Inspired by my dear friend, Margaret, I am on the eighth day of my 33-day Preparation for Total Consecration according to Saint Louis Marie de Montfort. Still in the easy Twelve Preliminary Days, I know.
Today's reading from The Imitation of Christ really spoke to my heart, probably because I struggle so much with the subject matter, Resisting Temptations. I thought I'd copy the reading here, highlighting the lines that touched me.
As long as we live in this world, we cannot be without temptations and tribulations. Hence it is written in Job "Man's life on earth is a temptation." Everyone therefore should be solicitous about his temptations and watch in prayer lest the devil find an opportunity to catch him: who never sleeps, but goes about, seeking whom he can devour. No one is so perfect and holy as sometimes not to have temptations and we can never be wholly free from them. Nevertheless, temptations are very profitable to man, troublesome and grievous though they may be, for in them, a man is humbled, purified and instructed. All the Saints passed through many tribulations and temptations and were purified by them. And they that could not support temptations, became reprobate, and fell away.
Many seek to flee temptations, and fall worse into them. We cannot conquer by flight alone, but by patience and true humility we become stronger than all our enemies. He who only declines them outwardly, and does not pluck out their root, will profit little; nay, temptations will sooner return and he will find himself in a worse condition. By degrees and by patience you will, by God's grace, better overcome them than by harshness and your own importunity. Take council the oftener in temptation, and do not deal harshly with one who is tempted; but pour in consolation, as thou wouldst wish to be done unto yourself. Inconstancy of mind and little confidence in God, is the beginning of all temptations. For as a ship without a helm is driven to and fro by the waves, so the man who neglects and gives up his resolutions is tempted in many ways.
Honestly, I could have highlighted the entire reading. But these were the lines that made me stop and say, "yes, Lord."
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3 comments:
This is quite beautiful.
I have a hard time distinguishing b/t temptation and when the temptation has given way to sin. I know that it involves an act of the will and all that, but it's still slightly hazy to me. And I get so frustrated with having the same temptations over and over; at times I just wish they'd all go away so I could have some peace of mind for awhile. But it's true that w/o them we'd have no opportunity to grow in virtue - the temptations are the weights we must contend with and resist to become stronger.
I have never done the total consecration properly. I should make that a goal...
Thanks so much for commenting, Sarah. I also find it hard to recognize the difference between the temptation and the actual sin. And sometimes I find that I beat up on myself simply for having the temptations, which only weakens me in overcoming them. This reading was helpful in reminding me that they will always be there, and that they can be used for my good, if patiently faced and resisted. I can't---and shouldn't---run away from them.
From today's reading:
We often know not what we are able to do, but temptations discover what we are. Still, we must watch, especially in the beginning of temptation; for then the enemy is more easily overcome, if he be not suffered to enter the door of the mind, but is withstood upon the threshold the very moment he knocks....When ills have gathered strength, by long delay, first there comes from the mind a simple thought; then a strong imagination, afterwards delight, and the evil motion and consent and so, little by little the fiend does gain entrance, when he is not resisted in the beginning. The longer anyone has been slothful in resisting, so much the weaker he becomes, daily in himself, and the enemy, so much the stronger in him.
Powerful insights. That Thomas a Kempis really knew the depths of a human heart and the struggles within.
I highly recommend this preparation, Sarah. It has been so nourishing to my soul. It does become more difficult (ie time consuming) as the month progresses, but it is definitely worth it.
Peter and I were just talking the other day about how much we still take delight in our sins. That sounds worse than I mean it.
It's just that, even though we KNOW sins are bad - that they offend our Father and hurt ourselves, we still have an strange attachment to those weaknesses that plague us most often.
Rather than despising even the slightest venial sin for love of Christ, we find pleasure in exerting our will and pushing the limits as far as they will go. "I don't want to commit mortal sin... but this isn't so bad, is it?"
It's too bad he was buried alive, or Thomas a Kempis would have surely been declared a saint, I think.
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