# Hunolt Sermons/Volume 10/Sermon 63

SIXTY-THIRD SERMON.
ON THE USE OF THE TEMPTATIONS OF THE DEVIL ON THE WAY TO HEAVEN.
Subject.
The devil with his temptations drives us all the quicker on the road to heaven; therefore we have nothing to fear in this respect, but rather to hope all the more for salvation.—Preached on the feast of SS. Simon and Jude, apostles.
Text.
Quia de mundo non estis, sed ego elegi vos de mundo, propterea odit vos mundus.—John xv. 19.
“Because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
Introduction.
This was the consolation that Christ gave His apostles and disciples when He foretold them what would happen them after His ascent into heaven. My dear disciples, you know how men have treated Me during My stay on earth; how they have always persecuted and tormented Me; the same shall happen to you. They will hate you, drive you out of their synagogues, hunt you from one city to another, imprison you, scourge you, and put you to death. And they will treat you in that way because you will refuse to conform to the perverse world, because you are My faithful servants and disciples. “Therefore the world hateth you.” But be not troubled at this; I shall be with you till the end of the world to help you. The same consolation might be given to those pious Christians who, if they are assailed by the devil with all sorts of abominable suggestions and temptations which torment and trouble them, are at once terrified, and begin almost to despair of their eternal salvation. What! faithful servants of God, be not afraid! Do you know why the devil plagues you in that way? Precisely because you do not want to have anything to do with him; precisely because you are determined to remain faithful to God the demons hate and persecute you. But fear not; the devil with all his power cannot hurt you; trust in God, who is with you and who protects you with His angels. So it is, good Christians, who are earnestly resolved to be faithful to God; on the way to heaven we need not fear the demons, for as I have shown in the last sermon, he cannot hinder anyone from going to heaven, unless one who consents to be hindered. Nay, he is of more use than harm to us, as I shall now prove.
Plan of Discourse.
The devil with his temptations drives us along all the quicker on the road to heaven: therefore we have nothing to fear from him in this respect, but rather to hope all the more for salvation. Encouragement to serve God joyfully is the end and object aimed at.
​Give us Thy light and grace thereto, O God! We hope to receive them through the hands of Mary and the intercession of our guardian angels.
God allows the devils to tempt us. It might be just matter for wonderment to think that God, who is infinitely wise and good, who arranges all things in most beautiful order, who is so desirous of our salvation, and wishes to have all men with Himself in heaven—to think that He does not keep the devil, a rebel against Him and our sworn enemy, always in the pit of hell, but allows countless numbers of demons to roam about the world; indeed many are of the opinion that the air is full of them, so that they are called “powers of the air.” Nay, we may ask why does He allow a devil to be at the side of each man, although He well knows that their only object is to annoy men, to injure them in every possible way, and to drag them down to everlasting ruin. Whoever saw a father filling the house in which his dear children are to be born and bred with poisonous adders, serpents, and scorpions, that might hurt and kill the children? or seeking expressly a house in which there are grisly phantoms to disquiet and terrify the children? Whoever saw a shepherd driving all the wolves together into the forest in which he intends pasturing his sheep, so that his flock may run the danger of being devoured? Or whoever heard of a husbandman, before sowing his field, filling it with grasshoppers, mice, worms, and other vermin that they may eat up and destroy the growing crops? That would be to act quite contrary to the end he has in view. That is a queer way of showing fatherly love, we should say, to allow one’s children to run the risk of being destroyed; a queer kind of a shepherd who wishes to see his flock dispersed and eaten up; a vain labor on the part of the husbandman, who does not care about reaping a single crop of corn. In the same way one might think: if God is our Father and we are His children; if God is the Good Shepherd, as He calls Himself, and we are His sheep; if He is the Sower, as He says of Himself in the Gospel, and we are the seed that have to grow here on earth, and bring forth good fruit that we may one day be garnered into heaven, why then has He filled the earth with so many demons that are nothing else but so many poisonous serpents, hellish phantoms, hungry wolves, that harm us, terrify us, lead us into sin, devour our souls, and bring them to everlasting fire? why has He placed those demons in the world, which ​is our house, our forest, our field in which we have to live for a time and to bring forth fruit? Is that the way to show a true desire and wish to make all men eternally happy?
