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ASPIRATION: O Mary, through thy Immaculate Conception, keep my body pure and my soul holy.
(300 days indulgence.) [326]

PRAYER: O Lord Jesus Christ, who hast said: "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God,"
grant me the grace of spotless chastity. Thou didst favor St. John with a special mark
of Thy friendship because of Thy great love for the holy virtue; let me practice
 this virtue according to my state that I, too, may be Thy special friend. I am sorry
for every fault committed against purity in the past; for every undisciplined thought,
for every evil word, for every sensual or impure action. For the future I promise that I
shall call upon Thy name and the name of Thy Immaculate Mother in every temptation
that assails me; I shall avoid every occasion of sin that might lead me to seek for sinful
gratification; I shall insist on chastity in word and deed from those around me; and I
shall mortify my body in order that it may be strengthened against the
assaults of evil desire. Moreover, I shall try to make some antonement for all the sin
that are committed against chastity in the world, which made Thy physical pain so great
in Thy bitter passion. I dedicate my life to the defense of this virtue, that the
Christian home may be defended and protected and that many souls may be saved from the
terrible condemnation that impurity must receive. O Mary, Immaculate Mother, inspire
in my heart thy own great love of the virtue of purity.


Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you clean the outside of the cup and
the dish, but within they are full
of robbery and uncleanness. Thou blind Pharisee! clean first the inside of the cup and
of the dish, that the outside, too, may be clean.

Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you are like whited
sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful but within are full of dead men's bones and of
all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear just to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy
and iniquity.
- Matthew 23: 25-28


TEMPERANCE

Temperance is defined as the virtue by which a man has the power to control his concupiscible
appetites, especially those that are appealed to through the sense of taste and the sense of touch
Concupiscible appetites are man's appetites for sense pleasure. The two strongest sense
pleasures that are within the experience of man are those related to the preservation of his body,
enjoyed through eating and drinking, and those related to the preservation of the race, enjoyed
through the relationships of sex.

The virtue of chastity, is, therefore, a species of temperance, but since it has been treated in a
special examen, the present one will confine itself to temperance in eating and drinking. Just as
in matters pertaining to sex there is lawful and unlawful indulgence in sense pleasure, so in
eating and drinking. God created the appetites and pleasures connected with eating and drinking and
the objects that satisfy them, so that man would have an added incentive for preserving his life
by taking nourishment. When the pleasure of eating and drinking is not separated from the purpose
of self-preservation, and not contrary to it by being harmful to either body or soul, then it is
morally good.

Opposed to temperance in this restricted sense are the sins of gluttony and drunkenness. These
have always been pre-eminently pagan vices, from the time of the ancient

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