Chapter XXXVIII

Treats of the urgent need there is of begging the eternal Father to grant us the petition, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' Enumerates and explains some temptations which come from the devil.¹

1. By temptation is meant, not sufferings, but the snares of the devil. 2. Wiles of the evil one. 3. Humility our safeguard. 4. Fallacious virtues. 5. Their danger for ourselves and others. 6. Our virtues are unstable. 7. Humility is our safeguard. 8. Fictitious patience. 9. Imaginary poverty of spirit. 10. True and fancied poverty of spirit. 11. Religious poverty and care for the future. 12. The guard we must keep against deceptive virtues.

1. We must now think of and interpret these words as applying to sublime matters, since we are here praying for such graces. I feel convinced that souls which have arrived at this degree of perfection in prayer do not ask God to deliver them from trials or temptations, nor from persecutions and combats.² This is another unmistakable and noteworthy effect, showing that the contemplation and favours given to such people come from the Holy Ghost and are not illusions, for, as I said just now, these souls wish for and demand such troubles and love them instead of hating them. They are like soldiers — the more they fight, the better they like it, for thus they hope for a richer booty. When there is no war they live on their pay, but they know they will not grow rich on that. Believe me, sisters, the battle never comes soon enough for the soldiers of Christ. I allude to contemplatives, and people who practise prayer. They have little fear of open enemies, knowing them well already and being aware that such foes have little power against the strength given them by God through which they always gain the victory and come forth from the fray with great spoils and riches, so that they never beat a retreat. The foes they really dread — and it is well that they should dread them and should always pray God that they may be delivered from them — are those treacherous antagonists the devils, who transform themselves into angels of light. They come in disguise and do not let us find them out until they have wrought great harm to the soul. They suck our very life-blood and destroy our virtues, whilst we unwittingly are surrounded by temptations.

2. Let us constantly beg of God, daughters, in the Pater Noster, to deliver us, that we may not be deluded by their temptations, but that we may detect their poison and that light may not be withdrawn from us. What good cause has our kind Master to teach us to ask for this and to demand it Himself on our behalf! Consider in how many ways the evil spirits injure us. You must not suppose that it is only by persuading us that the sweetness and consolations they give us come from God.³ This seems to me the least harm they can do: it may even help some souls who, lured by the devotion they feel, will spend more time in prayer. Not knowing that the devil has a hand in it, they continually praise our Lord for having granted them favours which they did not deserve; they feel bound to serve Him more fervently and strive to prepare themselves to receive still further graces, supposing that these have come from His hand.

3. Always try to be humble, sisters; believe that you are unworthy of these gifts and do not seek them. I am convinced that in this way the evil one loses many a soul which he thought to have ruined, and that our Lord draws good out of the harm the fiend meant to work us, for His Majesty looks at our intention, which is to serve and please Him by keeping in His presence in prayer, and He is ever faithful. But we must be cautious, lest the enemy make a breach in our humility by vainglory: and we must beg God to preserve us from this. Then you need not fear, daughters, that He will allow any one but Himself to console you for long.

4. The evil one may secretly injure us seriously by making us believe that we have virtues which we do not possess — this is most pestilent.⁴ In consolations and favours we seem only recipients and therefore feel the more strictly bound to serve God; but this delusion makes us think that we render Him some gift and service which He is called upon to repay. By degrees, this damages us greatly, for while on the one hand it weakens our humility, on the other, we neglect to acquire the virtue we believe that we already own. Suspecting no evil (for we think we are safe), we fall into a ditch from which we cannot get out. For although there does not always appear to have been any evident mortal sin which would certainly drag us to hell, yet we are lamed, so that we cannot travel on the road I began to speak of (and which I have not forgotten). For how can any one walk after being plunged into a deep ditch? it would be the death of him — and it is fortunate if it does not reach down to hell. He can never make progress and in any case can do nothing but harm to himself and others. As long as the ditch remains, many travelling by the same road may fall into it, but if the man climbed out and filled it up with earth it could cause no damage to him or any one else.

5. I assure you this is a very dangerous temptation. I have had great experience of it, so that I can explain the matter, although not as well as I could wish. What remedy is there for it, sisters? That which our Master has taught us seems to me the best — to pray and to beseech the eternal Father not to suffer us to fall into temptation.

6. There is another temptation. When God gives us some virtue, we must understand that it is only a loan and that He may take it away again, as indeed often happens, not without a wise providence. Have you never found this out yourselves, sisters? I certainly have. Sometimes I fancy that I am very detached, as I really am when it comes to the trial. Yet at another time I discover that I am so attached to things which I should perhaps have laughed at the day before, that I hardly know myself. Again, I feel such courage that there is nothing I should fear to do in God's service, and I find, when it comes to the proof, that I am brave sometimes — yet, next day, I should not venture to kill an ant for Him if I met with any opposition. Sometimes I care nothing if people talk or complain of me; and indeed very often it has even given me pleasure. Yet there are occasions when a single word disturbs me and I long to leave this world, for everything in it disgusts me. I am not the only person to whom this happens, for I have noticed it in people better than myself, and I know that it is a fact.

