Thomas of Cantimpré, OP (1202-1272) recounts that during his time in Brabant, a pious and penitent maiden was courted by a dissolute young man. So intense was the passion that this young man stirred in her heart that she could not banish him from her thoughts or desires. With all his cunning, he gradually succeeded in persuading her and leading her toward dishonor. This young lady resisted at first, particularly increasing her prayers and penances to conquer the temptation, but ultimately yielded to her passions to the point of forsaking her love for God in favor of her passion for this man, and she accepted the sinful proposal he made to her.

So, one night, cautiously and without anyone noticing, she descended the stairs barefoot and went out to meet this young man who was waiting for her to have a sinful encounter with her. How could it be if she was a good Christian? Indeed, she was a person of prayer and penance, however, she could not resist the temptation. Why did her penances and prayers not help her to resist the temptation? 

What happened to her is not something extraordinary but rather something that we can often experience as well.  We want to be good Christians, however, our passions are stronger than our spiritual desires and when we are not able to resist the temptations, we fall into sin. Why are our penances and prayers not effective against those temptations?

Although there is more than one answer to this question, I would like to mention something that usually happens in our spiritual life and could have been the reason that she did not resist the temptation: lack of conversion.

Conversion means to stop committing sins but it also means leaving behind, or renouncing, the affection for sin.  This seems to have been the girl’s problem in the story because although she increased her penances and prayers, her passion for him continued.   She did not purify her passion by those penances and prayers and therefore she did not detach herself from that disordered affection. So, the affection for him continued in her heart and in the end she chose her passion rather than her holy desires.

If our penances and prayers do not help us to detach ourselves from the affection for sin, they will not be effective for our conversion. If we continue to desire to perform sinful actions, and the only reason we avoid them is because of the punishment which is the consequence of those actions, then this means that we still love sin, which further means that we are not detached from our disordered affection for sin and thus our heart is not converted. A good way to examine our heart is to ask ourselves: if this were not a sinful action, would I do it? If the answer is yes, it means that I have an affection for sin and I need to work on purifying this.