On the topic of desire, a spiritual vision remains indispensable because it shows that action is not the result of chance, but requires a plan, and that indeed the difficulties and unexpected events of life are precious and carry within themselves a teaching that must be gathered because show a possible path to recognize. Fatigue, suffering and trials do not in themselves say that it is useless to desire, but that everything has a price, and that it is important to know what to invest your life in. Unforeseen events have often helped the saints to clarify and materialize their plans; s. Ignatius comes to give life to a new order following setbacks that do not allow him to realize his desire: to live permanently in the Holy Land. The flexibility with which he faces these obstacles is noteworthy; with humility he questions his project and decides to make himself available to the Pope. Those who know how to listen to the voice of the Spirit recognize that great things in life often arise from unexpected or random events which however weigh the depth of desire.

The atrophy of desire does not even spare the spiritual life. It too is in fact crossed by the temptation of the alternative: better a life that is dull, boring but safe from risks, safe, calm and orderly, than a life that is bright, colorful but frightening, because one does not know where it leads, and in whose rules and values ​​could sooner or later collapse or lose credibility. Abbot A. Louf recognizes that this discomfort has profoundly affected spiritual life: «The classic treatises on morality or ascetics and mysticism addressed the problem in a necessarily abstract manner. 

Desires, temptations, tendencies were described, classified. An attempt was made to regulate them within prescriptions and prohibitions, and these were sometimes also "priced" according to the severity, which was sometimes also called "perversity". Real cases were rarely dealt with, which would have been very complex and inconvenient. Until a very recent era, the parts of moral treatises considered most delicate were written solely in Latin, so everyday words were seen as absolutely inappropriate for describing certain facts."

These objections, however, do not lead to the conclusion that desire and spiritual life are irreconcilable, but that intelligence is also necessary in this fundamental field of life: desire, like any other reality, presents itself in an ambiguous way, it can certainly lead to evil but , as seen in previous articles, it originally presents itself as a desire for good. Denying the desire does not guarantee against harm, because fear and denial end up strengthening rather than attenuating these dynamics. 

The task is rather to learn to read the desire, to decipher the symbolic significance that characterizes it: «If the desires sometimes present themselves in somewhat strange forms or lead to behaviors that clearly have some connection with the so-called sin, it is simply because they are not well "in order", it is because they are "badly ordered" (Bernard would say). Now, the set of desires cannot be ordered and put in place - we could also say: "structured" - if not by love. Only true love orders desires. 

And, if the majority of people, not to say almost all, suffer from desires that they consider "disordered", it is because we are more or less wounded beings, handicapped by love" (Louf).

Of course, it is not easy to know the truth of one's desires, because desire draws on the profound reality and mystery that we are, first and foremost on ourselves. Knowing your desire is, however, the first step to living it in freedom: rather than approving or condemning it, it is a matter of finding out the truth about it, educating it and recognizing its teaching for life. 

In fact, every activity has a pleasure proportionate to it, and when it is carried out in an orderly way it brings pleasure: it can be a manual activity, study, sport, a relationship... Desire, when it finds an adequate expression, manifests what St. Augustine called "ordo amoris", whose characteristic is circularity, that is, being the cause and effect of love: the purification of desire becomes energy and knowledge aroused by love and these in turn allow love to be ordered, loving the object in proportion to its importance. It is the expression of a balanced and free love, the love of charity, the only one capable of involving the whole person.