Hence they must help to our salvation with their temptations. Yes, my dear brethren, from that very fact I take the chief proof of my proposition, and I say as a well-argued conclusion, that the devils with their temptations and the trouble they give us must necessarily help us on the way to heaven and be ad vantageous to our eternal salvation. Otherwise God, who loves us so much and is so desirous of our eternal welfare, would not have allowed them to dwell on earth, or to leave hell in order to tempt us. Truly those evil spirits are left in the world, not to injure, but to do us good, and that we may combat them, and with the help of God overcome them, and take possession of the seats in heaven from which they were expelled. They are left in the world that they may be plagued by envy more than by the fire of hell, when they see how we poor mortals can be their masters and fly up to heaven, while they are hurled into the abyss. In a word, they are left on earth that the very plans with which they intend our eternal ruin may help, against their will and intention, to our salvation.
Similes showing how this is done. But, you ask, how and in what manner can the demons be useful to us in the affair of our eternal salvation with their temptations and snares? How, I ask in turn, and in what manner are the shepherd’s dogs useful in guarding the flock? For they run continually around the flock, barking at the poor sheep; they run after and frighten them, and if one gets separated from the others they bite it. And yet if there were no dog, many of the sheep would stray away into the forest and get lost, so that they could never return to their fold, but would be devoured by the fierce wolves. The barking and biting dogs keep them in order, so that they remain with the flock under the guidance of the shepherd, and follow readily wherever he leads. How and in what manner can the flesh of serpents, adders, and vipers be useful and advantageous to the health of men? It is full of poisonous matter that is capable of killing a man in a short time, and yet a most famous medicine is made of their flesh to warm and strengthen the stomach, expel poisonous humors, and re-establish the health. So that what is in itself injurious may, if properly prepared, and mixed with other medicines, be wholesome and good for the health. How and in what manner can the approaching enemy be useful to the warrior? For his only object is to ​attack with fire and sword, and to cut down all before him. And yet if there were no enemy, how could the soldier show his bravery and heroism? How could he gain the crown of victory and rich spoils? How could he make a great name for himself before the world? The enemy gives him an opportunity of gaining all these advantages. Now it is in the same way that the temptations and snares of the devil are useful and advantageous to our salvation and to help us to gain heaven.
They keep us in humility and the fear of God. The devils are fierce dogs that run after us, bark, and terrify us; but they thus serve to keep us in humility and the fear of God. As St. Prosper says: “It is a great advantage for the faithful to have always some reason for combat, so that holiness may not give way to pride, while weakness is attacked.” And according to St. Gregory, God permits that after a sincere conversion, when the first temptations have been overcome, the combat should be renewed still more fiercely, lest we give way to an overweening sense of security or persuasion of our own sanctity, and thus be overthrown by a deceitful confidence. If we were always at peace, and enjoyed repose of soul in continual contentment and consolation of conscience; if we had nothing to fight against or to defend ourselves from, we should have a great opinion of ourselves, and think a lot of the good we do, and often extol ourselves in thought above others; and thus we should act quite contrary to the Christian humility that is necessary to gain heaven. But, on the other hand, if we are often beset with importunate temptations of all kinds; if the infernal spirit excites our wicked inclinations and appetites, so that they often urge us to this or that vice, and we have to put forth all our strength to restrain them and keep within bounds, then we learn to know ourselves; we see what poor, frail creatures we are; how we must often fight against ourselves, and are always in danger of losing our souls, so that we see the necessity of walking cautiously, lest we should fall. Then we know how much we are in want of the divine help; for if it did not specially assist us, we should often have fallen into different sins. We learn, too, to have pity on other men when they sometimes waver and fall into grievous sin, for we know that the same may be our fate any day unless God ​helps us with His grace. In a word, we learn that we have not the slightest reason to form a high opinion of ourselves, or to trust much to our virtue, but that we all have every reason to keep ourselves in humility, and look on ourselves as small and lowly in the sight of God.
