"Невидимая брань" in Greek (The Invisible War)

Contents PREFACE PART ONE CHAPTER A What is Christian perfection. In order to get it, one has to fight. The four necessities in this war CHAPTER II We must not trust, nor should we ever give courage to ourselves CHAPTER C Hope and trust in God CHAPTER II How can one know if he works with a lack of trust in himself and with the complete hope in God. we educate our mind, in order to protect it from ignorance. in all our internal and external actions, as a final goal only the pleasure of God CHAPTER X Some thoughts that motivate the desire of man to want to do the will of God in every thing CHAPTER XII The many wills and the desires that exist in man and the battle that exists between them CHAPTER III How one must fight against the irrational will of the senses and regarding the actions that the will must perform in order to acquire the habits of virtue CHAPTER XIV What must to be done, when the superior rational will seems defeated by the irrational and inferior and by the enemies CHAPTER 10 One must fight with all his strength and always and bravely CHAPTER 16 In what way should the soldier of Christ go out to battle in the morning in order to fight CHAPTER 11 With what order should we fight against our passions CHAPTER II How should one fight against the sudden movements of the passions CHAPTER 10 How should one fight against the passions of the flesh CHAPTER K How should one fight against the negligence CHAPTER K The correction of the external senses. And in what way can one pass from them to the theory and praise of God CHAPTER KB' The same sensible things which we have said serve us as means and instruments to correct our senses, if he passes from it to the study of the incarnate Word and to the mysteries of his life and passion CHAPTER KG How we must correct our senses in other ways, when their visible objects are presented to us CHAPTER KD How we must govern our language CHAPTER KE How we must correct our imagination and memory CHAPTER KX The soldier of Christ must avoid with all his might tumults and disturbances, if he wishes to fight well with his enemies CHAPTER KZ What we must do when we are wounded CHAPTER K What tactics does the devil have in fighting in general and to mislead people of various situations CHAPTER KTH The war and deception that the devil uses for those he keeps in the service of sin CHAPTER L The war and deception that the devil uses for those who know their evil and want to be freed. And why our decisions many times do not bring their result CHAPTER LA The deception used by the enemy, for those who think they are walking towards perfection CHAPTER LB The war and deception used by the devil, so that we abandon the path of virtue that we march CHAPTER LV The last deception used by the devil, so that the virtues we have acquired become the cause of evil CHAPTER LD Some knowledge that is useful in order to conquer the passions and acquire new virtues CHAPTER LEI Virtues must they are acquired gradually, by degrees, and first we must occupy ourselves with the one and then with the other. practice of virtue CHAPTER III Having the obligation to always fight the battle of the virtues, we must not avoid those which become occasions for us to acquire them CHAPTER LTH We must love all the occasions which give rise to the the acquisition of the virtues, and more so those which bring more difficulties CHAPTER I How we can use the practice of one and the same virtue on various occasions CHAPTER I The time we must devote to the practice of each virtue; and about the points of our prejudice CHAPTER MB´ We should not desire much in order to be freed from the sufferings that we endure with patience. And how we must rule all our desires, that we may be virtuous CHAPTER III How we must resist the devil when he tries to deceive us with indiscretion CHAPTER MD we judge our neighbor with self-righteousness. How should we resist these? Theotokos Marias CHAPTER N Some thoughts on turning to the Theotokos with faith and courage CHAPTER N How one should study and pray through the Angels and all the Saints CHAPTER NB The study of the passions of the Lord causes various moods and theophile passions in our hearts CHAPTER N The benefits we can receive from the study of the Crucified One and the imitation of his virtues PART TWO CHAPTER A The most holy mystery of the Eucharist CHAPTER II How one should receive the most holy Mystery of the Divine Eucharist, i.e. how he must receive Christ sacramentally CHAPTER C How we must prepare for communion, in order to be motivated by the love of God CHAPTER D Spiritual and mental Communion, i.e. how Christ is mentally and spiritually communed CHAPTER E The rendering of graces and thanksgiving CHAPTER S The mental offering, i.e. how one should mentally offer himself and his every work to God CHAPTER G Sensible reverence and the coldness and dryness of this reverence CHAPTER The examination of conscience CHAPTER I How we must prepare ourselves against the enemies who fight us at the time of death CHAPTER I What are the four insults that our enemies bring us at the time of death. First, the offense of faith and its cure CHAPTER 11 The offense of ignorance and its cure CHAPTER 12 The offense of vanity and its cure CHAPTER III The offense of imagination and its cure CHAPTER XIV The spiritual peace of the heart CHAPTER IE The care which the soul must have in order to be at peace CHAPTER IX This peaceful abode is being built little by little CHAPTER IZ The soul must avoid all honor and love humility and poverty of Spirit, with which the peace of the soul is obtained CHAPTER II The soul must be kept in mental solitude and quiet, so that God may bring his own peace within it CHAPTER ITH The wisdom we must have in loving our neighbor, so that he does not cause us trouble in this peace KEPHALEION And the soul, having stripped itself of its will, must stand before God KEPHALEION K No one should ask for food or anything that causes appetite, but only God KEPHALEION KB The servant of God should not he is worried even when he still feels within him some resistance to the peace that we mentioned above CHAPTER KG What is the care that the devil has to disturb this peace of our soul. We must avoid the artifices and deceptions of CHAPTER KD The soul must not be confused about the internal temptations and calculations CHAPTER K The temptations were given by God for our benefit CHAPTER KS Which medicine should we treat for not to be troubled by our faults and weaknesses CHAPTER KZ' The soul must be at peace and progress without wasting time And the name given to the soulful book is just and right. For although many of the holy and divinely inspired books of the Old and New Testaments, the same things that teach were named immediately from it (so, for example, the Genesis of Moses was named, because it mentions the birth from nothing and Creation and the four Gospels, because They chronicle the good and saving messages of the people. Why does he teach this, (not about some perceptible and visible war, not about physical and visible enemies, but about the invisible war that takes place in the mind, in which every Christian takes part, immediately from the time he is baptized and promises before God, to fight him until to die, for the sake of his divine name. For this and in connection with this war, a parable was written in Numbers... That is why in the book it is called WAR OF THE LORD (Numbers 21:14), and it teaches about incorporeal and invisible enemies, which are the various passions, the desires of the flesh and the wicked demons, who hate people and do not stop fighting us day and night. As blessed Paul said "we do not have to fight with people, but with principalities and powers, that is, with the rulers of this world, the wicked spirits that are between the earth and the sky" (Eph. 6,12). And the soldiers who fight in this war are all Christians, as we learn from this book. Commander-in-Chief of the Christians is our Lord Jesus Christ, surrounded by all the centurions and centurions, i.e. with all the orders of the "Angels and Saints"; field of battle and place and battlefield, in which this war takes place, is the same heart and the whole inner man, and the time of war is our whole life. What are the weapons with which the Invisible War equips its soldiers? Listen, their helmet and their scutari is their self-fulfilled mistrust and despair. Their flag and the iron shirt are the courage to God and the sure hope. Their chest and chest are the study of the passions of the Lord. Their zone is abstinence from carnal passions. Their shoes are the humiliation and recognition of their illness. Their shield, i.e. their shield, is patience in the face of temptations and the removal of carelessness. The knife, which they hold in one hand, is the holy prayer, both the so-called mental and oral, as well as the one that is done through study. And, three-pronged pole, which they hold in the other hand, is not to consent to the passion that fights them, to drive it away with anger and to hate it and to sympathize with it from their hearts. Their food, from which they take to strengthen themselves against the enemies, is the constant partaking of the divine Communion, both of the divine mystery of the altar, as well as of the noera, and bright and cloudless air, through which they see the enemies from afar, is the eternal training of the mind to know things correctly and the permanent training of the will, to only want to please God, and the peace of the heart and quietness. Here, here in this Invisible War, or better to say, in this War of the Lord, the soldiers of Christ learn the various deceptions, all kinds of machinations, the difficult stratagems and the arts that the intelligent enemies use against them through the senses, through the imagination, through the deprivation of reverence and in fact, through the four insults, which bring the time of death, infidelity, I say, recognition, emptiness and the transformation of them into bright Angels. And then, they also study how to solve and fight against these enemy machines. And here they are taught what order and what law they should keep and how bravely they should fight. And to say briefly, from this book every man who loves his salvation, learns how to defeat his invisible enemies, in order to gain race and treasures, that is, virtues and truths and to get a prize and a crown amaranth, which is the union with God both in the present age and in the future. So accept this book, dear readers, with joy and favor and learn from it the art of the Invisible War; take care not only to fight simply, but to fight legally and properly, so that you will be crowned. Because, according to the Apostle, "even if one exercises, he is not crowned, unless he exercises lawfully" (2 Tim. 5)". Arm yourself with the weapons that he teaches you, in order to kill with them your mental and invisible enemies, which are the passions that wear out the soul and the demons that are the creators of these passions. "Put on the armor of God so that you can resist the wiles of the devil" (Eph. 3:10). Remember that you promised in holy baptism that you renounced and fought Satan and all his works and all his worship and all his sins, which works are those of lust, ambition and avarice and the rest of the passions. Therefore, fight as much as you can to defeat him, to shame him and to defeat him with all your perfection. And what is the payment and salary that you have to get for this victory of yours? Very big. And hear it verbatim from the Lord's own mouth, who promises it to us in the Holy Revelation. "To whoever overcomes I will give him to eat the fruit of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of my God" (ch. 2,7). "The victor will not be tempted by the second death" (Revelation 2:11). "To whomever overcomes I will give of the hidden manna" (Revelation 2:17). "To the one who overcomes I will give the authority that I also received from my Father and I will also give him the morning star" (Rev. 2,28). "God will clothe the victor with the white garments of victory; I will not erase his name from the book of life and I will recognize him as mine before God and his angels" (Rev. 3,5). "I will make the victor a pillar in the church of my God" (Revelation 3:12). "To him who overcomes I will make him sit with me on my throne" (Rev. 3,21). "The winner will inherit everything, and I will be his God and he will be my child" (Rev. 21,7). Do you see positions? do you see wages you see this eight-fold wreath, which is full of flowers and amaranth, but many more wreaths will be woven for you brothers, if you defeat the devil; therefore learn from this, to strive and to hold back "so that no one takes your wreath" (Rev. 3.11). For it is true that it is a great shame for those who compete in physical and external contests and in the pentathlon to abstain from everything, in order to receive a corruptible crown of holly, or celery, or a branch of pine, or palm, or laurel or myrsine or some other plant. And you who have to take such an indestructible crown, spend your life with carelessness and indifference. And let Paul convince you of this, who says: "Do you not know that the runners all run in the stadium, but one receives the prize? Run, so you too, in order to win the prize. The athletes who prepare for the race, submit themselves to all kinds of abstinence; they in order to receive a crown that withers, while you are amaranth" (I Corinth. 9,24). This victory and the splendor of these crowns, I wish us to enjoy; remember, my brothers, to pray to the Lord and for the forgiveness of the sins of him who became your helper of this beautiful one, through the book of this edition; above all, however, remember to raise eyes to heaven, and to thank and glorify the Primate and Self-taught of this victory, God and your Commander-in-Chief, Jesus Christ, and let everyone say to him what Zerubbabel said: "From you comes the victory... And the glory is yours, and I am yours relative" (B' Ἀσδρ. 59). And that of the Prophet David "To you, Lord, belongs the majesty, and the power, and the boasting, and the victory, and the confession, and the power" (1 Paralip. 29,11). Now and forever and ever. Amen. CHAPTER A. In what lies Christian perfection. In order to get it, one has to fight. All four were necessary in this war. The greatest and most perfect achievement that man can say or think about is to get a little closer to God and to unite with him. So, if you, my dear reader in Christ, wish to reach this summit, you must first know what spiritual life and Christian perfection consist of 1 . For there are many who say that this life and perfection is found in fastings, vigils, prostrations, mortifications and other similar austerities of the body. Still others say that it is found in many prayers and in large processions. And many others think that the whole of perfection is found in mental prayer 2 , in solitude and in retirement, in silence and in training with the rule, that is, walking with the rule and the measure, and neither reaching excesses nor deficiencies. However, these virtues, by themselves, are not what we seek as Christian perfection, but sometimes they are means and instruments, so that someone can enjoy the grace of the Holy Spirit, sometimes they are the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And that they are very powerful instruments, for the enjoyment of the grace of the Holy Spirit, there is no doubt, because we see many virtuous people who use them as they should, with this purpose, in order to acquire power and strength against evil and laxity, in order to strengthen them. against the temptations and delusions of the three common enemies, that is, the flesh, the world and the devil, so that they may receive from them the spiritual help that is necessary for all the servants of God, and indeed for the beginners, and simply so that they may deserve to receive the gifts of the Holy One Spirit; that is, "Spirit of knowledge and piety; Spirit of will and power; Spirit of wisdom and understanding; Spirit of the fear of God", as Isaiah enumerates them (11,2). That these actions are also the fruit of the Spirit and have as a result "love, joy, faith, self-control" (Gal. 5:22), as Paul said, and this is without doubt. Why do spiritual men train the body with these austerities, because it pitied the Poet 3 and to keep it always humbled and subordinated to work the things of God. They are silent and solitary, to avoid even the slightest sorrow towards God. They pray and pay attention to the worship of God and to the works of piety, so that they may have their kingdom in the heavens; they study the life and passion of our Lord, not for anything else, but to know more about their own wickedness, and the goodness and mercy of God, they follow Jesus Christ by denying themselves and with the cross on their shoulders, so that they are more warmed by the love of God and their self-hatred. However, the virtues that have been mentioned can cause more damage to those who put all their weight on them than the open sins; not because of them (for they are all sanctities), but because of those who they treat, because, paying attention to them alone, they let their hearts run after their own wills and the wills of the devil, who, seeing them going from the straight path, leaves them not only to fight with joy in these bodily contests, but also to they expand, with their vain calculation, and as in the greatness of Paradise. Whence think those who have ascended to the ranks of Angels and who feel God within them; and once, immersed in some strange and lofty thoughts and calculations, they think that they have almost left this world and have reached up to the third heaven. However, how many errors they are involved in and how far they are from true perfection, everyone can understand from their life and morals. For they want to be preferred to others in everything that exists; they are peculiar and strong-willed in their will, they are blind to all their own, but they diligently examine the words and actions of others, if someone touches them a little in vain esteem of their honor, which they