So that you may more easily, my son, surrender yourself to the will of God, and do everything for His glory, consider well that God first loved and honored us, and in manifold ways. He brought us out of nothingness and created us in His own image, and subjected all other creatures to our service. He, having intended to give us a Savior, sent not an Angel, but His only-begotten Son, who redeemed the world not with the price of silver and gold, which are corruptible things, but with the price of His own blood, with His own death, so shameful, so painful. Finally, He at every moment defends us against the fury of enemies, fights for us, gives grace, and to evaluate us, strengthen us, is always ready to give us the Body of His Son at the Lord’s Table.
These are unmistakable signs of the regard, kindness, that God has toward us. Who can comprehend how far His love extends toward creatures so wretched, so vile as we are; again, how great should be our gratitude toward the most generous Benefactor? If the lords of the earth, having received homage from persons whose birth or wealth places them below them, consider themselves obliged to show them signs of their respect and gratitude, what honor, what homage should we worms of the earth render to the all-powerful, mighty ruler of the universe, who has given us so many signs of His regard, kindness, mercy?
Above all, remember, my son, that the Majesty of God as infinite, is worthy that you serve Him from motives of the purest love and with the intention only to please Him.
Man has two wills, higher and lower.
The first, which is otherwise and commonly called rational, the second which bears the name of appetite, body, sensuality, passions.
However, as a human is properly only that one who possesses reason, so the will is not yet a will when only the senses feel some emotion and impulse, and the higher part of reason does not consent to it, on the contrary, most clearly opposes it.
Therefore, the entire spiritual skirmish is based on the fact that the rational will of man has above it the Divine will,
below it the sensual appetites; it finds itself as if in the middle and is simultaneously pulled from two sides; on one side God, on the other the body constantly entices it to itself, omitting nothing to win it over.
This very struggle gives rise to indescribable difficulties in persons who, having contracted vicious habits in youthful age, later desire to change their life, subdue the body, break ties with the world and dedicate themselves entirely to the Lord: their will is suddenly violently pressed, now by the Divine will, now by the sensual appetites; wherever they turn, they come with difficulty to resist the enticing temptations that carry them away.
Such a struggle does not happen to those who, already through long time and repetition, have acquired either a holy habit of virtue or an evil habit of vice, who desire to remain in their habituation: for holy souls agree in everything with the will of God; and vicious habitués constantly wallow in sensuality.
However, do not imagine, my son, that you can acquire virtue and serve God as you ought, if you do not have a strong, as if iron will, to inflict every violence upon yourself, to overcome all difficulties that you may encounter in renouncing all pleasures of the world great or small, toward which you feel some vicious impulse.
Hence it comes that there are few persons who reach an eminent degree of perfection; having overcome the greatest difficulties, they lose courage, cease to conquer themselves further, even if they have only light importunities to combat, weak remnants of their own will to overcome and some great desires to suppress, and which, not completely conquered, strengthen themselves with each day and take possession again entirely of the soul.
And so, there are many who do not violate the goods of others, but are greedily attached to their own. They do not use unworthy means to gain for themselves the esteem and honors of the world; but not only do they not remove themselves from them as they ought, on the contrary, they desire them and strive for them by other paths that seem licit to them. They observe the prescribed fasts, but like to live elegantly, to indulge themselves in foods. They live chastely, continently, but do not deny themselves certain pleasures and amusements, which are an obstacle to them in many spiritual exercises, to interior union with God.
All these are dangerous things, and more dangerous for those who fear no sad consequences from them; it is therefore necessary to use all possible efforts to avoid them, otherwise dryness and imperfection, self-love, human respect, interior cravings, presumption, desire to show oneself and to gain the applause of the world will always mix into our affairs.
Those who pay little attention to this not only make no progress on the path of virtue, but even retreat, expose themselves to former falls, for they clearly do not strive for solid virtue, they value little the grace that God has granted them to overcome the dominion of Satan, they do not even recognize the evil in which they remain, and so they live in illusory peace and in imagined security.
Such delusion is all the more worthy of fear because it is not so easy to recognize it. How many persons undertaking the spiritual life, who loving themselves very much, if that can even be called love, choose for themselves such exercises as please them most, reject others which do not suit their taste, which violate, irritate their natural inclination, which precisely serve to suppress their sensual passions, against which they ought to direct all forces in the spiritual combat.
Oh, how strong an encouragement and incentive is needed so that such persons do not become discouraged, on the contrary, love those first difficulties that they encounter to overcome; for on this precisely the victory depends; the more we arm ourselves with courage to break through those first obstacles that we encounter on the path to virtue, the quicker, the surer will be the victory. And if they so prepare themselves for all hardships in the skirmish and sincerely take to it, if not expecting immediate victory and its fruits, which are virtues, they will fight bravely, they will even sooner and more surely obtain the effect of their undertaking.
Rev. Lawrence Scupoli – “Spiritual Combat or the Science of Knowing, Overcoming Oneself, and Attaining True Christian Perfection.” Warsaw 1858, pp. 30 – 34.
[Ed. A.S.]
Catholic during the Great Apostasy 
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