Catholic speaker Jason Evert joins Cy Kellett to counsel a caller who recently entered the Catholic Church and is striving to live a chaste life. But the caller struggles with memories of past relationships and the grip of old temptations. Jason offers a compassionate, practical response: temptation isn’t a sign of failure but an invitation to grow in grace. Drawing on spiritual wisdom and his years of experience in chastity ministry, Jason explains how to turn moments of struggle into powerful opportunities for prayer, intercession, and inner peace.
Transcript:
Caller: So I just wanted to ask a general question about advice for someone who’s been living a chaste life for a couple of months since fully converting back to the Catholic faith, daily communion and all that, but still dealing with the attachment on the heart to previous relationships before the conversion.
Jason: Yeah, good. Good question. The detachment to sin. I know, Cy, that you’ve completely finished that part of your life, right? So you’re totally detached from it. I appreciate you noticing, Jason. Thank you. You kind of had a glow about you.
I bring this to jest because this is gonna be something that’s gonna be a part of your life one way or the next, until we’re dead. A lot of people think if I get really, really holy, the temptations are gonna go away, and that’s a sign of how much I’m growing in holiness.
I had a bishop on my podcast a while back, Bishop Eric Varden. This guy is a bishop in Norway, and he’s a monk. He shared this awesome story of the early church fathers. There was a bishop—I know, there was an abbot—of a monastery out in the early church fathers in the desert.
At that monastery was a young monk who struggled with a lot of temptations, like, really bad, consistent temptations of a sexual nature. The young monk finally came to the elderly monk and said, “This is what’s going on in my interior life. It’s just so consistent and persistent and difficult.”
The elderly monk was a bit of a prude, and he was just aghast that he would even struggle with these temptations in the flesh. He just shamed the young monk, saying, “Oh, you know, this is just proof that you are not fit for the habit to be a monk. You should just scuttle off and go to Alexandria and just give up the monastic life.”
The young man was just distraught but realized, “Yeah, that’s what I thought anyway, because I’m such an evil person for having these temptations to begin with.” He started walking to Alexandria, which is like the flesh pot of the early church. It’s like going to the red light district in Amsterdam or Vegas or whatever.
On his way there, this young monk ran into an elderly monk who was returning from a journey to the monastery. The older monk recognized him and asked, “Well, where are you going?” The young monk explained the situation. The older one said, “No, no, no, you come with me.”
He brought him back to the monastery, and together they prayed outside of the cell of the elderly monk. The monk, who was now with the young one, said, “Oh God, Holy Spirit, please visit this stupid old monk,” and basically prayed that the old monk would receive the temptations that the young monk had been struggling with.
All of a sudden, the elderly monk came running out of his cell screaming, giving up his own vocation and heading off to Alexandria himself. The older monk stopped him and said, “No, no, no, you don’t need to give up your vocation. Maybe the devil never thought it was necessary to tempt you in this manner because you were so lukewarm in your faith to begin with. So he just left you as it was.”
But the sign of the presence of temptation is a sign that God is allowing a soul to be tested because He knows that He can supply for you the grace to make these little temptations, these thorns, turn that into a crown for your own glory.
And so when thoughts of affections come back, whether it’s flashbacks of a previous physical relationship or pornographic images, addictions—like whatever comes to mind—instead of just trying to not think about it, saying, “I’m not gonna think about it,” or wallowing in shame or thinking, “The devil’s got you now,” I want you to stop and just do a prayer of thanksgiving to God for bringing you out of that lifestyle.
So thank you, God. It’s like your first movement of your heart is up: “Thank you, God.” But then you can kind of turn down, like the sign of the cross kind of comes down and say, “But, God, you know, again, I’m sorry for the way that I’ve lived.”
But then don’t stay down there in shame. Come back up like the cross does. Take this temptation as a moment of intercession. Think about that person that’s coming to mind. “Lord, now I pray for her and the healing of her memories, and I pray for her conversion, and I pray for her future marriage and for her future husband.”
Now what you’re doing is kind of like a spiritual Tai Chi. That’s a mixed martial art where you use your opponent’s energy against them. So here comes this temptation, here comes this memory, here comes this affection of sin that’s in you. You’re going to stop, and you’re not going to get scrupulous. You’re not going to get into some cycle of shame and isolation.
You’re going to thank God for bringing you out of the lifestyle and then say, “Look, I’m sorry for doing that stuff, but God, now I’m going to pray a decade of the rosary for her.” If you are consistent in having this strategy towards that sin or that attachment to it, I think the devil will realize quickly it’s quite counterproductive for him to present these thoughts to you, because every time he does, you just turn it into an occasion of prayer.
So don’t be disturbed. Don’t lose your peace. Padre Pio once said, “Retain your peace because the enemy always likes to fish in troubled waters.” In other words, when we lose our peace through shame or despair or discouragement or lust or anger, the devil sees the troubled waters of our soul, and that’s where he wants to throw the bait: “What false consolation can I draw that person into temptation with?”
So try to fight for your own peace. When the thoughts come to mind, don’t lose your peace. Give that to God. Make a prayer of intercession. The frequency of these temptations is no indication whatsoever of your spiritual progress.
The measure of your spiritual progress is what you do when those temptations come, regardless of how often they come. The saints have said, “Let the enemy rage. Let him knock at the door. Know and be at peace. He cannot enter the door except through your consent.”
So be at peace. Use this as an opportunity for prayer, and you’ll be bringing grace into the life of those people in your past while retaining your peace in the process.
So, Anthony, does that help? Got any other follow-up questions on that?
Caller: No, that was absolutely perfect. No, thank you so much. That story was great. I needed to hear that, and that actionable advice is—I’ll definitely do that. Very easy to apply. Thank you.
Jason: Go dig up the episode on YouTube. Just type in my name, Jason Everett, and then Bishop Eric Varden. The podcast is called *Lust is Boring* because he tells the story way better than I do and just has a bunch of other great anecdotes he shares in there as well. So Bishop Eric Varden. He’s even got a book on chastity. He’s an awesome bishop.
Anthony, thanks. Thanks very much.