As St. Paul testifies of himself. St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says of himself: “There was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of satan, to buffet me.” What! great apostle; chosen vessel of the Holy Ghost! why does the just God allow you to be attacked by those importunate carnal temptations? What are the effects of the attacks of the devil on you? He gives us the answer himself: “Lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me,” and the graces I received from God. His meaning is, as St. Anselm says: this shameful temptation is allowed by God for the good of my soul, that it may keep me in humility. Paul had been rapt up to the third heaven, and was endowed with more wonderful gifts and graces than the other apostles; he was highly honored and almost adored by the people; in what a dangerous position he was as far as his humility was concerned! In what a dangerous occasion of giving way to vanity and self-conceit he found himself! And how was he to conquer the inclination? By what means was he to retain a humble and lowly opinion of himself? By temptation. The hideous demon of carnal lust was to attack him and assail him like a fierce dog; this was the best means of attaining the desired end. “There was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of satan, to buffet me,” that I might preserve my humility.
They keep us from occasions of sin. These dogs that run after us, the demons with their temptations, keep us within the bounds of the pious flock of Jesus Christ: make us avoid bad and dangerous company, watch over our eyes and other senses, shun all the occasions of sin, in which we should otherwise lose ourselves, fall away from the flock and become a prey to the hellish wolf. For we think to ourselves: why should T run needlessly into occasions and temptations, since, poor mortal that I am, in my own room I have enough to do to watch myself and keep myself from falling? A girl possessed by the devil was once brought to St. Hilarion, as St. Jerome tells us in the life of that saint. The man of God asked the evil spirit: “How did you dare to enter into this virgin, who ​belongs to God?” “That she might remain a virgin,” was the devil’s answer; for otherwise she would have been led astray and have lost the pearl of her purity.
They urge us to prayer and good works. Shown by an example. The barking of these hellish dogs urges us to constant prayer, to which St. Paul exhorts us to have recourse without ceasing; it compels us to fly to God, the Good Shepherd of our souls, for refuge, help, and protection, and to redouble our good works in order to retain His favor and friendship, of which we stand so much in need. This was well understood by the young hermit whom Heribert mentions in his Lives of the Fathers; day and night the young man was so besieged by temptations against holy purity that with all his fasting, prayers, watchings, and austerities he could not get rid of them. His old master took pity on him; my son, said he, I will go and not cease praying for you until the merciful God frees you from this temptation, and from the grievous combats it causes you to sustain. No, Father, answered the other; although I have to fight with much toil and labor, yet I see that these temptations do me much good, since they compel me to fast and mortify my flesh more than I should otherwise have done, and to pray without ceasing. Only pray that I may not fall, and that is all I want. Beg of God not to free me from the temptation, for in that matter I leave myself altogether to His fatherly providence and holy will, but that I may never be overcome by the temptation, or consent to an unlawful pleasure. If I obtain that I shall be satisfied.
