On overcoming. St. Augustine teaches, ““When the unlawful pleasure of concupiscence tempts you, fight, resist, do not consent; and the saying is fulfilled, Go not after thy desires.”

Still further, he says elsewhere that of two persons who have the same temptation to impurity, it sometimes happens that one consents to it and the other resists; and why? because, he says, one wills to observe chastity, the other wills not: “If both are tempted by the same (mark the word same) temptation, and one yields and consents to it, while the other perseveres; what else is shown, but that one willed to fail, the other willed not to fail in chastity?”2700

“Our will would be no will at all if it were not in our own power; for that is not free to us which we have not in our power.”

Also and importantly, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on Victory Over Vice. “As the appeal to the spiritual relaxes, the demands of the flesh increase”.

The Times

“Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.“— Isa.5:20

A spiritual war goes on in our flesh which is why our fathers chastised their bodies: “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires”.

Galatians: “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. ¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: ^[a]adultery, ^[b]fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, ²¹ envy, ^[c]murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, Patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. ²⁴

 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵ If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

~~`