think they have and which (in esteem) they want others to have as well; or if someone prevents them from those pieties and virtues, with which they engage (God forbid!) they immediately become confused, immediately ignite all of them become furious with anger. And, if God, wishing to bring them to an accurate knowledge of themselves and to the true path of perfection, sends them sorrows and sicknesses or grants them persecutions (which are the test that tests his genuine and true servants), then they reveal the secrets of their hearts, that they are corrupted by pride. Because, in every sad event that happens, they do not want to follow the will of God, they remain at rest in the just, even if hidden, judgments of God, nor do they want to follow the example of the humbled and suffering Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to humble themselves under all the buildings, having for their beloved friends the persecutors, as instruments of divine goodness and accomplices of their salvation. So it is obvious that they are in great danger. For, having the inner eye, i.e. their mind, dark, they see themselves with it; and thinking to succeed in the external actions they do, that they are good, they think they have reached perfection; and in this way, being proud, they criticize others. That is why it is not possible for someone else to change some of them, only a special help of God. Because the open sinner is more easily converted to good, than the hidden and covered with the cover of apparent virtues. Now that you know very well that spiritual life and perfection do not stand in these virtues, which we have said, know that it consists of nothing else than 4 the knowledge of the goodness and majesty of God and of our own insignificance and inclination to all evil in the love of God and self-hatred; in subjection, not only to God, but also to all creation, for the love of God in the abhorrence of our own will, perfect obedience to the Divine will; and even more, to want all these things and to do them clearly for the glory of God 5 and only for to please him, and because that's what he wants and that's how we should love him and serve him. This is the law of love, the one that has been written by the hand of God himself in the hearts of his faithful servants. This is the renunciation of ourselves, which God asks of us. This is the sweet yoke of Jesus and his light burden. This is the submission to the will of God, to which our redeemer and Teacher invites us by his own example and with his voice 6 . So, you, brother, who wish to reach the height of this perfection, because it is necessary to wage an unceasing struggle with yourself, in order to bravely conquer and neutralize all wills great and small, necessarily, you must prepare with all the eagerness of your soul in this war (for the crown is given to none but the valiant warrior); which war, as it is more difficult than any other war (for in fighting against ourselves, we fight against ourselves), so also the victory which we achieve in him, she will be more glorious than any other, and more welcome to God. For if you will put to death your unruly passions, and your desires and wills, you will please God more, and you will serve him better, than to scourge yourself until you draw blood, and to fast more than the hermits of old, and than to return to good thousands of souls, since you are possessed by passions 7 . For, although God loves more the return of souls, than the death of a small will, yet you, beloved, must not will, nor do anything else more basic, than what God asks, and now wants exclusively from you; for he, surely, it pleases you better to strive to expunge your own passions, than to do any other thing, however great and great, neglecting your passions. So now that you have learned what Christian perfection consists of and that in order to obtain it you must have an eternal and cruel war against yourself, it is necessary to acquire four things, as a very safe and necessary weapon, in order to be victorious in this invisible war and to receive the crown. And these are: a) to never trust yourself, b) to always have all your courage and hope in God c) to always struggle; and d) to pray. That's why I want to talk to you separately, with God, soon. CHAPTER II We must never trust, nor give courage to ourselves. Not trusting yourself 8 , my dear brother, is so necessary in this war, that without it, be sure that, not only will you not be able to achieve the victory you desire, but not even to resist in the slightest and that too, May it be well imprinted on your mind. For we, indeed, being naturally corrupted by our nature from the time of Adam's transgression, have a great esteem for ourselves, which, though it is not true, but a lie and nothing else, we, however, think with a false impression, that we are some 9. This is a defect, which is very difficult to recognize, and which does not please God, who loves that we have a knowledge without guile about this most certain truth. That is, to know that every grace and virtue we have comes from him alone, who is the source of all good and that, from us, no good can come from us, nor any good thinking that pleases him. Even this necessary truth (namely, not to believe in ourselves) is the work of the divine hand, which is wont to bestow it upon his beloved friends, sometimes with inspirations and illuminations, sometimes with cruel scourges and sorrows, sometimes with violent and almost invincible ones. temptations, and sometimes by other means, which we do not understand; with all this, he wants to be done on our part that which belongs to us and is strong for us. Therefore, my brother, I note here four ways, in which you can, with God's help, achieve this self-doubt, that is, never trusting yourself. The first is to know your nothingness 10 and to think that by yourself you cannot do any good, for which you will become worthy of the kingdom of heaven. The second is to ask God for help many times with warm and humble prayers, because this is His gift; and if you want to receive it, you must first think of yourself, not only naked of this knowledge of yourself, but also according to the always impossible to obtain it; then, speak with intimacy many times before the majesty of God, and I firmly believe, because of the ocean of his mercy, he will give it to you, when he knows you, do not doubt at all that you will enjoy it. The third way is to get used to always being afraid of yourself; to be afraid of the innumerable enemies, to whom you are not able to make even the slightest resistance, to be afraid of their very strong habit of fighting their stratagems, their stratagems, their transformations into angels of light; the innumerable tricks and traps, which secretly set you on the very path of virtue. The fourth way is, when you fall into any fault, to think clearly of your absolute weakness; because, for this purpose, God allowed you to fall, so that you may learn better your illness 11 and thus learn, not only to despise yourself. like nothing, but also to want others to despise you as such a sick person. Because without this will, it is not possible to become this virtuous distrust of yourself, which has its foundation in true humility and in the aforementioned practical knowledge of the trial. Therefore, each one sees how necessary it is for him who wants to be united with the heavenly light, to know himself, which knowledge God's mercy is wont to give to the proud and prudent, through the falls, leaving them that is, in a just way to fall into any fault (from which they think they can guard) to know their weakness, and to no longer trust themselves at all. But this means, so wretched and forced, is not always used by God, except when the other means, the freer ones, as we said, do not bring about in man this knowledge of himself, for then he allows man to fall into such greater errors or smaller, in proportion as the pride and esteem which he has of himself is greater or less; so that where there is no absolute esteem, as happened to the Virgin Mary, there likewise is no fall; therefore, when you fall, run at once with me the reckoning in your humble knowledge of yourself, and with persistent prayer ask God to give you the true light, so that you may know your insignificance and not to show confidence in yourself at all, if you want not to fall again and indeed into greater damage and decay. CHAPTER C Hope and trust in God. It is very necessary in this war, not to trust ourselves, as we have said; nevertheless, if we only despair, that is, if we reject, only all self-belief, of course, we either flee, or we will be defeated, and we will be dominated by the enemies. For this reason, close to the complete renunciation of ourselves, we also need complete hope and trust in God, that is, hoping only from him every good and every help and victory. For, as from ourselves, where we are nothing, we expect nothing but collapses and falls, for which we must have no confidence in ourselves at all, in this way we shall certainly enjoy from God every victory, as soon as we arm our hearts with a living hope in him, because we will receive his help according to that psalm "my heart trusted in him and I was helped" (Psalm 27,9). We can achieve this hope, together with help, for four reasons. a) Because we ask it from a God, who, being Almighty, can do whatever he wants and can then help us too. b) Because, we ask it from a God who, being infinitely wise, knows everything, everything with complete perfection, and therefore knows everything that suits our salvation. c) Why do we ask for this help, from a God who, being infinitely good, with a love and will that cannot be described, is always ready to give from hour to hour, and from moment to moment, all the help we need, for the spiritual and complete victory of ourselves, as soon as we run into his embrace with steadfast hope. And how is it possible, our good Shepherd, who ran for thirty-three years looking for the lost sheep, with such loud voices that the larynx was hoarse, who walked a path so arduous and thorny, who shed all his blood and gave his life, how is it possible, I say, now that this sheep follows behind him, and cries out with desire, and begs him not to turn his eyes on it? how can he not hear it? And should he not put it on his uncles, making a feast with all the Angels of heaven? And if our God does not cease to search with great diligence and love, to find, according to the Gospel parable, the lost drachma, the blind and deaf sinner, how is it that He now abandons him, who, like a lost sheep, cries out and calls his own Shepherd? and who will ever be believed, that God, who always knocks at the heart of man, wanting to enter and dine, according to the holy Revelation 12, giving him his gifts, because, when man opens his heart and invites him, he would have to do with his will the deaf and not wanting to enter? The fourth way for someone to obtain this hope and help in God, is to run with his memory to the truth of the divine Scriptures, which, in so many places, clearly show that whoever hoped in God was never left ashamed and helpless. "Look at the ancient generations and think; who trusted in the Lord and was put to shame?" (Sirach 2,9) 13. Arm yourself with these four weapons, my brother. And begin the work, and fight to win; and surely from this you will acquire, not only the complete hope in God, but also the complete despair in yourself, for which I do not fail to remind you in this chapter too, that you have much need from its knowledge; because, in man, self-confidence is so closely attached that it is somehow something so subtle that it almost always lives secretly inside our heart, and it seems to us that we have no confidence in ourselves and we have hope in God. Therefore, in order for you to leave, as much as you can, this vain presumption, and to work with the lack of faith in yourself and with the hope in God, it is necessary that the thought of your weakness precedes the thought of God's omnipotence, and again these two together to precede each of our actions. CHAPTER II How can one know if he works with distrust in himself and with complete hope in God. Many times some self-righteous people think that they have no courage in themselves and that they have all their hope and confidence in God, but this is not the case, and for this reason they are convinced by the result that comes to them from their falling, when it happens. For if perhaps they feel sorry for their fall and, in some way, despair and think that they can do good in the future, this is a sure sign that even before their fall they believed in themselves and not in God. And if their sorrow and despair is great, it is obvious that they believed too much in themselves and little in God, for whoever does not trust himself much and hopes in God, when he falls, he does not wonder so much, nor is he overly sad, as long as he knows that this happens to him because of his own weakness and because of the little hope he has in God, in fact then he trusts himself more and with more humility he hopes in God and hating more than anyone else the disordered passions, which are the cause of his fall, with a great quiet and peaceful pain, for pity of God, of course he acquires infidelity in himself, but he pursues his enemies to the death with greater bravery and determination. What I have said, I wish some to think, who think they are virtuous and spiritual, who, when they fall into any fault, are neither able nor willing to make peace, and sometimes wanting to be freed from much sorrow and trouble, which happens to them because of their self-love, they immediately run for this and only to the spiritual father, to whom they had to go mainly in order to be washed from the contamination of sin and to receive strength against themselves, with the most holy mystery of repentance and confession. CHAPTER V. The mistake that many make, thinking that small-mindedness is a virtue. Regarding this, many are in error, who think that the faint-heartedness and excessive sorrow that accompanies them after sin is a virtue, not knowing that it comes from secret pride and presumption, who have built a foundation on the hope and courage that they have in themselves and in their power. For they, considering themselves to be something, in a way, became very weak, and seeing by the trial of the fall, that they have no strength, they are troubled and wonder, as if about nothing new, and are faint-hearted when they see fallen to the ground that on which they relied (that is, the themselves), on whom they had placed their courage and hope. However, this does not happen to the humble, who only has his hope and courage in God, without having any hope in himself. Therefore, when he falls into any kind of error, even though he feels pain and sorrow, with all this he is not disturbed, nor does he wonder. Because he knows that this happened to him because of his own poverty and weakness, which is very well known by the light of truth. CHAPTER VI Other experiences, through which faithlessness in ourselves and trust and courage in God is acquired. Because all the power with which our enemies are defeated is born from our lack of trust in ourselves and from hope in God, it is necessary for you, my brother, to obtain this knowledge, in order to acquire this power, with the help of God, so know me certainty, that neither all the advantages, whether they are natural, nor acquired, nor all the gifts that are freely given, nor the knowledge of all the divine Scriptures, nor how we have worked for God for many years and become accustomed to his work; all these will not make us fulfill his divine will, even in every good deed that we must do and in every danger that we must avoid and in every cross that we must bear according to his will, if, I say, a special help from God does not lift up our hearts and strengthen us so that the perform, as the Lord said "without me you can do nothing" (John 15,15). Well, we must in our whole life and in all the days and times and moments, have this decisive opinion, that in no way and no calculation, we will never be able to trust and hope in ourselves. For the hope in God, close to what I told you in the third chapter, know that there is nothing easier for God than to defeat your enemies, both the few and the many, both the old and brave, as well as the young and weak. So, a soul, let it be burdened with sins, let it have all the defects of the world; let it be polluted, as much as one can imagine, let it try as much as it wanted and as much as it could use every means and struggle, in order to leave sin and to do good and he was never able to obtain any small portion of good, indeed to advance even deeper into evil, yet, with all this, he must never cease, to hope in God, nor must he ever give up his weapons and spiritual battles, but he must he always fights manfully. For you must know that in this invisible war no one loses who never ceases to fight and to hope in God, whose help is never lacking from his warriors, even though sometimes he allows them to remain wounded; so let each one fight, because in him everything depends on war. And the medical is ready and active, to be given to the warriors, who turn to God and his help, with firm hope. Because in a time when they do not expect it, their enemies will disappear as it is written, "the warrior of Babylon has lost his fighting power" (Jer. 51,30). CHAPTER G. How we must train our mind, in order to protect it from ignorance. If distrust in ourselves and hope in God, which are so necessary in this war, remain alone, not only will we not win, but we will also fall into many evils. For this reason, close to them, exercise is also needed, which is the third thing we said at the beginning, which must be done first with the mind and with the will. And the mind must be protected from ignorance, which is very opposite to it, because it darkens it and hinders it from the knowledge of the truth, which is its own object. That is why it is necessary to train him, so that he becomes bright and clean, so that he can distinguish well what we need in order to cleanse our soul of passions and to