They keep our souls alive. Further, the devils that tempt us are poisonous adders and serpents, a simile we have often used already, and as far as their intention goes, they would wish to destroy the soul with their venom; but as from the flesh of adders a wholesome medicine is made to restore and preserve the health of the body, so the providence of God, who loves us so much, knows how to prepare a medicine from the venom of those infernal serpents to heal the illness of the soul, to strengthen its virtues, and thus to keep it in life and vigor. St. Peter Damian explains this by a simile drawn from the manner in which a doctor treats a patient who is suffering from a superfluity of bad blood; he applies leeches, small worms in the shape of serpents, and allows them to bite into the flesh. Of course both the leeches and the doctor wish to draw blood from the sick man; but their object is quite different; the only desire of the leeches is to satiate themselves with blood, ​but that of the doctor is to cure his patient; the former fall off when they are satiated, and the sick man is cured by the loss of blood. So it is, too, with the hellish serpents when, by divine permission, they torment and terrify us; their sole object is to injure us and terrify us; but God, the true and well-meaning Physician of our souls, knows how by His grace to turn into a medicine for our salvation and the health of the soul the bites of those serpents, if we only wish that He should do so. It seems that St. Paul was instructed in this branch of medicine by his divine Master. Some of his Christians at Corinth had committed an abominable crime; when Paul heard of it, what do you think he did, my dear brethren, to bring the sinners to their senses? He delivered them over to the devil to be tormented; so he writes in his first Epistle to the Corinthians: “I indeed absent in body, but present in spirit, have already judged, as though I were present, him that hath so done in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ…to deliver such a one to satan for the destruction of the flesh.” To what end? How can the devil do any good to the poor man? " That,” answers the Apostle, “the spirit may be saved in the day of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” St. Ambrose, considering this passage, cannot restrain his wonder: What a strange cure! he exclaims. And how great the power of Jesus Christ! “For He entrusts the guardianship of man to the devil, whose only wish is to injure.” Yes, he concludes, it is true that “at the command of Christ the devil becomes the guardian of his own booty.”
They strengthen and increase our virtues. Besides, Christian and heroic virtues, what would become of you if man were always left at peace and in repose, and were not assailed sometimes and forced to conquer impatience in adversity, and inclinations to other vices in time of temptation? Where there is no combat nor overcoming one’s self, there there is no place for virtue. With reason does the wise Ecclesiasticus ask: “He that hath not been tried, what manner of things doth he know?” What great art or praiseworthy virtue is therein being patient when one has no contradiction to suffer? meek when no one opposes you? bumble when not even a thought of pride or ​vanity occurs to you? temperate when you have no appetite for food or drink? chaste when you never feel any unruly inclinations? There is no great art in that, nor does it merit the name of virtue. But to have and preserve all these virtues by dint of fighting in the midst of importunate temptations, that is both admirable and praiseworthy; that is what proves, practises, strengthens, and increases true virtue. Mark how, on the one hand, the all-wise providence of God, in order to make men virtuous, allows the devils to tempt them; and on the other how the devils are deceived in their hopes, for they cannot bear virtue, and their efforts to destroy it are turned to its advantage; when they pour their poison into the soul it becomes a valuable medicine to preserve the soul in life.
They make our crown in heaven more glorious. Shown by examples. Finally, the devils are our sworn enemies, as we have seen recently, and they attack us secretly and publicly on all sides, in all ways, and force us to fight. But what the approaching enemy brings to the brave warrior, that the enemies of our souls bring to us, although against their will. What is that? A higher place in heaven, a brighter and more glorious crown. This is your good fortune, O man! although you are not aware of it, that when you, trusting in the divine help that will never be wanting to your humble prayer, resist temptation bravely and overcome it, the assurance given you by the Holy Ghost by the mouth of the apostle St. James shall be fulfilled in your regard: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation.” Why? “For when he hath been proved he shall receive the crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love Him,” and do not allow themselves to be turned away from Him by any temptation. According to St. Thomas of Aquin, we shall have in heaven a crown of glory, and that shall be a reward common to all the elect; but besides that there shall be different other crowns of honor, called by theologians aureoles, and these shall be given only to those who on earth have had special combats to sustain for the love of God and heaven, and have conquered in them. First, there will be the virgins, who in the combat against sensuality have brought their purity untarnished with them into eternity; secondly, the martyrs, who have had to struggle with the tyrants of the world, and to suffer torments and a violent death for the faith or some other virtue; thirdly, the doctors, who have fought against the devil, from ​whom they have saved many souls and brought them to God by their instructions. Now, my dear brethren, is there any one who cannot reckon himself among any of these three classes, because he cannot boast either of virginity or martyrdom, or of having instructed and converted souls? Oh, let him not lose heart; there are crowns enough to be gained in heaven if we only strive manfully against the temptations of the devil, who assails us with the help of the vain world and of our own flesh, and never yield to them.
