Day: February 5, 2024

Thought for the Day – 5 February – The Spiritual Combat (1589) – Dom Lorenzo Scupoli OSM (c1530-1610)

“None shall be crowned who has not fought well.” 2 Tim 2: 5

XIV: … Of What Must be Done, When the Superior Will
Seems to be Wholly StifLed and Overcome,
by the Inferior Will and by Other Enemies

“If, at times, the Superior Will should seem to you, powerless to resist the Inferior and, its other enemies because, you do not feel within you an effectual will opposed to them, yet stand firm! and do not leave the field – for you must always account yourself victorious, until you can clearly perceive that you have yielded.

For, inasmuch as our Superior Will has no need of the Inferior for the production of its acts, without its own consent, it can never be compelled to yield, however sorely assaulted.

For God endowed our will with such freedom and such strength that were all the senses, all evil spirits, nay, the whole world itself, to arm and conspire to assault and oppress it, with all their might, it could still, in spite of them, will or not will, all that it wills or wills not and that, how often soever, whensoever, howsoever and, to what end soever it should please!

And, if at any time, your foes should so violently assail and press upon you as almost to stifle your will, so that it seems to have no breath to produce any opposing act of volition, yet, do not lose courage, nor throw down your arms but make use of your tongue in your defence, saying:
“I yield not, I consent not”
like a man whose adversary is upon him and holds him down and who, being unable to reach him with the point of his sword, strikes at him with the hilt and, as he tries to make a spring backwards to wound his enemy with the point, so do thou take refuge in the knowledge of yourself, the knowledge that you are nothing and can do nothing and with faith in God, Who can do all things, strike a blow at this hostile passion, saying:
“Help me, Lord! help me, O my God! help me, Jesus, Mary! that I
may not yield to this enemy!”

You may also, when your enemy gives you time, call in your reason to assist the weakness of your will, by meditating upon various points, the consideration of which may give it strength and restore its breath, to resist the enemy.
For example:
You are, perhaps, under some persecution or other trial, so sorely tempted to impatience that your will, as it seems to you, cannot, or at least, will not, endure it.
Encourage it, then, by discussing with the reason such points as the following:

• Consider, firstly, whether you have given any occasion for the evil under which you are suffering and so, have deserved it; for if you have done so, every rule of justice requires of you, to bear patiently the wound which, with your own hand, you have inflicted on yourself.
• Secondly – If blameless in this particular instance, think of your other sins, for which God has not yet chastised you and for which you have not, as you should have, duly punished yourself.
  Seeing, then, that God’s mercy changes your deserved punishment which should be eternal, into some light affliction which is but temporal, you should receive it, not willingly only but thankfully.
• Thirdly – Should your offences against the Divine Majesty, seem to you to be light and, the penance you have endured for them, heavy. (a persuasion, however, which you should never allow yourself to entertain!), you must remember that it is only through the straight and narrow gate of tribulation that you can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
• Fourthly – That even were it possible to enter there by any other way, the law of love forbids you, so much as to think of it, seeing that the Son of God, with all His friends and all His members, entered into that Kingdom by a path strewn with thorns and crosses.
• Fifthly – That which you have chiefly to consider, on this and all other occasions, is the Will of God, Who, for the love He bears you, views. with unspeakable complacency, every act of virtue and mortification which, as His faithful and valiant soldier, you perform in requital of His love for you.

And of this be assured, that the more unreasonable in itself the trial seems and the more ignominious, by reason of the unworthiness of those, from whom it comes and so, the more vexatious and the more difficult to be borne, so much the more pleasing will you be to the Lord, if, in things so disordered in themselves and, therefore, so bitter and repugnant to you, you can approve and love His Divine Will and Providence, in which all events, however adverse, are disposed, after a most perfect rule and order.”

Dom Lorenzo Scupoli