adorn it with virtues. So we can acquire this brilliance of mind in two ways: the first and most necessary, is prayer, with which we ask the Holy Spirit to accept to spread his divine light in our hearts, which, of course, he will do if we really only ask God, if we make his will holy and if we submit everything to the advice and questioning of our experienced and spiritual Fathers. The second way is, a permanent training of deep thought and study of things, in order to know with it, which things are good and which are bad, not as the senses and the world judge them wrongly, but as the right reason and the Holy Spirit judge them, that is, the truth of the divinely inspired Scriptures and the spiritual Fathers and Teachers of our Church. Because, when this thought and study becomes correct and as it should, it makes us know clearly that we must consider as nothing and vain and false all that the blind and corrupt world loves and in various ways asks for. That is, that the honors and the pleasures and the wealth of the world are nothing else, but vanity and death of the soul; that the insults and defamations that the world gives us, cause us true glory and sorrows joy; by forgiving our enemies and doing them good, it is magnanimity and one of the greatest similitudes with God; for it is more valid for someone to despise the world, than to be the ruler of the whole world; for for someone to obey willingly, is an act rather magnanimous and brave, than to submit and protect great kings. That our humble knowledge of ourselves must be honored more than the height of all sciences, that to defeat and mortify our desires and appetites, however small they may be, is worthy of greater praise than to fight against many castles, to defeating strong camps with weapons in hand and performing miracles or raising the dead. CHAPTER H Why we do not distinguish things correctly and in what way we can know them. The reason that we do not correctly distinguish all these things that we have said and many others, is because we do not think about them in the depth of what they are, but we catch love or hate in them, immediately from their external study and appearance alone. So when, their love or hatred overtakes and darkens our mind and therefore it cannot distinguish them properly, as it is in truth 14 . So, you, my brother, if you want this error to not find a place in your mind, take good care; and when you either see with your eyes or study with your mind any thing, keep your will as much as you can and do not let it love or hate it, but observe it with the mind alone. First of all, however, think wisely, because if this is painful and contrary to your natural inclination, you are motivated by hatred to turn it away. But if it brings you pleasure, you are motivated by love to want it. Because, when your mind is not dizzy with passion, it is free and clear and can know the truth and penetrate into the depth of the thing, that the evil is hidden under the false pleasure or that the good is covered under the surface of the evil. But if the will has time to love it or to hate it, the mind can no longer know it well, as it should; because that disposition, or rather I should say, that passion which has entered the middle, like a wall, stuns the mind so much that it thinks the thing other than that which is in the truth and passes it as such to the desire, which as it goes forward and the more it loves or hates that thing, the more the mind becomes darkened and thus darkened, it again makes that thing appear to the desire more than ever loved or hated. Thus, when the above rule that I said, (which is very necessary in all this exercise) is not observed, that is, to keep your desire from loving or hating the thing, these two powers of the soul, the mind, that is, and the will, always advance badly, as in a circle, from darkness to deeper darkness and from error to greater error. So, beware, beloved, with every kind of care, from the passionate love or hatred of every thing, which you have not been able to investigate well before with the light of reason and right reason, with the light of the divine Scriptures, with the light of grace and prayer and with the judgment of the spiritual your father so as not to make a mistake and to count true good for evil and true evil for good. As this happens to be done, as for the most part, in some works, which in themselves appear to be good and holy, but for some circumstances; that is, they are done either at the wrong time or in a relevant place or with a corresponding measure, but they cause great harm to those who they attempt, as we know many who have endangered themselves in similar praiseworthy and holy works. CHAPTER I How we must guard our minds from multitasking and curiosity. Just as it is necessary to guard our mind from ignorance, as we said before, so similarly it is necessary to guard it even from multitasking, the opposite of ignorance. Because, after we fill him with many vain and disorderly and harmful calculations, we make him impossible and he cannot understand that which suits our true perfection and perfection. For this reason, you must be as if completely dead, in every investigation of the things of Piguena, which, although they may be permitted, are nevertheless not necessary. And always collecting your mind, as much as you can within yourself, make the ignorant of the things of the whole world the things. The messages, the new news and all the changes and alterations, small and large of the world and of the kingdoms, may they be of such a kind to you, as if they did not exist at all 15 . But even if they are offered to you by others, oppose them, remove them from your heart and imagination. But you are a careful lover to understand spiritual and heavenly things, not wanting to know any other lesson in the world than the Crucified One and his life and death and what he asks of you; and of course you will greatly thank God, who has for his chosen and beloved those who love him and take care to do his will. Because every other question and inquiry is selfishness and pride, a bond and snares of the devil, who, like a cunning man, seeing that the will of those who are attentive to the spiritual life is strong and powerful, seeks to conquer their minds with such curiosities, in order to dominate them. in this way and the one and the other. Therefore, it is customary many times to give them supposedly lofty, subtle and strange thoughts, especially to the flexible in mind and to those who are easily proud. For these, taken captive by the pleasure and conversation of those high thoughts, in which they falsely think that they are enjoying God, forget to purify their hearts and to attend to the humble knowledge of themselves and to the true mortification; and so they are attached to the bound by pride, they become the idol of their own mind; and then, little by little, without realizing it, they come to consider that they no longer need the advice and admonition of others, because they have become accustomed to turn to the idol of their own judgment in every need; a thing which is very dangerous and difficult to cure, because the pride of the mind is now more dangerous than that of the will. Because, the pride of the will, being manifest in the mind, can easily be cured at times, subjecting itself to what it should. But when the mind has a firm opinion that its judgment is better than others, from whom can it be healed and how can it submit to the judgment of others, the one who does not have it as good as his own? If the eye of the soul, which is the mind, with which man can know and cleanse the pride of the will, is the same patient, blind and full of pride, who then can heal him? And if the light is darkness and the rule is wrong, how does he want to illuminate or correct the others? Therefore you must resist as quickly as possible this dangerous pride of mind, before it penetrates into the mind of your bones and resisting, put a bridle on the acidity of your mind and submit your own opinion to the opinion of others and become a fool for the love of God and you will be wiser than Solomon. 3.10). CHAPTER I How we must exercise our will so that it wills in all our internal and external actions, as the ultimate goal only the pleasure of God. In addition to training your mind, you must also govern your will in such a way that you do not let it turn to its desires, and which must become all one with the will of God. And think carefully that it is not enough for you to want and ask for those things that please God, but also to want, as moved by God, and for the end only, to please him clearly. For this purpose, we have a greater quarrel with nature, than for all the above that we have said. Because our nature deviates so much by itself, that in all things, sometimes even in these good and spiritual things, it asks for its rest and its pleasure and from this, as if completely unsuspecting, it feeds with longing as if from food. That is why when spiritual things are offered to us, we immediately desire them and see them, not motivated by God's will or just to please God, but also for that pleasure and joy that comes to us, wanting what God wants. This fallacy is all the more hidden, as what we wanted is in itself better and more spiritual. Because it is not enough only to want what God wants, but also to want them, as and when and as and because he wants them 16 , so that even in desiring the same God, there are usually many deceptions of our own love, that is, self-love. Because many times we see more in our own interest and good, than in the will of God, who, for his glory alone, is pleased and wants us to love him, desire him and obey him as we said before. So, you, my brother, in order to protect yourself from this bond, which obstructs the path of perfection and to prevent you from wanting and doing your every deed for the will and glory and pleasure of God alone and to serve him alone (who, in each of us deed and calculation, he wants to be alone, the beginning and the end) used this way. When you are about to attempt any deed which God wills, which is simply good, do not direct your desire immediately to wanting it, if you do not first lift up your mind to God, to see if it is also his will to do it you will also if he so wishes and if through this only he likes you. And when you think that your inclination is motivated by this divine will, then you should want that act and carry it out, because God wants it and it is only for his glory and obedience. In the same way, when you want to turn away what God does not want, i.e. evil, do not turn it away immediately, if you do not first fix the sight of your mind on his divine will, which wants you to turn it away in order to please him. Because the deception of nature is very subtle and that is why it is known to few, because it secretly seeks itself in everything; and many times it makes it seem to us that its purpose is to please God only, but this is not the truth. This is why it often happens that we think what we want, or don't want, for our own benefit, because we want it or don't want it to please God alone. Well, to avoid this deception, the cure itself is the purity of the heart, which consists in putting off the old man and putting on the new (and this is what this whole war is about). However, to teach you the art of doing this, listen. At the beginning of your every action, you must get out as much as you can, from every will of yours, and neither want to do nor refuse to do anything, if you do not first understand that you are motivated and drawn into it, by the simple will of God alone. And if in all your external works, and indeed in the internals of the soul, you cannot always feel this energy, the motivation and pleasure from God, 17 at least to have the pleasure of having it in your strength, that is, to always have a true view of yourself, to please only your God in your every work. However, in the works that will last some time, not only in the beginning it is good to motivate yourself to this thanksgiving to God, but even to the end you have a duty to take care to renew it many times with the reminder because 18, if you do not thus, you risk getting entangled again in the bond of your natural self-love, which, by deviating more to itself than to God, tends many times over the course of time, to make us change things inadvertently and to change our ends and our first purposes. Therefore, whoever does not take good care of this, many times begins to do some work, with the aim of pleasing his Lord only; but then, after a little while, he is led without realizing it, to please Him and this of his own will, so that he forgets the divine will; and he becomes so attached to the pleasure of that work, that if God himself hinders him by some disease or by the temptation of demons and men or by any other means of any building, he is completely confused and disturbed and sometimes criticizes the one and the other, because they stood in his way (not to mention that he grumbles even against God himself once), a thing which is a clear sign that his judgment was not all of God, but was born from the rotten and corrupt root of selfishness. For he who moves only for God's will and thanksgiving, does not prefer one work more than another, not even if one is high and great, and the other humble and small, but he wants both equally, because it is pleasing to God for the weather or for the method or for some other circumstance that he alone knows; therefore he, whether he takes the important and great work in his hands, or the humble and small one, remains the same peaceful and rested; for in every way he enjoys his purpose, which was to appear pleasing to God in all his works, whether in life or in death. "For this reason we strive with zeal, so that we may be pleasing to God, whether we remain in the body or leave it" (2 Corinthians 5:9). So, beloved, always be careful and timid about yourself and try to direct your actions to this ultimate goal. If once again you are motivated by the desire of your soul to do good in order to avoid the places of punishment and to enjoy Paradise, you can even in this think about the pleasure and desire of God, who wants to enter his kingdom and do not go to Hades. This cause, i.e. the end, it is not possible for anyone to know correctly, how much power and strength it has. For a work, let it be very humble, let it be very small, but when it is done with a purpose to please only God and his glory, it is worth infinitely more (so to speak), than many other great, glorious and very great works, which are done without it the purpose; so close to God more pleasing is a single minute; when you give it to a poor person, for this reason alone to please his Divine majesty, than to strip yourself of all your many possessions, when you do it with some other purpose and if you do it to enjoy the heavenly goods, which is not only a good goal, but also a very desirable one. This exercise that you must do in your every action, to have one purpose, that is, to please God alone, this exercise I say, and at first it will seem difficult to you, but after that it will become easy for you, one of the use of hypothesis and another, from always desiring God and for him to breathe with a living disposition of your heart, as if he were a perfect and unique good, which is worthy for himself alone to be sought by all creatures and to be served and loved more than any other. This account of God's infinite merit, as it becomes more profound and more continuous, the more warm and continuous the above-mentioned acts of our will will be. And so, much more easily and quickly we will acquire the habit of doing our every deed only for the love and pleasure of that Despot, who alone is worthy of being loved. Finally, if you want to understand if God motivates you in your every action, you must ask God for it with a fervent prayer, begging him to add this grace to you, next to the other innumerable favors and graces that he has given you and continues to give you, for the sole reason of love and without any gain of his own. CHAPTER X Some thoughts that motivate the desire of man to want to do the will of God in everything. In order to motivate your will with more ease, to desire the pleasure and glory of God in everything, remember often that he first in various ways honored and loved you; he created you from nothing, in his own image and likeness, and he tainted the other creations. he did in thine own service; he redeemed thee from the slavery of the devil, sending not an Angel, but his only-begotten Son to redeem thee, not with the corruptible price of gold and silver, but with his precious blood, and a most torturous and dishonorable death. and again after that, every hour and every moment, he guards you from the enemies; he fights for you with his divine grace, he has ready for your nourishment and your honor, his beloved Son in the Immaculate Mysteries. This is a sign of a wonderful honor and love that God has for you, so great that no one can understand how much honor so great a King does to our insignificance and suffering and, on the contrary, how much honor and respect we owe to do us, in his great majesty, who has done so many wonderful things for us. And if the earthly kings, when they are honored by men and the most insignificant and lowly, are obliged to render them their recompense, how much more should we who are worthless do to the supreme King of the universe, by whom we are so highly honored and loved? Apart from what we have said, always bear in mind more than anything else, that, as we said before, the divine majesty alone is infinitely worthy to be honored and served purely by all in the way it pleases. CHAPTER XII The many wills and desires that exist in man and the battle that exists between them. He knew that in this war, two wills exist in us opposed to each other: one, of the logical and for this reason it is called the logical and superior will; the other, of the senses and for this reason it is called the sensuous and inferior will, which is even more commonly called the will of the horse, the will disposition of the flesh and passion; with the superior and