all of us, some more, some less, that perseverance in the Christian life depends, as far as we are concerned, on our having the courage to make a new start again, and then again, and then just this once more.