Shown by examples. Heribert, whom I have quoted already, writes of a religious who for nine consecutive years was plagued with the most horrible temptations, desires, and suggestions against purity, so that at last, disgusted with the religious life, he thought there was no chance of salvation for him, and that he could have no hopes of heaven. In his despair he determined to leave the convent and return to the world. But as he was about to carry out this intention he heard a voice calling out to him: fear not, be of good heart! “the temptations that you have sustained for nine years shall bring you in as many crowns,” for you have not consented to them. Nearly to tho same effect was the revelation made by God to the seraphic St. Francis regarding a religious, whom he begged of God to free from severe temptations. The Almighty also deigned to declare the same truth in a wonderful vision to a holy lay-brother of the Cistercian Order. One of these holy religious had three times sustained an attack of the evil spirit against his purity during the night, but he was fervent and constant, and kept on calling for help to Our Lord, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to his patron saints, until at last he gained the victory. On the same night the lay-brother, who was in a country-house outside the convent, was brought in spirit to a very large and magnificent hall; there he beheld seated on a high throne Jesus Christ, Our Lord, beside Him His blessed Mother, and around Him a multitude of angels and saints. The good brother, greatly delighted at the sight of this assembly, then saw an angel coming before the throne with three palm-branches made of the finest silver, and heard him say, as he offered them to Our Lord: these are the palm-branches that so-and-so (calling the religious by name) gained in his combat against the devil and his temptations. Our Lord took the palms with every expression of satisfaction, and showed them to His ​holy Mother, and to the angels and saints, who appeared greatly delighted and pleased. Then Our Lord commanded three crowns to be made of the palms, and to be set with the most costly precious stones, to adorn the victor with a threefold crown. The angel gave the crowns to the lay-brother, commanding him to give them to the religious. He thought he was receiving them, and then the vision came to an end. When the brother returned to the convent he related all that had occurred to his superior, who sent for the monk and told him in holy obedience to let him know what he had done in particular for the honor and glory of God during that night. The religious told him with the greatest humility how he had sustained three violent temptations against purity, but with the help of God’s grace had fortunately overcome them. Then the superior congratulated him, and said: Be of good heart, for the Lord has sent you a threefold crown of glory as a reward for your threefold victory. Our Lord is wont to adapt Himself to our understanding, and teaches us many spiritual things by means of things that maybe perceived by the senses. In this vision He has shown you what a great reward He will bestow on him who bravely resists the assaults of temptation and overcomes them. The victor shall be rewarded with an inward consolation that is called in the Book of Ecclesiasticus “a crown of joy.” He shall be rewarded with an increase of the indwelling grace of God, by which his soul shall be made more beautiful and glorious; this is called by the Prophet Ezechiel “a beautiful crown,” and in the Book of Wisdom “a crown of beauty.” He shall be rewarded with the right to greater glory in heaven, which St. Peter calls “a never-fading crown of glory.”
