Some Important Pieces of Advice for the Time of Temptation

WE have mentioned remedies enough for temptations;

but however many we mention, it is impossible to enumerate them all. Bodily ailments and their remedies are so many and so different that they cannot be put in writing, nor all taught, but much must be left to the decision and judgment of the medical man, that he may apply the remedy which he thinks proper in view of the particular circumstances of the subject; and so it is also in spiritual ailments. Therefore the saints and masters of spiritual life lay it down for a general and very main remedy for all temptations to discover and manifest them to the spiritual physician. But there is one piece of advice which St. Basil gives us in this matter. He says that, as bodily ailments are not discovered to anybody and everybody, but only to physicians whose business it is to cure them, so temptations and spiritual ailments are not to be discovered to all, but only to those whom God has appointed physicians for this purpose, namely, superiors and confessors, according to the saying of St. Paul: We who are stronger ought to bear the infirmities of the weak (Rom. xv. 1). And our rule tells us to have recourse in these matters to the prefect of spiritual things or the confessor or the superior.

This advice is of more importance than, perhaps, some people think. It happens sometimes that one has no mind to discover his temptations to him to whom he ought, and goes and discovers them to someone to whom he ought not, to one, perhaps, to whom he will do harm by discovering them, besides getting harm himself. It may be that the other has the same temptation and weakness; and thus both parties are the more confirmed in it. For this and for other awkward consequences that may ensue, it is very desirable that temptations and spiritual ailments be made known only to spiritual physicians, whose business it is to cure and remedy them, and about whom you may be sure that no harm will be done and benefit will be derived. And so says the Wise Man: Reveal not thy heart to every man (Ecclus. viii. 22): Be on friendly terms with many, but let thy counselor be one in a thousand (Ecclus. vi. 6).

They give another piece of advice also of much importance for time of temptation, that we should take care at such times to keep up our spiritual exercises and persevere in them with diligence, and greatly beware of leaving them out or cutting them short; because, though the devil gain nothing else by the temptation but to undo us on this point, he will have effected a great deal and reckon himself well paid. Then is the time rather to lengthen out these exercises and to add to them rather than to curtail them; for if the devil wrests out of our grasp the spiritual arms wherewith we defend ourselves and attack him, it is clear that he will attain his purpose over us all the more easily. Therefore it is most desirable that we should be faithful to God our Lord in times of temptation, and therein His true Servants are known. It is not much to persevere in our pious exercises in a fair season with plenty of devotion; but to persevere through storms, temptations, aridities, and desolations is matter of high praise; it is a great sign of true love, and of one who serves God purely for what He is.

A third piece of advice is that in time of temptation one should greatly be on one’s guard against making any change or taking new resolutions, for the season is ill-suited for that. In troubled water one sees nothing; let it settle and run clear, and then you will see the pebbles and sands that there are at the bottom. When one is troubled and disturbed by temptation, he cannot well see what befits him. And therefore it is not a good time to deliberate and resolve and determine upon any new project. Let the temptation pass; and when you are quite calm and self-possessed, then you will see better what you ought to do. All the masters of spiritual life insist on this advice; and our Father puts it in his Book of Exercises in the Rules for the Discernment of Spirits. And he gives a good reason therefore: as in time of consolation one is carried and moved by God towards good, so in temptation one is carried and instigated by the devil, at whose instigation no good is ever done.

In the fourth place, it is necessary that in time of temptation we should be careful to make good use of the remedies aforesaid and not fold our arms and be remiss, as will be understood from the following example. It is related in the Lives of the Fathers that there was a monk much molested by the spirit of fornication; and, desiring to get rid of the molestation, he went to one of the approved Fathers of the Desert and said to him feelingly: “Do, venerable father, spend some care and solicitude on me, and beg God to support me, because the spirit of fornication presses heavily upon me.” When the holy old man heard this, he thenceforth entreated God day and night to do something for him. Some days passed, and the monk returned to the father and begged him to pray for him more earnestly, since the temptation stuck to him without mitigation. The father then renewed his supplications to the Lord, sighing and groaning with much insistence, begging the Divine Majesty to strengthen the monk. Again and again the monk returned to him, telling him that his prayers were doing no good; at which the old man was much distressed and marveled that God did not hear him. As he was harassed with this thought, the Lord revealed to him the following night what the reason was why He did not hear him; it was the monk’s own negligence and want of determination in his resistance. This was the revelation. He saw that monk seated at his ease, and before him the spirit of fornication, assuming various forms and features of women, playing and making faces, and the monk looking on, taking much pleasure therein; he saw also the angel of the Lord standing by, in great indignation at the monk because he did not get up and have recourse to the Lord, prostrate himself on the earth and pray, and leave off taking delight in those thoughts. Thereby the good old man understood the reason why God did not hear him; it was the monk’s own negligence. So the first time that he came back to see him, he said: “It is your own fault, brother, that God does not hear me, inasmuch as you take delight in those evil thoughts. It is impossible for the foul spirit of fornication to depart from you, however much others may entreat God on your behalf, unless you yourself put yourself to the pains of much fasting, praying, and watching, begging God with sighs and prayers to grant you His favor and mercy, and strength to resist evil thoughts. Although physicians administer all necessary medicines to sick people and give them with all care and diligence, small good will it do them if the patients on their side go on eating unwholesome things. In like manner in the maladies of the soul, although the venerable fathers, who are the physicians of the soul, pray with all the intensity of their hearts to God for those who ask the aid of their prayers, small good will those physicians do if the persons who are tempted do not exercise themselves in spiritual works, saying prayers, fasting, and doing other works agreeable to God.” When the monk heard this, he repented with all his heart, and henceforth followed the counsel of the good old man and afflicted himself with fasts, watchings, and prayers, and so deserved the mercy of the Lord and was rid of his temptation. In this way we must behave in temptations, doing what is to be done on our part and taking the means that we ought to take, for in this way the Lord wishes to give us the victory.

And since this resistance to temptations may be greater or less, we should not be satisfied with resisting anyhow, but try to do it in the best way possible. In the chronicles of St. Francis it is related that the Lord showed a great servant of His, a religious of that order named Brother John of Auvergne, the different ways the religious behaved against temptations, especially carnal thoughts. He saw a countless multitude of devils, incessantly shooting arrows at the servants of God. Some of these arrows flew back at the devils who shot them, and they fled away yelling in terror. Others of these arrows shot by the devils hit the religious, but fell at once to the ground without doing them any harm. Others entered the flesh as far as the iron head, and others pierced the body from side to side. According to this vision, then, the best way of resisting, and the way we should aim at, is the first, wounding the devil with the very temptations and arrows wherewith he tries to wound us, and making him take to flight. And this we shall do very well when we draw profit from the temptations wherewith the devil thinks to injure us, as when from the temptations of pride and vanity which the devil brings up we draw greater humiliation and shame; and when from temptation to impurity we draw greater abhorrence of that vice and greater love for chastity, learning to walk with greater recollection and fervor and to have more recourse to God. St. Augustine on those words: The dragon whom thou hast created to sport with him (Psalm ciii. 26), says that the servants of God make sport of this dragon, to catch and ensnare him with the same net wherewith he sought to ensnare us, according to that saying of the Royal Prophet: In the snare that they laid for me, their own foot is caught (Psalm ix. 16). Let the trap catch him that he had set hidden for another, and let him fall into his own snare (Psalm xxxiv. 8). Coming for wool, let him go back shorn. Let the evil that he desires return upon his own head, and let his iniquity discharge itself on the top thereof (Psalm Wil th).

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