"But I am so much afraid of taking pleasure in it!"
"That very fear is a proof that it displeases you, for we are not afraid of that which pleases us. We are not terrified except by what displeases us, just as we can only enjoy what is good or has the appearance of being good.
"If you were able all the time to look upon temptation as an evil it cannot have pleased you."
"Still, is it wrong to find pleasure in thinking of what is sinful?" "If this pleasure is felt before we reflect that the thing is evil it is of no consequence, since voluntary malice and consent are needed to make this pleasure a sin."
"How shall we know whether or not we have yielded this consent?" "Assuredly, it is difficult to define the nature of voluntary consent. This difficulty gave rise to the saying of the Psalmist, Who can understand sins?[1]
"This, too, is why he prays to be delivered from his secret faults, that is to say, from sins which he cannot easily discern."
I will, however, on this subject give you another excellent lesson which I learned from our Blessed Father.
"When you are doubtful," he said to me, "whether or not you have consented to evil, always take the doubt for a negative, and for this reason. A true and full consent of the will is necessary to form a real grave sin, there being no sin in what is not voluntary. Now full consent is so clear that there can never be left in the mind a shadow of doubt about its having taken place."
This plain teaching surely cuts the gordian knot of our perplexities.
[Footnote 1: Psalm xviii. 13.]