Originally published at The Catholic Thing
Quite certainly you command me to refrain from concupiscence of the flesh and concupiscence of the eyes and worldly pride. You commanded me to abstain from fornication, and recommended a course even better than the marital union you have sanctioned; and because you granted me the grace, this was the course I took even before I was ordained as a dispenser of your sacraments.
Yet in my memory, of which I have spoken at length, sexual images survive, because they were imprinted there by former habit. While I am awake, they suggest themselves feebly enough, but in dreams with power to arouse me not only to pleasurable sensations but even to consent, to something closely akin to the act they represent. So strongly does the illusory image in my mind affect my body that these unreal figments influence me in sleep in a way that the reality could never do while I am awake. Surely this cannot mean that I am not myself while asleep, O Lord my God? Yet the moment of passing from wakefulness to sleep or back again certainly marks a great change in me. What becomes then of my reason, which enables me to resist these