They make us like martyrs. Nay, we might say that a victory over temptation places us amongst the martyrs. Lawrence a Ponte, in his explanation of the eighth chapter of St. Matthew, relates that a certain holy person wondered and complained to God that He gave so much power to the demons to take possession of even innocent, saintly men, and to torment so cruelly those living temples of God; and she received this answer: In the beginning of the Church I won many souls and brought them to heaven by martyrdom, but I also lost many thereby who were afraid of the torture, and denied Me and their faith. Now I wish to make martyrs and lose ​no souls by it; “therefore I give permission to the demons of hell” to take possession of and torture men, and so to place them in the number of the martyrs. But, my God, have we not just as much reason for saying that the same result is obtained by other violent and trying temptations that so often, and almost constantly, assail our humility, purity, patience, temperance, meekness, and poverty of spirit, and thus give us trouble and torment enough? Are not those temptations a martyrdom to us if we constantly overcome them for Thy sake? Is not the torture of the mind, the soul, the interior spirit, far more keen and painful than bodily weakness? Pious servants of God, who love your Lord above all things, does it not appear an intolerable torment to you to be tempted to commit a grievous sin and to abandon your God? Would you not allow yourselves to be cut to pieces and willingly suffer a most painful death rather than consent to such temptations and renounce God and heaven? There is no doubt that such should be the firm resolution of every one of us. Be comforted and rejoice in the Lord: those temptations that you dread and abhor so much place, as it were, a martyr’s crown on your heads, although not on account of the faith, for which you have no occasion of suffering, yet on account of virtue and the love of God for which yon fight and bear so intolerable a burden. True it is that “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been proved, he shall receive the crown of life;” and a crown all the more splendid and glorious in proportion to the violence and number of the temptations he withstood.
Thus the devils help us to ascend higher in heaven. We see now, my dear brethren, how true are the words of St. Paul: “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able, but will make also with temptation issue.” From the efforts of the enemy to draw you into evil, no matter how violent and importunate they may be, He will cause your soul to derive much profit and help for its salvation. From this we can see how little we have to fear the attacks of the devil; for the very means they use to try to make us leave the path of salvation only serve to help us to walk thereon more quickly and securely.
Hence sinners are Unhappy sinners, who so easily allow yourselves to be betrayed by the devil through some empty imagination of a momen​much to be pitied because they give themselves to the devil of their own accord, without being tempted. tary brutish pleasure, or vain honor, or temporal gain! How I pity you! Yet the devil need take no trouble to deceive you, for even without being tempted you submit willingly to him as his slaves. A holy monk once saw a legion of demons all occupied in besieging his convent; they were on the roof, at the windows, in the courtyards, in the corridors, and in the cells, and all were most busily engaged. He then saw over the city one single devil, who seemed quite idle and had nothing to do. This vision filled him with wonderment. What! he said; the monks are always striving to banish the devils by constant fasting, severe scourgings, continual prayer, and psalmody, and yet they are besieged by the foul spirits on all sides! The people of the city do not fast, nor scourge themselves, nor pray, and they are free from that terrible torment! While thus cogitating an angel appeared to him, and at once put an end to his astonishment. Because, said the angel, the monks fight and resist vigorously a whole swarm of the hellish spirits attacks them, in order to tempt them and to try if they cannot gain even a slight advantage over them. But in that wicked city, where no one fights against the evil one, one devil is enough to keep the inhabitants in subjection. St. Augustine said in his day, and complained of it bitterly, that many are neither tempted nor conquered, and yet they are sinners. They let themselves be led into sin without any previous diabolical temptation. Sin does not seek them or come to their hands of itself; they seek it and go to meet it, and of their own accord hang its chains around themselves. They do not await the attack, but anticipate it, and delight in thought in the pleasure that sin is to bring them. And speaking of the words of the fifty-first psalm, “All the day long thy tongue hath devised injustice,” he lays particular stress on the words “all the day long,” that is, every hour, without interruption, or intermission, or rest. “And if you do not commit evil in act, you do it in thought; so that when your hands abstain from sin, your heart is not free from it.” The whole day you sin in deed, and when that is impossible you sin in word, ​and when that too is beyond your power, you sin by taking pleasure in bad thoughts. When you are not actually engaged in deceiving others your mind is busy the whole day with all sorts of tricks and plans of deceit: “They studied deceits all the day long.” If you are not actually engaged in a quarrel, you spend the day preparing for it: “All the day long they designed battles.” If through want of power or opportunity the sinful act cannot be accomplished, yet you think of, and desire, and wish for it the whole day: “He longeth and desireth all the day.” The devil is very active in tempting the just and the newly-converted, but he takes no trouble to tempt sinners. The former, as St. Gregory says, he tempts in order to bring them under his yoke; the latter he leaves alone, as he has them already in his power. “The more he sees us resisting him, the more does he attack us, while he does not interfere with those whom he possesses securely, but he is all the more excited against us, because he has been expelled from our hearts as from his own dwelling.” As long as God was pleased to be honored by the law of Moses, the Hebrews often fell into idolatry; but since the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, when God wishes to be honored by the observance of the Christian law, the Jews have not had even a trace of a temptation to idolatry. When they were the people of God, the devil tempted them to make them his people; but since by their incredulity and obstinacy they are already his bondsmen, he holds peaceful possession of them. But as soon as they think of embracing the true faith, he begins his temptations again. Unhappy sinners, I repeat, how sorry I am to see you giving yourselves so easily into the hands of the foul fiend; for your state makes it impossible for you to understand what we have been saying hitherto. May the merciful God open your eyes, and give you the grace of repentance!
