Thought for the Day – 16 March – The Spiritual Combat (1589) – Dom Lorenzo Scupoli OSM (c1530-1610)
“None shall be crowned who has not fought well.” 2 Tim 2: 5
XXXII: … The Last Artifice of the Devil –
Making even Virtue, an Occasion of Sin!
(Part Five)
“I should never weary of telling you this: –
If you would give praise to God, accuse yourself and desire to be accused by others.
Humble yourself with all and below all, if you would exalt Him in yourself and yourself in Him.
Would you find Him? – exalt not yourself, or He will fly from you.
Abase yourself to the utmost and He will seek you and embrace you.
And the more you humble yourself in your own sight and the more you delight to be accounted vile by others and to be spurned as a thing abominable, the more lovingly will He esteem and embrace you.
Account yourself unworthy of so great a grace bestowed on you by your God, Who suffered shame for you, in order to unite you to Himself.
Fail not to return Him continual thanksgiving and be grateful to those who have been the occasion of your humiliation and, still more, to those who have trampled you under their feet, thinking that you have endured it reluctantly
and not with your own goodwill.
Yet were it even so, you must suffer no outward token of reluctance to escape you.
If, notwithstanding all these considerations which are only too true, the cunning of the devil and our own ignorance and evil inclinations, should yet prevail over us, so that thoughts of self-exaltation will still molest us and make an impression on our hearts, then is the time to humble ourselves the more profoundly in our own sight.
For we see by this proof that we have advanced but a little way in the spiritual life and in true self-knowledge, inasmuch as we are unable to free ourselves from those annoyances which spring from the root of our empty pride.
So shall we extract honey from the poison and healing from the wound!”
Dom Lorenzo Scupoli
PART ONE:
https://anastpaul.com/2024/03/12/thought-for-the-day-12-march-the-last-artifice-of-the-devil-making-even-virtue-an-occasion-of-sin-part-one/
PART TWO:
https://anastpaul.com/2024/03/13/thought-for-the-day-13-march-the-last-artifice-of-the-devil-making-even-virtue-an-occasion-of-sin-part-two/
PART THREE:
https://anastpaul.com/2024/03/14/thought-for-the-day-14-march-the-last-artifice-of-the-devil-making-even-virtue-an-occasion-of-sin-part-three/
PART FOUR:
https://anastpaul.com/2024/03/15/thought-for-the-day-15-march-the-last-artifice-of-the-devil-making-even-virtue-an-occasion-of-sin-part-four/
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