7. If this be the case, who can say that he possesses any virtue, or that he is rich, when at the time he most needs these goods, he finds himself destitute of them? No, sisters; let us think we are poor, and not run into debts which we have no money to pay. Our wealth must come from elsewhere, and we never know when our Lord will leave us, without any aid from Him, in the prison of the miseries of human nature. If others think we are good because He shows us mercy or honour, they will find our virtues are only lent us and will look as foolish as we shall. The truth is that if we serve God with a lowly heart, He will succour us at length in our needs. But if we are not really humble, He will let us slip at every step,⁵ as they say, and He thus shows great kindness, for He does so to make us value His grace and thoroughly to realise that we possess nothing which we have not received.

8. Now, let me counsel you upon another point. The devil makes us believe that we own some virtue — patience, for instance — because we make frequent resolutions and acts of suffering for God. It seems to us that we really should endure trials for Him: Satan helps to convince us of it, and so we are very much pleased with ourselves. Yet I advise you to place no faith in such virtues: we ought never to think we know more than the name of a virtue or imagine that God has bestowed it on us until it has been put to the test. For perhaps, at the first word that annoys you, your patience will collapse. Praise God when you have much to try you, for He is beginning to teach you patience: force yourselves to be meek, for He thus gives you a sign that He wishes to be repaid for His gift, which must be looked upon as a loan, as I said.

9. Again, the evil one makes us fancy that we are very poor in spirit — and he has some reason for this because we have made a vow of poverty with our lips, as is even done by some people in the world who practise prayer. I say, 'with our lips', for if we really understood, in the depths of our heart, what we promise and have even already vowed, the devil could not deceive us about it as he does — perhaps for twenty years, or perhaps for a whole life-time — but we should discover how we are imposing upon every one else as well as ourselves. We are in the habit of saying that we want nothing and do not care for anything, yet directly something is offered us, even though it is superfluous, our poverty of spirit disappears — and much good do our professions of poverty seem to have done us! A person who has taken this vow and who thinks that she really is poor in spirit, says to herself: 'I do not want anything, but I keep this because I cannot do without it; we must live, in order to serve God, and He wishes us to maintain our bodies.' The demon, disguised as an angel of light, persuades her that she needs a thousand other things, for all this is right in itself. Thus he leads her to imagine that she possesses the virtue of poverty of spirit, and that everything is accomplished.

10. Let us now come to the time of trial — for we can only test ourselves by watching our actions narrowly — and we shall soon detect signs of the devil's deceptions. For instance, let us suppose that a man possesses a larger income than he needs— I mean, than is really necessary for him, and he keeps three valets when he could manage with one. When he is sued for some part of his estate, or one of his poor tenants does not pay his rent, this person is as disturbed and worried as if his living depended on it.⁶ He will tell you that he cannot lose his property through neglecting it, and at once pleads this excuse. I do not say that he should neglect his business — on the contrary, he ought to attend to it; then, if it succeeds, very well; if not, never mind! One who is poor at heart cares so little for such affairs that though, for certain reasons, he attends to them, yet they give him no trouble because he never thinks he will come to want — if he should, it would not grieve him because he considers such things secondary matters and not the main point. His thoughts are fixed on higher objects, and he only constrains himself to attend to temporal cares against his will.⁷

11. A monk (or a nun) who is really poor, or at least who ought to be, possesses nothing, sometimes because there is nothing to possess: but if anything is offered this religious as a gift, it would be strange if he thought it superfluous, for he always likes to keep something in reserve. If he can have a habit of fine material, he does not ask for a coarse one. He always has some little thing that he can pawn or sell, if only a few books,⁸ for if he fell ill he would want better food than usual. Sinner as I am! Is this the vow you made to forget yourself and to leave everything to God, whatever might happen? If you are to provide for the future, it would harass you far less to hold a settled income. Though this may be done without sin, yet it is well for us to recognise these imperfections, that we may see how far short we are of possessing poverty of spirit and that we may ask our Lord to give it us. If we think we have this virtue, we shall grow careless, and, worse still, we shall be deceived on the point.

12. The same sort of thing happens as regards humility. We fancy we do not wish for honour and that we are indifferent to everything of the kind — yet, let any one offer us the slightest affront, and our feelings and behaviour will at once betray that we are not humble.⁹ Besides, if any opportunity occurs of augmenting our dignity (like the poor religious I have just spoken of), for the sake of a greater good we do not reject it. And God grant we may not seek such honour! We are so accustomed to saying that we want nothing and are indifferent to everything (which we really believe is the truth), that at last the very habit of asserting it convinces us of its truth more strongly. It is wise to be on our guard against this temptation as well as the others I mentioned. Indeed, there are many we must be watchful about if we wish to detect them, for when God gives us any solid virtue, it is a well-known fact that it brings all the others in its train. But I warn you again always to fear deception even when you believe that you possess such virtue. A truly humble soul mistrusts its own good qualities: it believes in them more readily and values them more highly when it finds them in another.