Chapter XXXI. Of the Devil's Deceits and Struggles to draw us away from the Path of Perfection

THE fourth deceit of the Evil One, as I have already mentioned, is to excite within us, when he sees us steadily advancing in holiness, sundry good desires, in order to lead us from the practice of virtues into wickedness.

A sick person, for instance, is bearing his illness all the while with a patient will. Our cunning adversary, knowing that the sick man may thus attain to the habit of patience, suggests at once to him how much good he might have done under different circumstances, and persuades him that in health he would have served God, and have benefited himself and others, to a greater extent. Having excited these thoughts within him, he goes on increasing them by degrees, till at last he makes him restless at not being able to carry these desires into good effect.

The keener and stronger such desires become the more this restlessness increases. Then, imperceptibly and artfully, the Enemy leads him on to impatience under his sickness, not on account of the sickness itself, but because of the hindrance the sickness becomes to those good works which the sick man so anxiously desires to perform for some greater good.

Having led him on thus far, with the same subtlety he withdraws from his mind the end he had in view, of serving God and doing good works, leaving only the bare desire to be cured of his sickness; and then, when this desire is not granted him, he is vexed, and becomes actually impatient about it. Thus, insensibly he falls from the virtue of which he was acquiring the habit, into the opposite vice.

This is the way to guard against and resist this snare. Be very careful not to allow, when in this state of trial, any desires or projects which you cannot at once carry into effect, and which on that account are likely to disturb you.

In this case resign yourself with all patience, humility, and resignation to the conviction that your desires may after all not have the effect which you supposed, inasmuch as you are weaker and more unstable than you thought yourself to be.

Or else think that perhaps God, in His secret counsels, or for your unworthiness, does not intend you to do this good work, but rather intends you to patiently humble and abase yourself under the loving and mighty hand of His Will.

In like manner, when your spiritual father hinders you, or some other cause, from such frequent attendance at your devotions, and especially the Holy Communion, as you would wish, do not allow yourself to be vexed and disturbed on that account, but give up entirely your own mind, and be clothed with the good pleasure of your Lord, and say—"If the eye of Divine Providence did not discover in me some ingratitude or defect, I should not now be debarred from receiving this most Holy Sacrament. I see that my Lord thus makes known to me my unworthiness, and therefore I will praise and bless His Name for ever. I am fully persuaded, O my Lord, that in Thy infinite Goodness Thou wilt grant me a heart open and ready to do all Thy good pleasure with resignation and obedience, and that Thou, coming to me spiritually, wilt comfort and strengthen it against all the enemies who would fain separate it from Thee. Thus may it be, as it seems good in Thy Sight. O my Creator and Redeemer, may Thy Will be now and evermore my food and support! This only do I ask of Thee, O my Beloved, that my soul, cleansed and purified from every thing that is displeasing in Thy Sight, and adorned with holy virtues, may be ever prepared for Thy coming, and for the performance of Thy Will, whatsoever it may be."

If you will bear in mind these warnings, know assuredly, that when baffled in any good which you had proposed to do—whether the hindrance be from your own nature, or from the Evil Spirit's endeavour to distress you and turn you aside from the path of holiness, or from God Himself for a trial of your submission to His Will—you will always find an opportunity of pleasing your Lord in some way most acceptable to Him. And in this lies that true devotion and service which God requires of us.

I caution you, further, lest you grow impatient under trials, from whatsoever source they spring, that, in using the lawful means which God's servants are wont to resort to, you do not employ them simply with the hope and desire of gaining relief, but because it is the Will of God that you should use them; for we know not whether it will please His Divine Majesty by this means to free us from our troubles. From any other way of acting you will fall into further evils; for if the thing did not turn out according to your mind and desire, you would easily grow impatient, or your patience would have some defect about it, and not be wholly pleasing to God, and would be of little worth.

Lastly, I would warn you against a hidden deceit of our self-love, which is wont under certain circumstances to excuse and justify our faults. Thus, for example, a sick man, who is very impatient under his affliction, conceals his impatience under the cloak of zeal for some apparent good. He says that his vexation does not arise from real impatience at the pain he has to suffer in consequence of the disease, but is a reasonable grief, because he has brought it upon himself, or else because others who wait on him are being worn out and injured.

Thus the ambitious man, who frets that he has failed to gain some honour, does not attribute his discontent to his own wounded pride, but to certain other causes, which he knows very well, at another time when they did not bring trouble upon himself, would give him no concern; so neither would the sick man care, if those about whom he has expressed so much sorrow for their fatigue on his behalf, had incurred the same amount of labour and hurt in waiting upon some one else. This is a clear proof that the root of such men's sorrow is not their concern for others, or for any thing else, but their dislike to have their own will thwarted.

Therefore, in order to escape this and other errors, bear with patience every trouble and sorrow, as I have told you, from whatever cause it may spring.