rational will we desire all good things; and with the inferior and irrational will we desire all evils; therefore, when we will any thing by the sense alone, so long as we do not agree with the superior and rational will to want it, it is not counted, because we really want it. Therefore, the whole invisible war, first of all, rests on this, that is, on the fact that the superior will does not incline to the inferior. Because the rational will, which is between the will of God, which resides above it and in that sense, which is below it, is always fought by both the one and the other. Because each of them wants to seduce her and subjugate her to herself 19 . For this reason, a great test and effort, especially in the beginning, are experienced by those who have become accustomed to evil, when they decide to change their worldly and carnal life and surrender to the love and service of God. For the oppositions which their rational will receives, from the will of God and from the will of the senses, which remain on one side and on the other and fight against it, are so strong that they feel them with great trial, a thing which does not happen to those who already accustomed, either to the virtues or to the vices, and who rest to live either in them or in them. Because the virtuous easily agree to God's will, but the wicked lean to that feeling, without any opposition 20 . Therefore, let no one boast that he can acquire the true Christian virtues and serve God as he ought, if he does not hurry himself to the truth so as to forsake not only the greatest graces, but also the smaller ones, to which he was previously devoted with worldly love. And of this it happens that very few reach perfection 21 . For, having conquered with effort the greatest pleasures, they do not want to push themselves to conquer their smaller and insignificant desires, which every hour conquer them. For example: there are some who do not take the things of others, but love their own too much; there are others who do not demand prices by unfair and unseemly means; however, they do not pity them, as they are in debt, but they also desire them, and sometimes they shoot them in other different ways. Still others keep the legislated fasts according to their obligation, but they are overcome by gluttony and bulimia, eating more than what is enough for them. Others live with temperance, but they do not detach themselves from certain associations, which they like, which cause them a great obstacle to the spiritual life and to the union with God; and in fact, those associations, which are made with new and pious persons, of which the less one fears, the more rather he should avoid them 22 . Therefore, from what we have said, it follows in them that they do good works, imperfect, incomplete and matched with the desire of the world's honor and praise. From this, as a consequence, it comes that they do not hinder me in the way of salvation, but that they return again and again and fall again into the first evils; because they do not love true virtue, nor do they seem grateful to God, who redeemed them before the tyranny of the devil; it also follows that they are always ignorant and blind in not seeing the danger they are in at some point, who think they are safe and harmless. And here a fallacy is revealed, the more damaging the less it is known; because there are many who follow the spiritual life, but love themselves more than they should (although in reality they do not know how to love him). Because, they are more occupied with those struggles, which their desire inclines to and they leave the others, which come in opposition to their natural inclination and to the desires of the senses, which, by all justice, they had to fight with all their strength. Therefore, love in the Lord, my brother, I command you to always love the difficulty and trial that this war brings with it, even if you are once defeated in it. Because Shirah says: "Do not hate tedious work" (7,16). Because everything is here. Because the more strongly you love the difficulty that virtue and war present to beginners, the more and the faster you will win; what am I saying? if you love the torturous war of the passions more than your own virtues and victories, of course you will acquire every good much faster. CHAPTER III. How one must fight against the irrational will of the senses and about the actions that the will must perform in order to acquire the habits of the virtues. Every time, when the irrational desire of the senses on the one hand and the will of God on the other, fight against your rational desire and each one wants to win, you must train yourself in many ways so that the will of God will win completely. And when you are fought by the movements of any irrational desire of the senses, you must resist strongly, so that the superior will of reason is not accepted by them. b´. After they stop, lift them up again to defeat them and drive them away from you with greater ferocity and power. And again, after this, call them to war, in which you will get used to hating them with all your soul and pitying them 23 . These three wars must be fought against our every disordered desire (apart from carnal passions, about which I will speak at the appropriate point). Lastly, you must also do actions opposite to each of your passions. For example, if someone dishonored you and you felt war from the movements of impatience, pay close attention and you will feel that these movements always fight the higher and rational will and try to subdue it and make it agree; therefore, you in the first war resist these movements with all your strength and make haste not to deviate, nor let your rational desire consent to them, saying with Jesse: "By opposing me I will crush them" (1,2), and never to stop this battle, until you know that the enemy almost tired, he remained as if dead and defeated; (however, be careful and guard against the devil's cunning. For, when he understands that we are strongly resisting the movements of some passion, not only does he not arouse them then against us, but even if they are aroused, he tries to stop them, so that they do not fight us, so that we do not acquire by training that habit of virtues and moreover, to make us fall into both vanity and pride, making us in a skilful way think that like brave soldiers we quickly defeated our enemies). Therefore you, beloved, passed into the second war, that is to say, raised up upon you with the remembrance those calculations, which became the cause of your impatience; and with frequent desires and with more violence than the first, pursue their movements away from you, saying with David, "I will pursue my enemies and I will not yield until I have destroyed them" (Ps. 17,41). But because it is not enough to persecute our enemies only, but we must also hate them from our hearts so that we will not be defeated by them again, therefore you too with the war must oppose with such fierceness the calculations of impatience, until you hate them. And to quiet them by saying that psalm. "I hated and abhorred injustice" (Ps. 118,162), and, "I hated them with perfect hatred; they became my personal enemies" (Ps. 118,21). Lastly, in order to make your soul perfect with the 24 years of virtues, you must also do internal actions that are directly opposed to your impatience, according to "Turn away from evil and do good" (Ps. 33,14). For example, if you wish to acquire the habit of patience completely, it is not enough only to practice in the ways of war, which I have said, but you must also love the contempt which you have received from him who dishonored or reviled you, desiring that you will be dishonored again and cursed as before by the same person; and be prepared to endure even heavier insults and curses, because similar actions are also necessary to make us perfect in virtues. Because in other words, the other actions, however many and powerful they are, are not capable of removing evil from its roots. That is why it is necessary, where vice was previously planted and rooted, there instead its opposite virtue should be planted and rooted 25 , so that, according to doctors, opposites may become the treatment of opposites. Thus, if we do not accustom ourselves by many and frequent actions to love contempt and to rejoice in it, upon which love of contempt patience is founded and rooted, we shall never be freed from the evil of impatience, which is founded upon in the hatred of contempt; for this reason, even though the root of wickedness remains alive, it always grows in a way that withers virtue, and sometimes even suffocates it completely; and it makes us in danger, so that we may fall again at every opportunity that luck will give us; it is, therefore, certain that without opposite actions we have said, it is not possible to acquire the true habit of virtues. And he also knew that these actions must be so frequent and so numerous that they can finally destroy the habit of evil, which, as it has taken root and conquered our heart by many bad actions, so must be uprooted from it by many good actions, and then to root in our hearts the habit of virtues, in fact I say, that there must be far more good deeds than bad in order for the habit to become virtuous, because good deeds are not like the deeds of evil supported by nature, which is corrupted by sin. I also tell you this: that if the virtue you practice requires it, you must also do external actions similar to internal ones; for example, in order to acquire patience, you must not only love with your heart those who have offended you or annoyed you with in every way, but also to speak to them words of gentleness and love; and if you can, even to serve them with works and to make them repent 26 . And these actions, both the internal and the external, may seem difficult to you both because of the weakness of your mind, as well as because of the difficulty that your desire brings you to them, but in no way should you abandon them, but strive to do them. For, however weak they may be, they keep you firm and brave in war and ease your way to victory. Stand carefully and collect yourself well in order to fight not only your great and effective desires, but also the small and light ones of your every passion; for the small ones open the way to the big ones, so even after that the bad ones are born in us desires; and from the little care which some have in removing from their hearts the little desires, after they have mastered the great ones of their own passion, it follows to them unexpectedly and suddenly, that they will be harmed and defeated by their enemies with more force and destruction than what before I also remind you to cut down and black out your desires and wishes, even for things that are allowed but not necessary (and such are the many conversations, the greasier foods and the like). Because from this they will follow you very well. Because this will make you more prepared and more willing to defeat yourself and others. Because you will become stronger and more experienced in the war of temptations because you will avoid various traps of the devil and you will achieve things very pleasing to God. So, if you follow, my dear, in the way that I told you these holy exercises, you can be sure that in a short time you will advance a lot and you will become a spiritual person truly and truly and not falsely and in name only. For if you try another way and other exercises pleasing to your desire, so that you think you are united with God and converse sweetly with him, know that it is not possible to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit or any virtue because the grace of Spirit, as I said in the first chapter, does not consist of nor is it born from exercises of thanksgiving and similar to our nature, but from those that put nature on crosses and sufferings, and from that by which man is renewed through the desires of the evangelical virtues and unites with the crucified of the Poet. He also knew this, that as bad habits are formed by many and frequent acts of the rational will, because it is that which is surrendered to the irrational desires of the senses. In the same way, the habits of the evangelical virtues are acquired by doing frequent and many actions and surrendering to the will of God, by which we are invited sometimes to one virtue and sometimes to another. For just as our rational will can never be evil and earthly, even if it is fought by the irrational desire of the flesh and by evil, if it does not surrender itself to it and submit to it; so again it can never be virtuous and united with God, even if he is invited by his grace, if he does not completely surrender to his will and grace, both with the internal actions and with the external ones. CHAPTER XI What should be done, when the superior rational will seems defeated by the irrational and the inferior by the enemies. If you never think that your rational will can never resist the irrational desire and the enemies who fight you, because you do not feel that you have a living desire against them; but you, my brother, remain firm and not abandon the war, for you will be considered a victor, as long as you do not see yourself clearly defeated. For just as our higher will has no need of the lower desires to offend its actions, so if it itself does not want, it can never be pressed or defeated by them with however fierce a war they wage against it. For God has given our will so much freedom and power, that even if all the senses, and all the demons and the whole world together arm themselves against it and fight it mightily, nevertheless, our will can, with all freedom, despise them and will the one she wants, or the one she doesn't want and as many times as she wants and for the purpose she likes best. And if even once the sensible enemies and your irrational desire, fight you so hard and oppress you, that you are weakened, you cannot do any spiritual work against them to help yourself, I tell you, do not be afraid even in this case, nor throw the chariots to the ground, but use this vehicle against them and say to the enemies: "I will not retreat from the war, I will not leave you slain even now." "The Lord is my light and salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the refuge of my life, from whom shall I panic?" (Ps. 26,1). "In his name I will defeat my enemies" (Ps. 43,7); and if now you are strengthened, but again you are defeated, as it is written: "Even if you unite, you will be crushed; arm yourself as much as you want, you will still be crushed" (Is. 8,9). Therefore, just as he does who has the enemy against him and oppresses him; who, not being able to strike him directly, strikes him sideways and tries to make a leap backwards, so that he can hurt him directly, so do you also; collect your thoughts in the yourself and think that you have no strength and thus taking refuge in God, who can do all things, call on him with fervent hope and tears, against the passion that fights you, saying: "Lord, help me; my God, my God, help me; my Jesus, help me; fight those who are fighting me; take a shield and a weapon and come and help me" (Ps. 34,1). "Theotokos Virgin, help me so that I don't let the enemy defeat me." But if passion and your enemy give you time, you can still help the weakness of your will against passion, with the meditations and these exercises. For example, when you fall into some difficulty or some other punishment and your desire cannot or does not want to endure it, help it with these. A. Think that this trial you are suffering, you must suffer it worthily, because you gave the occasion and with every right you owe to suffer that wound, which you gave yourself with your own hands. B´. If you have no fault in this trial, turn your calculation to your many other and great faults and think that for this God has not yet given you the punishment that is due to you, but you have not punished them as you should; therefore the mercy of God he had mercy on you and so that you would not be tormented eternally, he sent you this temporary trial, and therefore you must accept it with joy and thanksgiving. C. Think, that even if you have caught up and made a sufficient rule for your sins by which you have grieved the majesty of God (which you should never think about); yet think that in the kingdom of heaven no one else enters, except through the narrow gate of trials and of sorrows. "We must go through many tribulations to enter the Kingdom of God" (Acts 14,21). D. That although you too can enter this kingdom through another way, that is, through the love of God, you should not even think about it, because the Son of God with all his friends entered it through thorns and crosses. E. Think that this trial you are suffering is according to the will of God (which you must think about at the beginning of your every action and sorrow that will happen to you, as I told you before, in the 10th and 10th chapters, that is, to want it to be done in your every work and in every other event the will of God), who for the love he has for you, is grateful and happy to see you suffer as his faithful and brave warrior. So you too, in order to respond to this love of his, as unjust and heavy is the trial you are suffering, strive to endure it with thanksgiving. Because by doing so, you seem to persevere in the deed and love even in these cruel tortures only his divine will, for which and near which, everything bitter seems sweet and every disorder has order and perfect rule. CHAPTER IE One must fight with all one's strength and always and bravely. If you want to defeat your enemies more quickly and easily, it is necessary to fight, brother, forever and bravely, against all your passions, but more especially against your selfishness, that is, your excessive love of yourself, being accustomed to have for your beloved friends, the scorns and the sorrows that the world can ever give you; because, when someone does not know this war of his own and when he calculates it a little, it happened and always happens that the victories are difficult, rare, imperfect and non-existent. Well, this war must always be waged, unceasingly, that is, continuously, until the hour