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We must not flee from difficulties; rather, we must endure them with patience, which is an effective means to turn our desires and inclinations into acts of virtue.
Newsdesk (08/05/2023 12:45, Gaudium Press) Of great interest for the spiritual life, the venerated writer Lorenzo Scupoli tells us:
“When you are going through a difficulty and endeavour to bear it with patience, do not let yourself be persuaded by the devil or by self-love to desire to be rid of it, for this would do you two principal harms.
In the first place, even if this desire does not turn you immediately from the virtue of patience, it would end up by leading you little by little to impatience.
Secondly, your patience would be less meritorious, and God would reward you only for the time you suffered, whereas if you surrender yourself entirely to His Divine Will, even if you suffer little, the Lord will reward you as if you had suffered much more for Him.
Take, therefore, as a general rule, to keep your desires away from any other object than that which constitutes their only and true end, which is the WILL OF GOD. In this way they will be just and upright, and in the face of any setback you will not only be tranquil but content, for, as nothing happens unless it is the Will of God, if you desire this, you will obtain it.
Although this does not apply to your own sins or the sins of others, because God does not want them, it does apply to the afflictions that arise from those sins or from any other motive, even if they are so violent and penetrating that, reaching the bottom of the heart, they almost tear out the roots of the natural life, because this is part of the cross with which God is pleased to favour, at times, His most intimate and dearest friends.”
Taken from: Lorenzo Scupoli, The Spiritual Combat
Compiled by Roberta MacEwan