Conclusion and exhortation to serve God But you, pious Christians, who are determined to serve God and to gain heaven, be not disturbed or troubled, much less should you be afraid or cowardly, even if you have to suffer the ​humbly, and not to fear the devil. most abominable enticements to the most horrible sins. Only keep fast to that resolution rather to die and even choose hell itself than consent to sin and offend God; then trust in the Lord and call humbly upon Him to help you, and you will have nothing to fear, but rather reason to rejoice. Yes; that is all I have to do! I give my soul, O God! into the hands of Thy fatherly providence, and abandon it to Thy good will and pleasure, even where there is question of sustaining attacks and temptations from the hellish foe. If I have to suffer many and importunate temptations, may Thy holy will be done! I will not cease to pray with the Catholic Church: “From the snares of the devil, deliver us, O Lord!” Free me from this or that violent temptation that, as it were, almost forces me to be untrue to Thee; yet I will always add, after the example of Thy divine Son: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt,” for Thou k no west better than I what is good for my soul. Do Thou only answer this prayer of mine, as Thou didst answer the prayer of Thy holy apostle Paul, when he begged of Thee to free him from temptation: “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Oh, yes, my God, and it will be enough for me too, and I shall willingly be content with it! This grace is all I ask. Let me now die where I stand by a sudden death rather than permit any temptation to separate me from Thy love and friendship! If I have Thy helping grace, then, ye demons! come all of you against me! I laugh at you! Against your will you shall only help me by your temptations to advance all the more quickly on the way to my longed-for heavenly fatherland; you shall help me to serve my God with more zeal and perfection; you shall give me the opportunity of practising humility, without which virtue salvation may not be hoped for; you shall urge me to pray more frequently and fervently, and to redouble my good works; you shall teach me and compel me to guard my eyes and other senses more carefully, and to keep them in check, to avoid the dangers and occasions of sin, and to fear committing even the least deliberate venial sin, that to my God, whose help I always stand in the greatest need of, I may never give the least cause to abandon me in temptation; you shall help me to add to my virtues and merits, and, finally, you shall add to my crown and my glory in heaven, whither all my wishes tend. Amen.
Another introduction to the same sermon for the fourth Sunday in Lent.
Text.
Surgite, et nolite timere.—Matt. xvii. 7.
“Arise, and fear not.”
Introduction.
How is it, My dear disciples, that you have so soon lost your courage? You said first: “Lord, it is good for us to be here;” let us build tabernacles, that we may remain always in this place of delights. And now the mere sound of a voice from the clouds terrifies you to such an extent that you fall down in fear and trembling? “Arise, and fear not.” See, I am still with you. To this effect did Our Lord address His disciples. My dear brethren, what happened to them occurs daily to many servants of God, who are determined to walk constantly on the way to heaven. During the time of inward peace and consolation, that is, when they feel a zeal and taste for spiritual works of devotion, oh, then their hearts are filled with joy, and they cry out with the apostles: “Lord, it is good for us to be here!” Oh, how pleasant it is to serve God, and to love Him with our whole hearts! But if God permits the foul spirit to approach them with his temptations, either to impure imaginations, or a shameful rebellion of the flesh, or to spiritual dryness, oh, then they lose heart! Then they think all is lost, and almost despair of salvation, so great is their terror and anguish. Dear Saviour, call out to them: “Arise, and fear not!” Are you so frightened at the devil and his assaults? With all his power he cannot harm you as long as I am with you by My helping grace. So it is, etc. Continues as above.