of your death and with a brave soul, which you will easily obtain if you ask God for it; but if you think of the furious drive and eternal hatred that your enemies have against you demons and the great multitude of his factions and armies, but think from the other side and that the power of God and the love that He has for you is much greater and that the Angels of heaven and the prayers of the Saints are many more, who fight secretly on our side, as it was written about Amalek: "The Lord fights with a secret and invisible hand" (Exodus 17,16). For this and from this thought, so many women and so many minor children were motivated and conquered and defeated all the power and wisdom of the world, all the insults of the devil's enemy and all his fury. Therefore, you should never be afraid, even if it seems to you that the war of enemies is very strong, that it will remain for your whole life and may terrorize you with falls from various places. For all the power and knowledge of our enemies is in the hands of our divine Commander-in-Chief Jesus Christ, for whose honor you are fighting. He who, because he alone invites you by force to war, is evident, that not only will he never allow any power and victory from your enemies to be in your burden (for he regards this as an insult to him); but, fighting for you, he will deliver them into your hands defeated, when it seems pleasing to him, as it is written "The Lord your God comes and goes in your camp to protect you and to capture your enemies and deliver them into your hands". (Deuteronomy 23:14). However, if he too tarries until the last day of your life, to achieve this victory 27 , it will be for your greater gain; only you, this you must do, to fight with great courage; and even if you are wounded many times in the war, never leave your weapons, nor to flee; after all, in order to be motivated to fight bravely, you must know that this war no man can avoid, either in life or in death; and whoever does not fight to conquer his passions and his enemies, must necessarily be arrested from here or there and die. Therefore, we must fight bravely and always, because we have to do with such enemies, who hate us so much, that it is impossible to hope from them either peace, or peace, or any tolerance and cessation of war. For it was good from the beginning not to open the door and to put the enemies and the passions inside our soul and heart; but once we have put them in, we can no longer be indifferent, but we must fight to get them out, because they are insolent and shameless, they do not come out in any other way than by war 28 . CHAPTER VI In what way, at dawn, should the soldier of Christ go out to battle in the morning to fight. After you wake up in the morning and pray for a long time saying, Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the first thing you should think about is this, to think that you see yourself closed in a place and stage 29, which is not it is different, than your own heart and the whole inner man; with this law, that whoever does not fight there, will remain forever dead; and in it imagine that you see before you that enemy and that evil desire of yours, which you have decided to fight and you are ready to be hurt and die, it is enough only to defeat her. And from the right side of the stage, believe that you see your victorious Commander-in-Chief, our Lord Jesus Christ with the Virgin Mother and many orders of Angels and Saints and even the Archangel Michael; and on the left side, because you see the underground devil with his own demons, to arouse that passion and evil desire against you, and to induce you to give up the war and to submit to it; imagine also that you hear a voice, as if from your guardian angel, saying the following to you: You today you will fight against this passion and your other enemies; let not your heart be completely frightened and avoid war for fear or other restraint in any way; for our Lord and Commander-in-Chief Jesus stands here surrounded with all the captains and captains of thousands his, i.e. with all his glorified orders, to fight all your enemies and not let them oppress you or defeat you "The Lord will fight for you" (Exod. 14,14). So, stand firm, force yourself, endure the pain that you will want to feel sometime, cry out many times from the bowels of your heart: "don't hand me over to the gluttony of my enemies" (Ps. 26,18). Call upon your Lord and the Virgin and all the Saints and Saints; and you will surely win, because he says: "I am writing to you, my young men, to assure you that you have overcome the wicked one" (John 1:2,13). And if you are weak and spoiled, while your enemies are strong and many, much more are the helps of the one who created you and redeemed you and God is incomparably stronger in this war, as it is written: "Your Lord is strong and strong in war" (Psalm 23:8). And he has more desire to save you than the enemy has to destroy you. That's why you fight and never tire of your effort. For from the toil and from the violence and the trial, which you feel because of the habit you showed in evil, victory and the great treasure are born, with which the kingdom of heaven is purchased and the soul is united forever with God. So begin, in the name of God, to fight with the vehicles of unbelief in yourself and of hope and courage in your God, with prayer and with exercise, and indeed with the vehicle of heart and mental prayer, which is: Lord, Jesus Christ, such a name terrible, which, like a two-edged knife, turns into the heart, chews and cuts down the demons and the passions; for this John of the Scales said in this regard. "In the name of Jesus, plague wars"; about which we speak separately in the second chapter. With these, I say, he fights that enemy and that passion and evil desire, which fights you, which you are determined to defeat in the order that I told you in the first chapter; that is, sometimes by resistance, to wound him to death, sometimes by means, sometimes by actions. the opposite of virtue; and thus, to do things that please your God, who, with all the Church triumphant in heaven, stands unseen and sees your war; for which war, you must not be sorry, thinking that apart from me is the obligation that we all have to work and to please God and on the other hand the need we have to fight, as I told you before. For, if we abandon this war, we shall certainly be killed. Then, even if for a moment you leave this God-given war as a renegade and surrender to the world and all the pleasures and rests of the flesh, but later and with your pressure you must fight again and with so many oppositions that many times your face sweats and let your heart be afflicted with deadly faintings. When? at the time of your old age and your death. When the demons and all your passions, may have surrounded you. And so that they crush you, that you, not being able to fight first, will surrender to eternal death. Therefore, do not be so foolish, beloved, as to want to fight then in an unprofitable hour, but like a wise man, endure now the fatigue of war, so that you may win, be crowned and unite with God both here and there in his heavenly kingdom; "Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and those years arrive when you will not have strength" (Eccl. 12,1). CHAPTER IZ With what order we must fight against our passions It is very useful for you, brother, to know the order you must keep, in order to fight as you should and not simply and as it happened, as many do and are harmed. The order of the war against your enemies and evil desires is this: to enter into your heart and to investigate diligently, by what calculations and by what desires and efforts it is surrounded and by what passion it is most dominated and tormented; and first, according to that passion to take up arms and fight; however, if you happen to be tempted by other passions as well, you must always fight the nearest passion, which then actually fights you, and again turn the war to that which dominates you the most. CHAPTER II How one ought to fight against the sudden movements of the passions If you are not yet accustomed, beloved, to fight against the sudden blows and attacks of insults, or of some other opposites that happen to you, I advise you to do the following: That is, always get used to investigating before, sitting in your house, that they will happen to you. many insults, dishonors, and many times also wounds and other many opposites; and in this way be prepared, so as not to be disturbed, but to endure them with thanksgiving without disturbance. In fact, you should do this preparation when you are ready to leave your house and go to some other place, and even when you are going to talk to people who get angry easily. Because, such a preparation and training, he believes that the most terrible and sudden incidents and the passion of anger are not to be despised, he does not allow himself to be disturbed: "I prepared and was not disturbed" (Ps. 118,60) 30 . But close to this pre-study and preparation, he also used this method. When, in some case, someone starts suddenly and without expecting it, or hits you, or curses you and causes you other dishonor, stop for a while, and after you have collected your thoughts in your heart, put all the attention and guard in your mind, in the take heed that your heart is not at all troubled by the passion of anger; however, if it has time to be troubled, do not let the passion come out and motivate you to curse and take revenge; "within me," he says, "my heart is troubled." (Psalm 14) 31 . Then force yourself to raise your mind to God, think of the infinite love he has for you, for which he sent you this incredible temptation and test, in order to purify you more and unite you with him better. These, I say, thinking, turn to yourself and checking it, say to yourself: "Ah, poor and suffering! and why don't you want to embrace that cross and the test that he sent you, not someone else, but your own heavenly Father? then turn to the cross and mentally embrace it with the greatest joy you can, saying, O cross, which was established by the providence of God, before I became! O cross, sweetened by the sweet love of the Crucified, nail and fasten me to you so that I can be completely united with the one who redeemed me by dying on you". However, if the passion of anger overtakes and moves within you and does not allow you to lift your mind to God at first, however, study to lift him up as quickly as possible, as if you had not been disturbed at all, because you will be helped. However, the best and most effective treatment for the passions not to move suddenly, is to remove the causes from which this movement originates. These are generally two: love and hate. Therefore, if you, beloved, have come to have passionate love for any person, or for any other thing, small or great, and immediately as soon as you see that it is snatched from you or teased, you are suddenly disturbed and your heart is scandalized by sympathy, you must fight, to remove from your heart that evil love you have for it, because, the greater or lesser it is, the greater or lesser is the sudden movement of passion. But if, on the contrary, you hate someone, or any other thing, and because of this you are suddenly agitated and disgusted, when you see it or hear some wonderful action of its, you must press your will, until you love it; not only because it is also a creature of God, just as you too were made in his image and likeness by the highest hand of God; not only because he, like you, has been reborn with that precious blood of Christ, not only because he is your brother and your member and you must not hate him, not even with that same thought of yours and your calculation, as it is written "do not hold malice in your heart for your brother" (Leviticus 19,17) 32 . But, and why, if that person is evil and worthy of hatred, yet, when you love it, you are like God who loves all his creations and never rests on any of them, as Solomon says: "All things are yours and therefore you take care of them, Lord, you who you love life" (Soph. Solomon 11,). And in fact, because God overlooks the vices of people "His sun rises on the wicked and the good and rains on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45). CHAPTER ITH How should one fight against carnal passions. Against carnal passions you will fight, brother, in a separate and different way from others. And in order to know how to fight with class, you must think that there are three times and three wars: before the temptation, during the temptation and after the temptation has passed. The war before the temptation will be against the causes which usually become the occasion of this temptation; that is, first, you must fight against this passion; not by resisting it, as I told you to do with the other passions, but by avoiding it with all your power from every kind of occasion and person, which causes you temptation in the flesh. And, if you ever need to speak to someone like that, speak briefly and with a modest and serious face; in fact, let your words have some harshness rather than sweetness. "Never trust your enemy", says Sirach (12,11). And you, never have confidence in yourself. For, as copper begets rust of itself, so your corrupt nature begets evil of itself: "as copper rusts, so is its evil" (autothy); do not have confidence, I say again, in yourself, even if it can be said that you also do not you feel, nor will you even feel for so long the stitches of the flesh; for this accursed wickedness, which he has not done in many years, does in an hour and many times makes his preparations secretly, and the more he befriends and gives less suspicion of her, the more it harms and irremediably hurts 33 . For this reason, many times one should be more afraid (as experience has proven and continues to prove), of those persons with whom one thinks it reasonable to associate, either because they are his relatives or because he is pious and virtuous 34 or because he was benefited by them and considers it an obligation to greet them often. Because with this thoughtless intercourse, the medicinal pleasure of the senses is stirred up, so that little by little it penetrates imperceptibly, as well as into the mind of the soul, and so darkens the logic, in such a way, that later they begin not to calculate at all the dangerous causes of sin; that is, the erotic glances, the sweet words of one and the other party; the obscene movements and grimaces; the holding of hands and then they end up falling either into total sin or into the other diabolical passions, from which they can hardly be freed. Therefore, brother, you must avoid the fire, because you are everything, and do not be discouraged because you are a stoup wet and well filled with water of good and strong will; no, but if you are a stoup dry and immediately approaching the fire, you are burned, according to what is written for Samson, because "he broke his nerves as the thread of the cane breaks when he approaches the fire" (Judg. 16,9), nor to consider that you have a firm decision and willingness to die rather than to grieve God with sin. For, supposing you to be so drenched, yet with frequent intercourse and spectacle, the fire with its heat dries up little by little the water of your good will, and hopelessly, you will so cling to devilish love, that you may not shame men, nor to respect kinship or friendship, nor to fear God, nor to calculate honor, nor life, nor all the punishments of hell; but to commit sin. Therefore, leave, leave as much as you can. A. From the associations of persons who scandalize, if you really do not want to be caught by sin and be killed 35 B´. Avoid unemployment and laziness and stay awake and sober with the calculations and with the works that suit your attitude. C. Never disobey yourself, but submit easily to your superiors and Spiritual Fathers, willingly and quickly doing what they command you and indeed, what humiliates you and is contrary to your will and your natural inclination. D. Never judge your neighbor presumptuously; that is, do not criticize him, and indeed, for this same carnal sin of which we are speaking, even if he is clearly fallen into it, but sympathize with him and do not be indignant against him, nor mockery, but by his example, humble yourself and know yourself, that you are sick and dust and ashes saying: he fell today, I will fall tomorrow. Because, if you easily judge others and despise them, God will teach you by example, allowing you to fall into the same fault. "Judge not, he says, and you will not be judged" (Matt.); so that you may know your pride by your fall and be humbled and thus seek healing for both: both for your pride and for your fornication. However, even if God protects you and you don't fall, nor change your mind, still don't trust yourself, but always be afraid and doubt your stance. Eh. Take good care, if you have acquired any gift from God or are in a good situation, that you do not put in your calculation some unnecessary idea and imagination, that you are someone and that your enemies will not fight you anymore, by appearing to hate and abhor them for the time being. Because, if you are unguarded in this, you will easily fall. These, then, are the things that you must guard against the temptation of carnal passion. But in the time of temptation, you have to think about where this war comes from: from an internal cause, or from an external one. An external cause is the curiosity of the eyes, the sweet-to-hear words and songs; the softness and adornment of the dresses, the fragrant odors of the sense of smell; the conversations and the movements and the grasping, which incite to this sin; the cure in these answers it is: the modesty and humility of the dresses, the unwillingness neither to see, nor to hear, nor to smell, nor to speak or touch all those things, which motivate this wickedness and above all the avoidance of intercourse, as we said above. The internal cause comes either from the well-being of the body or from the calculations of the mind that come to us from our bad habits and passions or from the motivation of the devil. And the good health of the body must