The delicate action of grace in the soul is profoundly distrubed by all human violence. Passion, when it is inordinate, does violence to the spirit and its most dangerous violence is that in which we seem to find peace. Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us. The peace produced by grace is a spiritual stability too deep for violence - it is unshakeable, unless we ourselves admit the power of passion into our own sanctuary. Emotion can trouble the surface of our being, but it will not stir the depths if these are held and possessed by grace.
Spiritual violence is most dangerous when it is most spiritual - that is least emotional.
Violence which acts in the depths of the will without any surface upheaval carries our whole being into captivity with no apparent struggle. Such is the violence of deliberate and unresisted sin which seems to be not violence but peace. There is also a violence of consented inordinate desire, which is not generally sinful, but which impedes the work of grace and makes it easier for charity to be driven out of us altogether. Such consent involves us too deeply in the decisions of passion, and yet it may do so under the pretext of serving God. The most dangerous spiritual violence is that which carries our will away with a false enthusiasm which seems to come from God but which is in reality inspired by passion.