* ↑ Æreæ potestates.
* ↑ Ad magnam utilitatem fidelium, materia est reservata certaminum; ut non superbiat sanctitas, dum pulsatur infirmitas.—S. Prosper l. i. de vocat. gent.
* ↑ Ne conversus quisque jam sanctum se esse credat, et quem mœroris pugna superare non valuit, ne ipsa postmodum securitas sternat; dispensante Deo permittitur ut post conversionem suam tentationis, stimulis fatigetur.
* ↑ Datus est mihi stimulus carnis meæ angelus Satanæ, qui me colaphizet: ne magnitudo revelationum extollat me.—II. Cor. xii. 7.
* ↑ Quare ausus es ingredi puellam Dei? Ut servarem eam virginem.
* ↑ Ego quidem absens corpore, præsens autem spiritu, jam judicavi ut præsens, qui sic operatus est, in nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi…tradere hujusmodi satanæ in interitum carnis, ut spiritus salvus sit in die Domini nostri Jesu Christi.—I. Cor. v. 3–5.
* ↑ Ut custodia hominis imperetur etiam ipsi diabolo, qui semper vult nocere. Imperante Christo, et diabolus ipse fit prædæ suæ custos.
* ↑ Qui tentatus non est qualia scit?—Ecclus. xxxiv. 11.
* ↑ Beatus vir qui suffert tentationem, quoniam cum probatus fuerit, accipiet coronam vitæ, quam repromisit Deus diligentibus se.—James i. 12.
* ↑ Tentationes quas novem annis sustinuisti, totidem coronæ tuæ erunt.
* ↑ Corona exultationis.—Ecclus. i. 11.
* ↑ Corona decoris.—Ezech. xvi. 12.
* ↑ Diadema speciei.—Wis. v. 17.
* ↑ Immarcescibilem gloriæ coronam.—I. Pet. v. 4.
* ↑ Fidelis autem Deus est, qui non patietur vos tentari supra id quod potestis; sed faciet etiam cum tentatione proventum.—I. Cor. x. 13.
* ↑ Sunt multi qui ut peccent, non solum non vincuntur, sed ultro se peccato offerunt.—S. Aug. de vera et falsa pœnit.
* ↑ Nec expectant tentationem, sed præveniunt voluptatem, et pertractant secum, quam multiplici actione vitii delectabiliter peccent.
* ↑ Tota die injustitiam cogitavit lingua tua.—Ps. li. 4.
* ↑ Id est, toto tempore, sine lassitudine, sine intervallo, sine pausatione.
* ↑ Et quando non facis, cogitas; ut quando aliquid mali abest a manibus, a corde non absit.
* ↑ Aut facis malum, aut dum non potes facere, dicis malum; aut quando nec hoc potes, vis et cogitas malum.
* ↑ Dolos tota die meditabantur.—Ps. xxxvii. 13.
* ↑ Tota die constituebant prælia.—Ibid. cxxxix. 3.
* ↑ Tota die concupiscit et desiderat.—Prov. xxi. 26.
* ↑ Quanto magis nos sibi rebellare conspicit, tanto amplius expugnare contendit: eos enim pulsare negligit, quos quieto jure possidere se sentit; contra nos vero eo vehementius excitatur, quod ex corde nostro, quasi ex jure propriæ habitationis expellitur.—S. Greg. l. 24, moral. c. 7.
* ↑ Vernuntamen non sicut ego volo, sed sicut tu.—Matt. xxvi. 39.
* ↑ Sufficit tibi gratia mea.—II. Cor. xii. 9.