be hardened by fasting, vigils, fasting and even kneeling and other similar sufferings; as explained by the discernment and teaching of the divine Fathers of calculus, wherever they come from, the cures are these: to engage with various exercises, appropriate for your condition, which are the reading of the holy books, and in fact, of St. Ephraim, the Scales, the Euergetinus, the Philocalia and others of the like, the study and the prayer; which should be done like this. When these thoughts of prostitution begin to bother you, immediately remember the crucified one in your mind and say from the bottom of your soul: "My Jesus, my sweet Jesus, help me quickly, so that I will not be captured by this enemy". And sometimes embracing (mentally, or sensibly, if he is present), the cross on which your Lord hangs, embrace his wounds many times, saying with love: "beautiful wounds, holy wounds, unknown wounds, you have wounded this my wretched and impure heart and prevent me from harming you". But your treatment during the period of time when the accounts of carnal pleasures are increasing, should not be done directly against them, a matter of which some books also write like this (such as thinking about the stench and disgust of carnal pleasure; the control of the conscience that will give you bring about, the bitterness that follows, the dangers, the loss of your property and your virginity, the accusation of honor and other similar things); the study I tell you, let it not be done in these, because this care is not always a safe means to overcome the temptation of the flesh; in fact it can cause harm. Because even if the mind puts aside the calculations temporarily with the similar study, yet being patient and empathetic, when it studies these things, it better captures the pleasure and is pleased and consents to it. Therefore, the true treatment of carnal pleasures is to always avoid them, not only from them, but also from everything else (even if it is against them), which reminds us of them. Therefore, let your study be in other things: namely, in the life and passion of our crucified Jesus, in the terrible hour of your death, in the terrible day of Judgment and in the various types of hell. However, if even these carnal calculations fight you more than usual (as this happens), do not be afraid of this, nor leave the study of the above, to turn to them, to oppose them, no, but follow as briefly as you can, this study of yours, not fully caring for these accounts, as if they were not yours. For there is no better way to resist them, even though they are constantly fighting you, than to despise them and not want to remember them at all; after that, you will finish your occupation, with this (or a similar incantation). "Free me, my forge and my redeemer from my enemies, in honor of your passion and your unspeakable goodness". And do not turn your mind to this carnal wickedness. Because even as a nun, her memory is not without danger. But, neither should you stand to converse with this temptation and to examine yourself whether you consented to them or not. For this research, although it seems to be good, is in truth a delusion of the devil, either to annoy you and make you despair and to be low-spirited, or to keep you always entangled in these calculations and by them to make you fall and this or another sin. Therefore, in this temptation (when the consent is not obvious) it is enough to confess it briefly to your spiritual, having rested your opinion, without thinking about anything anymore. And show him truly all your thoughts about it, without ever being held back by any shyness or shame. For if with all our enemies we need the power of humiliation to defeat them, how much more do we need it in this carnal war than in anything else. Because even this wickedness is almost always a punishment and a consequence and a growth of pride 36 . Then, after the temptation has passed, what you have to do is this: even if it seems to you that you are freed from the war of the flesh and certain of everything, you must stand with your mind far from those cases and persons, which became the cause of the temptation; and do not think that you should associate with them, because they are related or virtuous or even your benefactors; because this too is a fallacy of the evil nature and a trap of our cunning enemy the devil, who transforms himself into an angel of light, to put us in darkness as Paul said (2 Cor. 11,14). CHAPTER K. How one should fight against negligence. In order not to fall into the wretched evil of negligence, which obstructs your path to perfection and betrays you into the hands of your enemies, you must avoid all curiosity and all earthly attachment and all kinds of preoccupation that do not suit your condition. Then you must hurry yourself, obey quickly every good advice and every command of your superiors and spirituals, doing every thing at that time and in that way that pleases them. In every work that you have to do, do not procrastinate completely, because that little first procrastination brings with it the second and the second and the third and the third the rest, in which the sense deviates more easily than in the first. Because he was even more drawn and captivated by the pleasure, which he tried in the second and third and remaining argopories. That is why the practice either begins very slowly, or is often abandoned entirely as annoying; and thus little by little the habit of negligence becomes, which eventually reaches such a point that it is otherwise unrecognizable, even if we are tired of the negligence, we give ourselves completely to important and careful works. For from our last care we learned that until then we had been very negligent, to the shame and damage of so many good works that we could have done. This negligence runs everywhere and with its medicine, not only does it weaken the will and make it abhor all manual labor and all spiritual labor and service, but it also blinds the mind, so that it does not consider on what absurd and bad calculation this will is based and so that it does not motivate, from this observation, this will to see to it that he quickly performs every due service and not to leave it completely or to postpone it for another time. Because it is not only enough to quickly do the work you have to do, but you must also do it in a suitable time, which is required by the quality and integrity of that work and with all the care that suits it, so that it has every possible perfection. Because it is written: "Cursed is he who does the works of the Lord negligently" (Jer. 48,10). And all this evil happens, because you do not think of the power of that good deed to do it in its time and with a decisive opinion, in order to overcome the toil and difficulty that negligence brings to novice soldiers. Well, you must think many times that a single elevation of the mind to God and a humble kneeling penance on earth, which is done in the name and honor of this God, is worth more than all the treasures of the world. And that, every time we leave negligence and hurry ourselves with diligent works, the Angels bring to the kingdom of heaven, a crown of glorious victory; and that, on the contrary again, to the negligent, not only does God not give crowns, but also takes from them little by little the graces that he has given, leaving them to be deprived of his kingdom because of their negligence, because it is written that: "Those invited to the heavenly weddings did not care and went one to his field and another to his trade" (Matthew 22,5). And he increases these graces to those who are diligent and hasty of themselves, making them enter after this also into his heavenly kingdom: "the kingdom of heaven is won by effort, and those who strive win it" (Mat. 11,12). But if the bad calculation, fighting to throw you into negligence, brings to your mind that, in order to acquire a virtue that you desire, you will toil a lot and for many days, and that your enemies are strong and many and you are one and weak, and that you need to do many and great actions in order to achieve it; if I say, this is what the calculus of neglect brings to your mind, do not listen to him; but begin to bring to your mind actions as if you had to do few and as if you had to toil a little and for a few days; and as if you had to fight against one enemy only and as if there were no others to fight you and with such a great hope, as if you were (as you are), with the help of God, stronger than those. Because if you do this, carelessness will begin to weaken from you and you will then have the disposition to enter your soul little by little the opposite virtue of diligence. Do the same for prayer; for example, if the time requires you to pray for an hour and it seems hard to you to neglect it, begin the prayer as if you had half an hour to pray and then it will easily pass to the other half and from there to other, etc. And if at any time during this time you perceive a difficulty and a very pressing resistance, leave the prayer for the time, so that you do not dislike it, and after a while repeat the prayer that you left off; the same way you must use in your work and in your service, when it happens that you have things to do, which, as they seem to your neglect to be many and difficult, you are completely disturbed. That's why you started with your heart quietly from one, as if you had nothing else to do. And thus acting diligently, you will do everything with much less effort than that which appears in your negligence. Therefore, if you do not do this and if you do not think of fighting the toil and difficulty, which is shown to you by the enemy for every virtue, negligence will prevail in you, so not only when the toil and difficulty are present, but also from afar, it will make you to be impatient and to fear that you will always have troubles and difficulties and that your enemies will always tease you. Therefore, even in your own rest, you will be disturbed by your calculations. He knew, in other words, my child, that the passion of carelessness, with its secret medicine, rots little by little, not only the first and small roots, which were to germinate the habits of virtues, but it also rots those roots of good habits, which were previously acquired. And as the worm eats the wood, so also this passion proceeds, imperceptibly devouring and consuming the mind of the spiritual life; and by this means, the devil knows how to set traps and snares in every man, but especially in spiritual souls, knowing that it easily falls into the desires of anyone who is slow and negligent, as it is written: "Every unemployed person finds himself in desires" (Prov. 13,4). So, you should always be awake praying and taking good care of yourself like a valiant fighter: "hands of men, in care" (Prov. 13,4). And do not wait to weave your bridal robe, when you are going to go there adorned, to meet the Bridegroom Christ. And remember every day that today is yours, tomorrow is in God's hand, and that the one who gave you the morning does not promise to give you the evening as well. Therefore, do not listen to the devil, who tells you to give today and tomorrow to God, no, but spend all the moments of your life as it pleases God. And as if you are not going to be given another time. And take into account that, for every moment, you will give a most precious account because the time you have in your hands is truly precious and the time will come to ask for it and not find it. He still thought as lost that day (even if you did many other works), in which you did not gain many victories against your evil inclinations and wills and in which you did not thank God, not only for the favors he did you, but also for the torturer of passion, who suffered for you; but also for the paternal sweetness of the training of the sorrows that he is going to send you once in a while. In closing, I also order you: "Always fight the good fight" (1 Tim. 6:12), because many times a single hour of diligence has won heaven and for an hour of negligence, it has been lost. And be diligent, if you want your hope of salvation to be secure in God: "he who trusts in God will have all things in abundance" (Prov. 28,25) 37 . CHAPTER K. The correction of the external senses. And how can one pass from them to the theory and praise of God. Great thought and constant practice are needed to properly control and correct our five external senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. For the unreasonable desire of the heart, which is like a general of our corrupt nature, inclines with exaggeration to always ask for pleasures and rests, and not being able to obtain them by itself, treats the senses of the body as soldiers and natural instruments, in order to grasp their objects from without, i.e. the sensible things, of which the pleasing images and imaginations that pass by taking it, it imprints on the soul, and after that pleasure follows. This, because of the kinship that exists between the soul and the flesh, is shared in all those parts of the senses that contain this pleasure; and from this, the immortal death happens (unfortunately) to the soul; and what was written is fulfilled, that "death came up through the doors". (Jer. 9,20). That is, through the senses, which the soul has as windows to enjoy the senses. Do you see, brother, the great damage caused to you by the senses? Take care, then, to cure it, that is, take good care, not to let your senses go where they want, nor to treat them for the sole enjoyment of sensual pleasures and not for any other good purpose or benefit or need. And if until now, without knowing them, your senses have been completely given over to sensual pleasures, nevertheless, from now on and later, strive as much as you can to bring them back and to rule them as well, in such a way that, from there before they labored wretchedly in vain and soul-destroying pleasures, to acquire after every building and object sensible, soul-beneficial meanings and to bring them into the soul; through these meanings the soul can gather to itself and with the wings of the houses of its powers, to ascend to the study and praise of God 38; that which you can also do in the following way. For example: when any sensible object, whether visible, audible, olfactory, gustatory or tangible, comes before any of your external senses, separate it with your reasoning from the material thing that has the immaterial spirit, i.e. the energy of of the Holy Spirit that is in it; and think that it is not possible for it to have being or anything else, from what is in it; but all its every thing is the work of God, who with his spirit invisibly gives it that being, that goodness, that beauty, that strength, that wisdom and every other good that he has in him. So here let your heart rejoice, because your God alone is the cause and principle of so many different, so great, so wonderful in the exactness of things, and because he with excellence contains all things in himself; and because these are the perfections of all sensible buildings, they are not other than a minimal degree or a shadow of his infinite divine wonders and perfections. And so when you in this way get used to seeing the sensible buildings and do not dwell on the external and the phenomenon only, but penetrate with your mind into this internal and hidden beauty (because the senses are images of the sensible according to Dionysius Areopagite), then their external beauty, as insignificant and material, you will despise and pass by, but on the hidden power and energy of the Holy Spirit, you will fix your mind, glorifying the Lord. Thus, seeing the four elements, fire, air, water and earth, and reflecting on the essence and power and energy they have, with your great thanks you will say to the perfect Creator, who created them in such a way: "O divine essence! oh infinite Power and highly desired energy, how I rejoice and thank you, because you alone are the origin and cause of all created essence of beings and of all energy and power"! 