495 part iv: meditations for weekly retreats and every evil: your eyesight and hearing, which, as if a kind of amber, attract everything nearby; your sense of touch which is as a poisoned snake; your sense of taste, not the last enemy of purity; and the sense of smell, a dangerous obstacle for the same chaste mind. For you notice how much harm David’s prying eyes have done to him (cf. 2 Sam 11:1-12:23). May not the end to which the Mother of the human race was brought by desire to taste something escape your notice (cf. Gen 3:1-24). Do not forget howmany are exceedingly tormented by infernal punishments because of their unguarded ears; how many have been condemned because of their unrestrained hand; and how many were thrust into the stinking prison of hell because of the hurtful pleasure of smell. Consider these things and examine your conscience faithfully and constantly, and take action while there is still time for penance. 2. In the same vein, run through your mind the sins and faults against chastity that are committed both out of human negligence and by the divine permission. Sins are committed out of human negligence when a person makes little account of small things, which is very dangerous in this case. For he who scorns small things, as the Wise Man says, shall fall little by little into greater things (cf. Sir 19:1). Now the small things, of which one makes little account, are these: a restless gaze rushing in all directions; initial and small assaults of the evil spirits that are not countered and not zealously resisted; negligence of prayer; indulgence in idleness; a wandering mind without occupation. By God’s permission one falls into a sin against chastity: on account of pride (sometimes very slight) just as Eve sinned in Paradise when, overcome by the temptation to gluttony, she wanted to be like God. And very many other people sin every day because of grumbling, which also was the cause of the idolatry of the Jewish people; because of excessive confidence placed in one’s own strength to oppose the temptation of the flesh. Mostly such people sin this way, whom God’s grace rightly abandons on account of their
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