39 Thus, when you see the heavenly and luminous bodies, the sun, the moon and the stars, and you think that they have received light and brightness from God, you will cry out: "O light, beyond all light, from which all immaterial and material light was created; O wonderful light, the first object of the joy of the Angels and of the delight of the saints, at whose inclining theory, the eyes of the Cherubim are dazzled, and in comparison with him, all sensible lights seem the deepest darkness, I glorify you and exalt you, O true light, where you enlighten every man who comes into the world (John 1); merit me to see you mentally, so that my heart may rejoice with perfection". In the same way, when you see trees, grasses and other various plants and you think with your mind, how they live, feed, grow and give birth to their kind and how they do not have the life and the rest that they have of themselves, but from the Holy Spirit, which you do not see, the which alone animates them; so you can say: "Behold, here is the true life, from which, in which and through which all things live and are nourished and increase, O living healing of my heart"! Similarly, from the form of the animal horses, you will lift up your mind to God, who gives it the sense and the movement from place to place, saying: First they move; which, although you move everything, you are immovable in yourself; how I rejoice and delight in your immobility and solidity"! Seeing again yourself or other people and thinking that only you have an upright form and that you are correct and rational than all other animals and that you are a unity and a link of the houses and material buildings, motivate yourself to glorify and thank your Creator God and say: "O Triune Sovereign, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, may you be accreted to the ages. How much I owe you to thank you always, not only because you formed me from the earth and made me king of all the Pygeian buildings, not only because you honored me according to nature with your own image, with mind, speech and spirit animator of my body 40 , but also because you gave me power to I become optional with the virtues, in the likeness of yours, so that I can thus enjoy you in the ages". I come now to the five senses in particular and I say to you: if you are attracted, brother, by the beauty and beauty of the buildings which your eyes see, separate with your mind that which you see, from the spirit which you do not see; and think that all that beauty which is seen from outside, it is of the only invisible and omnipresent spirit, from which external beauty takes its cause; and say full of joy: "Behold the streams of the uncreated source! Yes, the ranids of the infinite seas of all good! ὤ, and how I rejoice, ὢ in the interior of my heart, contemplating the eternal and infinite beauty of my Creator, which is the beginning and cause of all created beauty! ὤ, how sweet I am, meditating on the unfathomable and incomprehensible and exceedingly beautiful beauty of my God, from which all beauty has its beginning". When you hear a sweet voice, the harmony of sounds and songs, turn your mind to God and say: "Harmony of harmonies, my Lord! how I rejoice in your infinite perfections; because all of them together give you a heavenly harmony; and united even with the Angels in the heavens and with all the buildings, they create a great harmony; when will the time come, my Lord, to hear in the ears of my heart the sweet voice of yours, say to me: "I give you my own peace, the peace from passions; because your voice is pleasant", according to the Song (2,14). If you again smell any perfume or fragrant flower, pass from the external fragrance to the hidden fragrance of the Holy Spirit and say: "Behold, the fragrances of that glorious flower and of that pure myrrh, which was given to all his creations; according to I am a flower of the field, a lily of the valleys (2, 10); and again: "your name is a spreading myrrh" (1,2). Yes, she of the diffused fragrance of the fountain, which abundantly floods her divine breaths, from the highest and purest Angels, to the last buildings and makes everything fragrant, according to the Areopagite Dionysius (Eccles. Hierar. ch. D'); with which fragrance Isaac said to the son of Jacob: "the fragrance of my son is like the field, which the Lord blessed" (Gen. 27,27). Again, when you eat or drink, think that God is the one who gives deliciousness to all foods and only with Him you can say: "Rejoice, my soul, because, as outside of God there is no rest for you, so outside of Him, there is also no sweetness or savouriness; therefore, you can thank him alone, as David exhorts you saying "Taste and see how good the Lord is" (Ps. 33, 8). And Solomon informs you by saying about this: "that his fruit is sweet in my throat" (Psalm 2,3). When you move your hands to do any work, think that God is the first cause of that work and you are nothing but a living instrument of him; to whom, raising your account, say thus: "How much is the joy that I taste within to myself, God of the universe! For without you I can do nothing; indeed, you are the first and the original creator of all things." When you see goodness, wisdom, justice and other virtues in others, making this distinction with your mind, say to your God: "O rich treasure of virtue, how great is my joy! because from you and through you alone comes all good; and because all good, compared to your divine perfections, is nothing; I thank you, my God, for this and for every other good thing you did to my neighbor; but remember, my God, also my own poverty and the great need I have for virtue". And to say in general, whenever you see something in the buildings that pleases you and makes you happy, don't stop there, but pass your calculation to God and say: "Oh my God, your buildings are so beautiful, so joyful, so pleasing, how much beautiful, how joyful and sweet are you, the Creator of all of them"! So, if you do this, dear, you can enjoy God through your five senses and always rise from the buildings to the Creator, in such a way that the creation of the creation becomes a theology for you and even being in this world of the senses, imagine that conceivable. Because it is true, the whole world and all nature, is nothing but a law and an instrument under which the Creator and craftsman is invisibly, acting and showing his art and with visible and material things he displays the invisible and incorporeal actions and perfections of 41 . CHAPTER KB' The same sensible things that we said serve us as means and instruments to correct our senses, if we pass through them in the study of the incarnate Word and in the mysteries of his life and passion. I have shown you above how we, from the senses, can raise the mind to the theory of God; now learn another way, in order to raise your mind to the study of the incarnate Word, thinking of the most holy mysteries of his life and passion. All the sensible things of the universe, can help in this study and theory, if you first reflect on them, as we said above, the Supreme God, as the only and first cause, who gave them all that being, power, beauty and all other perfections which they have, and if after this you think, how great and infinite was the goodness of this very God, who, being the sole principle and Lord of all creation, willed to fall so low, to become man, to suffer and die for man, allowing the same works of his hands, to arm themselves against him to crucify him. So when you see or hear or touch weapons, ropes, beatings, poles, thorns, nails, hammers and other such things, consider in your mind that all these were instruments of your Lord's passion. Again, when you see or dwell in poor houses, let the cave and manger of your Despot come to your memory. If you see it raining, remember that bloody rain of sweat, which dripped in the garden from the sacred body of our sweetest Jesus and covered the earth. If you see the sea and the boats, remember how your God walked bodily on it, and how he stood inside the ships and taught the crowds from them. The stones that you will see will remind you of those stones that were crushed at his death; the earth will remind you of that earthquake that he made then in his passion. The sun will remind you of the darkness that darkened it then; the waters will remind you of that water that ran from his holy side, when the soldier pierced him dead on the cross. If you drink wine or any other drink, remember the vinegar and the gall that watered your Despot. If you are attracted by the fragrance of perfumes, run mentally to the stench that Jesus felt on Mount Golgotha, which was a place of condemnation, where people were beheaded and that is why it was foul-smelling and stinking 42 . When you get dressed, remember that the eternal Word took on human flesh to clothe you with his divinity. When you undress again, think of your Christ, who remained naked to be scourged and nailed to the cross on your behalf. If no voice seems sweet and delicious to you, transfer your love to your Saviour, on whose lips all grace and sweetness poured out, according to the psalm "grace was poured out on your lips" (Ps. 44,3); and from the sweetness of his tongue hung the people, according to the Evangelist Luke: "the whole people, when they heard him, hung on their lips" (ch. 19,48). If thou hearest tumults and voices of the people, think of those lawless voices of the Jews, "Heron, Heron, crucify him," which were heard loudly in his divine ears. If you see any beautiful face, remember that the most beautiful Jesus Christ, above all people, became ugly, and dishonored, without any beauty on the cross for your love. Every time that the clock strikes, let that recollection of the heart come to your mind, which Jesus felt, when he began in the garden to fear the hour of passion and death, which drew near; or thought you heard those hard beats which could be heard from the hammers when they nailed him to the cross. And to say simply, in every sad occasion that will find you or find others, think that every sorrow and trial is not zero, in proportion and likeness of the unheard of trials, which afflicted and crushed the body and soul of your Lord. CHAPTER KG How we must correct our senses in other ways, when their visible objects are presented to us. When you see things beautiful to the eye and honest on earth, think that everything is worthless and like dung, in comparison with the beauties and riches of heaven, which after death you will enjoy if you despise the whole world; turning all your gaze towards the sun, think that your soul is more bright and beautiful than it, if you stop at the grace of your Poet; otherwise, it is more dark and gloomy than the dark darkness. Seeing with your eyes in the sky, pass with the eyes of your soul higher into the fiery sky 43, and there concentrate with the calculation, as if it is ready for you for an eternal happy residence, as long as you live here on earth with sinlessness. Listening to the chirping of the birds on the trees in the season of spring and other melodious songs, raise your mind to those sweet chirpings of Paradise, and think that there the Hallelujah and the other angelic praises are being heard incessantly 44 and beg God to claim you to praise him forever, together with those heavenly spirits "And after this I heard the voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying Alleluia" (Rev. 19,3). When you understand that you feel pleasure from the beauty of the creations, think that there, below the pleasure, is hanging the hypochthonic snake, very careful and willing to kill you or even to hurt you and say against him: "Oh, accursed snake! how are you sitting like this when you have set a trap to devour me"! and then, after turning to God, say: "Blessed are you, my God, who revealed my enemy to me and freed me from his raging throat and hook." And immediately take refuge, take refuge in the wounds of the crucified one, concentrate on them, and think how much our Lord suffered in his most holy flesh, to free you from sin and to make you hate the pleasures of the flesh. I also remind you of another thing, in order to avoid this dangerous enjoyment and pleasure of the flesh; and that is, to immerse your mind well in pondering after death what will become of that face that you liked then; that is, that it will become rotten and full of worms and filth; when you walk with every step and step of foot you take, remember that in this way you go approaching the grave. Seeing birds in the air, or water running, think that your life with greater speed flies and goes to its end. When strong winds arise in winter, or the sky sparkles and thunders, then remember the terrible day of Judgment; and bowing your knees, worship God and beg him to give you grace and time, to prepare well, so that you may then appear before the His Highness. If various events overtake you, practice in this way; when, for example, you are distressed by some pain or melancholy or suffer from fever or cold or some other sorrowful thing, lift up your mind to the will of God, in whom it seemed to be your good pleasure to suffer in this measure and at this time that illness and sorrow, for which, happy for the love that God shows you, and for the occasion that he gives you to serve him in all those that please him most, say with your heart: "Behold, in me the fullness of of the will of my God, who for many years has chosen with love for me to suffer this sorrow; may my good Despot always be blessed". And again, when any good thought comes to your mind, turn to God and, knowing that it came from him, thank him. When you read, believe that you see God under those words, and accept them as if they came from his divine mouth. At the time when you see that the sun is reigning and the night is coming, be sorry and beg God not to fall into eternal darkness. Seeing the cross, consider that it is the flag and banner of your campaign and war, and how, if you turn away from it, you will be delivered into the hands of your enemies, but if you follow it, you will reach heaven laden with glorious prizes. Seeing the icon of the Virgin Mary, dedicate your heart to her who reigns in Heaven and thank her, because she always stood ready to the will of your God, because she gave birth, nursed, nurtured the Redeemer of the world, and because her protection and help are not lacking in our invisible war. Let the icons of the Saints illustrate in your mind that you have so many helpers and mediators with God and they are pleading for you; they, bravely throwing down their poles and having walked, opened the way for you, through which, walking, you will be crowned with them in an everlasting glory. When you see the Churches, among your other reverent thoughts, consider that your soul is the church of God, according to "you are the church of the living God" (2 Corinthians 6:16) and you must keep it clean and pure. Listening at every moment to the call of the Angel, Virgin Mary, think these thoughts; a) thank God for that message, which he sent from heaven to earth and which was the beginning of our salvation. b) Rejoice with the Virgin Mary for her many greatnesses, in which she was exalted for her excellent honor and profound humility. And c) prostrated with this blessed Mother and with the Archangel Gabriel her infant, who was then immediately conceived in her holy womb; you must repeat this three times a day, in the evening, in the morning and at noon. And on Thursday night, think of the sorrow of the Mother of God for the blood-sweating man who ran from her beloved Son in the Garden who was praying, when the soldiers went with Judas and caught him, and for the sorrow that her Son had all that night; the morning of Friday, think of the sorrows and pains she experienced for the presentation of her only Son to Pilate and Herod, for the decision of death and for the raising of his Cross; at noon, until Saturday, think of the dagger of sorrow that passed through the heart of this very worthy Lady, for the crucifixion and death of her only child, for the cruel piercing of the lance in his holy side and for his burial, etc. And in short, be ever vigilant and careful, in governing your senses, and in everything that happens, happy or sad, strive to move or go back, not from the love or hatred of the Pygmies, but from the will of God alone, and to accept them or turn them away as much as God wills. So, you should know that the above ways, which I revealed to you for the government of your senses, I did not give you so that you could constantly be busy with them, because you have an obligation almost always, to have your mind collected in your heart, so that you can stand with your Lord, who wants you to be careful to conquer your enemies and your passions, by continuous actions, both by resisting them, as well as by the actions of the opposite virtues, as I told you in the sixth chapter; but I explained them to you so that you would know to govern the yourself, when the need calls for it. For many, both old and new ascetics, and others with similar imaginations were led astray and lost by the devil, who knows and is accustomed to transform himself into an angel of light, as Paul said, in order to deceive man: "And Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light." (2 Corinthians 11:14). He also knew this, that as imagination is born from sensation, so conversely also from imagination is born sensation, that is, the imagination grows so thick and fat in some people, that it causes the same actions and has the same results, which does sense; for this reason many hypochondriacs and fanciful people are afraid of their imaginations, as they are also afraid of their senses; and either they are sweetened and strive or some pain and suffer and die only from this the persons and things they imagine, similarly as if they were present felt and real, these same persons and things that are imagined. And, then, who doesn't see how bad imagination is and how much we should avoid it? CHAPTER KD How we should govern our language. There is a great need for someone to properly govern his tongue and rein it in. For every one is much inclined to let it run, and to speak of those things which give pleasure to our senses; verbosity, most often, proceeds from pride, from which, imagining we know much, and gratifying our opinion, we strain ourselves with many repetitions of our words, to impress this opinion of ours on the hearts of others, to make them the teacher, as if they had a need to learn from us; and in fact we show the same pride when we teach them without them asking us first. The evils that arise from verbiage, it is not possible to describe them in a few words; verbiage is the mother of indolence; assumptions of ignorance and stupidity; a door to calamity, a servant of lies and the coldness of pious heat; these words strengthen the passions and from this it moves after them the language with more ease in indistinct conversation. That is why the Apostle James, wanting to show how difficult it is for someone not to sin in the words he says, said that this is characteristic of perfect men: "If someone does not make mistakes with his words, he is a perfect man, able to bridle his whole self" 3 . For, after the tongue has once begun to speak, it runs like an unbridled horse, and speaks not only what is good and what is right, but also what is bad; for this reason it is called by the same Apostle, "drunken by evil, full of deadly poison." As Solomon also said, you will not avoid sin by talking; "sin is not avoided by talking" (Prov. 10:20). And to speak in general, whoever talks a lot, shows that he is a fool: "the fool multiplies words" (Ecclesiastes 10:14). Don't start long conversations with the one who listens to you with a bad appetite, so that you don't disgust him and make him hate you, as it is written: "The redundant speech is abominable" (Sirach ch. 7). Avoid speaking harshly and loudly. For both are very hateful, and give the suspicion that you are vain and have a great idea of yourself; never speak of yourself and of your affairs, or of your relatives; except, when there is need, and as much as you can, briefly and oligology. And if it seems to you that others are talking about themselves above, force yourself not to imitate them, if it is assumed that their words also seem humble and self-accusatory. But for your neighbor and for all that is related to him, speak as little as you can, when and where there is a need for his good 45 . For God, to speak with all your heart and even about his love and goodness. But with fear, thinking that you can make a mistake even in this. Therefore, it is better, my love, to be careful when others talk about these things, keeping their reasons in the innermost part of your heart. As for the others who speak, let only the sound of the voice disturb your hearing, but let your mind stand lifted up to God. But even when it is necessary to listen to the one who speaks in order to understand and to answer him, and then do not fail in between to exalt someone with the account of heaven, where your God dwells; and think of his height and that he always sees your nothingness, examine well those that come into your heart to say, before they pass to your tongue, and you will find many that are better not to come out of your mouth; but also know that even of those that you think are good to say, it is much better to bury them in the silence and you will know it, after that conversation is over. Silence is a great strength of the Invisible War and a sure hope of victory; silence is much loved by him who does not trust himself, but hopes in God; it is a guardian of holy prayer and a wonderful help in the training of 46 virtues; and it is also a sign of wisdom. Because, even if another does not speak, he does so because he has no reason to say: "Be silent, for he has no answer" (Sirach ch. 5); and another, because he keeps the right time to speak: "And be silent, seeing the time" (autothy). And another for other reasons 47; however, generally and comprehensively, whoever does not speak, shows that he is prudent and wise: "he who is silent is also wise" (Sir. 14,27). "One keeps silent and proves to be wise" (Sir. 20,4). In order to get used to being silent, think many times about the harms and dangers of verbosity and the great benefits of silence and about these three ways, which I said in the previous three chapters, that is, for one to ascend from the senses to the theory of God, to the theory of the incarnate Word; and to adornment of the morals, those who have knowledge, discernment and power in calculation can use them to correct their feelings with them. However, those who do not have this knowledge and power, they can correct their senses in another way: that is, with all their power to refrain from all those senses, which can harm their soul. And so, you, my brother, oh man, you must guard with great care the wicked and quick thieves that you have, that is, your eyes, and not let them strain and look with curiosity at the faces of women, both beautiful and ugly, or the faces of men and even young men and naked or to see the nakedness not only of foreign bodies, but also of your own body. Because from this curiosity and passionate gaze, the heart captures the pleasure and desire of prostitution and pedophilia. As the Lord said. "Whoever looks at a woman with lustful lust has already committed adultery with her" (Matthew 5:38). And a wise man said "out of sight, what is seen is made" 48 . That's why Solomon orders us not to be caught by our eyes, not to be overcome by the desire for beauty: "son, do not be overcome by the desire for beauty, do not be pleasing to your eyes" (Prov. 6,25). Besides these, take care not to look strangely at the beautiful food and drink, remembering the first mother of our race, Eve, who, in order to see the forbidden fruit of the forbidden tree in Paradise, desired it, took it, ate it, and thus died; be grateful for the beautiful clothes or the gold and silver or the brilliant glories of the world, so that the passion of ambition and avarice does not pass from your eyes into your soul. "They have turned away my eyes, so that they may not see vanity" (Ps. 118.); and to speak generally, take care not to see dances, games, tables, revelries, quarrels, wrestling, running, and all other disorderly and obscene things, which the foolish world loves and which the law of God forbids; but avoid and close your eyes from these, so that you do not fill your heart and imagination with ugly images and passions, and stir up a tumult and a new war against you, abandoning the struggle that you have to fight against your old passions. However, love to see the Churches, the holy icons, the holy books, the cemeteries, the tombs and everything else that is modest and holy, whose theory benefits you. A. You must protect your ears. First, so that you don't hear the beautiful and erotic words, the songs and the musical instruments, from which your soul is sweetened and your heart ignites with carnal desire. Because it is written: "remove from me the shameful words" (Prov. 11). Secondly, so that you don't listen to the jokes and the ridiculous words, which are actually fantasies and all kinds of lies in the world, being savored and sweetened by them. Because it is not right for the Christian to listen with pleasure to these, but to those corrupt people, about whom Paul said, "they will close their ears to the truth and will turn to fables" (II Tim. 4). Thirdly, so that you don't listen with pleasure to the criticisms and rants that others make against your neighbor, but either you block them, if you can, or you don't sit down to listen to them. Because Basil the Great considers worthy of excommunication, both those who talk a lot, as well as those who stand and listen to the slanders; exempted" 49 . Fourth, be careful not to indulge yourself and listen to unnecessary and vain words and chatter, in which most of the world is caught up; because, it is written: "you shall not hear a vain word" (Exod. 23,1). And Solomon said: "speak vain words far from me" (Prov. 30,8). And the Lord said: "For every vain thing that men speak, they will give account on the day of judgment" (Mat. 12,36). And to say briefly, take care not to listen to all those words and hearsay, which can harm your soul; these are mainly the flattery of the flatterers and the praises, about whom Isaiah said: "My people, those who make you happy, they mock" (3,11). But love to hear the divine words, sacred melodies and psalms, and everything that is modest, holy, wise and beneficial to the soul; and even love to hear the insults and insults that others give you. Eh. Protect your sense of smell from herbs, musks and other sweet-smelling perfumes, which you should neither put on yourself nor smear them on, nor smell excessively. Because of this, everything is characteristic of obscene women, and not of wise men, and they put to sleep the bravery of the soul, and push it into fornicating passions and desires and cause to come to those who treat them, those prophetic curses, which say "And instead of grace fragrance, there will be mold" (Is. 3:23), "And alms to those who are anointed with the best perfumes" (Am. 6:6). F. Guard your taste and your belly, so that it does not succumb to fattening and pleasant and varied foods, and delicious and fragrant drinks. For these tender tables, before you obtain them, will cause you to fall into thefts, lies, flattery, and a thousand other servile passions and evils; but after you obtain them, they will knock you down into the pits of carnal pleasures and animal forms desires, which are realized under the belly; and they will bring against you those prophetic curses of Amos: "Woe to you who eat tender lambs and well-fed calves from the flocks..." (6.4). Z'. You must be careful not to touch with your hand not only the body of another woman, man or old man, the same or younger, but also your own body and even your private parts, without there being a need. For, as refined as this sense of touch is, so sensual and alive is it and it motivates the passions of the flesh, and it destroys man like this act of sin. And all the other senses, serve the touch, and in some way, from afar work the sin. But when someone reaches the touch, that is, he reaches and grasps, he can hardly hold back and not commit the sin. The adornment of the head, body and feet also refers to the sense of touch. Therefore, take care not to adorn your body with soft and various and brilliant clothes or with expensive head coverings or with expensive shoes, for these are suitable for women and not suitable for men, but only to wear modestly and humbly and what is necessary and they are needed, in the cold of winter and in the heat of summer, for the maintenance of the body, so that you do not hear what the rich man who dressed in royal and silken clothing heard, that is, "You received your goods in your life" (Lk. 16,25) and it came upon you the curse that Ezekiel says: "They will take off their cloaks and throw off their golden clothes" (26,16). The other comforts of the body are also mentioned in the touch; such as, the fixing of the hair and the frequent washing of the beards, the brilliant and valuable houses, the expensive and soft mattresses and seats. Beware of all this, as harmful to your relationship and responsible for fornication and carnal passions, so that you do not inherit the curse of Amos, which says: "Woe to you who lie on couches decorated with ivory!" (6.4). What I have told you so far is the earth, which the imaginary serpent the devil was condemned to eat. These are the matter and the food, with which all the passions of the flesh are fed. And so, if you do not despise them, as if they were small, but fight bravely and do not let them enter through the senses into your soul and heart, I inform you, that truly, you will easily disappear with atrophy the devil and the passions and in a short time you will appear victorious in this Invisible War. Because it is written in Job, that the anteater (that is, the devil) disappeared and perished, not having food to eat, "Anteaters are sick, although they have not seen" (d' 11) 50. CHAPTER K. How we must correct our imagination and memory. After we have spoken about the correction of our senses, it follows that we should also say here how we should correct our imagination and memory, because according to the opinion of almost all philosophers, imagination and memory are nothing else, but an imprint of all those of sensible things, which we saw, heard and smelled and tasted and grasped. And to say briefly, imagination and recollection is an internal common sense, which clearly imagines and remembers everything that our external five senses managed to perceive. And in some way, the senseless and the senseless are likened to the seal, while the imagination is likened to the imprint of the seal. This imagination and memory was given to us after the transgression in order to handle it, when our external senses are quiet and when we do not have in front of us the sensible things that passed through the senses and were imprinted on it. Because it is impossible to always have present all that we have known and heard and smelled and tasted and caught, that is why we bring them before us with the imagination and the memory, which has printed them and so we talk about them and think, as if we had them also in front of us. For example: you went once and saw Smyrna, then you left there and now you no longer see it with the external sense of the eyes, but with the internal sense that is, with imagination and memory, when you want, you bring Smyrna in front of you and you see it, as if it was also present, with the same shape and space and size and location that it has; not that you then go and see Smyrna (as some ignorant people think). But you see the image of Smyrna, which is imprinted in your imagination and memory. This is the imagination of the sensualists, which disturbs us even in sleep and makes us see the various and varied dreams, in which he was careful never to believe. But because this imagination is an absurd and gross impression of the five senses and imagines the senses with their shape and color and size, as we said. A. To know, but that as God is beyond all the senses together with the senses and beyond all shape and color and space and place, as completely formless and formless and existing everywhere and above all, so it is also beyond all imagination. And then, he knew that the imagination is a power of the soul, which does not have the skill to unite with God, hence its defects (See in the Philokalia, which says that "no imagination has a place in the case of God. Because it is generally above all understanding"). B´. He knew that both Lucifer and the first of the Angels, being before the irrational imagination and beyond all shape and color and feeling as a rational mind and immaterial and formless and incorporeal, after he imagined and formed with his mind the isotheia, he fell from that formless and formless and apathetic and single, incorporeal state of mind, down into this multiform and multipart and fat imagination, as is the opinion of many theologians and thus, from an angel formless, immaterial and apathetic, he became a devil, material, in some way, rich and passionate 51 . That is why he is called by the divine Fathers a painter who imitates everything and a multifaceted snake that eats the land of passions, a fantasist and other similar names. God himself is likened to a dragon with a body, with ears, with nerves, with ribs, with a spine, with a nose, with eyes, with a mouth, with lips, with skin, with flesh and with other similar members. And see in the second chapter of Job. Therefore, learn from this, beloved, that imagination in various forms, as it is an invention and fruit of the devil, so it is also very desirable to him. Because, according to Saints 52, this is the bridge through which the murderous demons, passing through, unite with the soul and thus make it the abode of filthy and wicked and blasphemous thoughts and all impure mental and physical passions. C. He knew that according to the most theological Saint Maximus, the first Adam was created by God without imagination. Because, that mind, pure, unique and indeed a mind of being, was not imprinted, nor was it formed by the senses and the various types of senses. But without using the inferior power of imagination and imagining shapes and colors and species and spaces, he observed with the superior power of the soul, i.e. the intellect, only the bare and thin reasons of beings, immaterial, pure and spiritual 53 . But the man-killing devil, just as he fell from imagination, so he made Adam too, to form his mind with the same god and to fall from that same imagination and thus from that mental, simple, single, logical and formless life, the sufferer fell, in this aesthetic, multi-part and multi-form imagination and the condition of the horse animals. Because imagination is mainly the idiom of horse animals and not of logic. Since man once fell into this state, who can tell how many passions, how many evils and how many delusions he fell into through imagination? He filled moral philosophy with various deceptions 54 . He filled physics with many false beliefs 55 , and filled theology with false and rotten doctrines. Why, many, both old and young, wanting to consider and talk about God and related, simple, formless and unimaginable mysteries, where the superior of all powers, the power of the soul, that is, the mind, is at work, before they have even cleansed their minds of the felt shapes and images of the imagination of sensible things, instead of the truth they found a lie. And the greatest evil is that even this lie, they embraced it and strongly hold it as truth and indeed being; instead of theologians, they appeared to be fantasists, since they surrendered to an unworthy mind, according to the Apostle. So, you, brother, if you love to free yourself easily from these delusions and passions, if you wish to escape from the various traps and tricks of the devil and if you wish to unite with God and achieve divine illumination and true, fight, but fight with all your strength, to strip your mind of shapes and colors and spaces, and in general of all imagination and recollection of sensible things, both good and bad. Because all these are like pollutions and mud and darkness, which pollute the purity and decency and brilliance of the mind and fatten its ugliness. And almost no passion 56 mental or physical can approach the mind, except through the imagination of the senses. Strive therefore to keep this mind of yours colorless, shapeless, shapeless and pure, as God created it. This, of course, cannot be done in any other way, unless you return it and collect it in the narrow place of your heart and the whole inner man; and there you accustom it to be sometimes praying with mourning, with the inner word of the heart, and saying: "Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me"; and to pay attention only to the words of this prayer, (as I tell you about this in the second chapter), otherwise observing your own self, rather through yourself understanding God and resting 57; this theory and study is called circular and misleading 58. Because, like the snake, when it wants to shed its old skin, it goes and passes through a narrow place, as the physiologists say, so the mind, through the narrow place of the heart and the Noera Prayer that is in it, is filtered, takes off the dress of the imagination of the senses and bad preconceptions and becomes clean, bright and suitable for the union of God because of the likeness he takes with him. And again, as water, the more it unites and passes squeezed through the narrow pipes, the more it becomes thinner and stronger and rises in height; so also the mind, the more it is occupied with the exact study of the heart and its own theory, the more it becomes thinner, the stronger it becomes and higher than all passion and attack. calculations and of every shape and kind, not only of the senses, but also of the intellects, with all these remaining outside because they cannot enter there 59 . If at any time your mind goes to the externals you see and to the fantasies of the world, again turn the inside to the chamber of the heart, until it gets used to it. This is the first and foremost way, which you must have a perpetual labor to correct, dear, your imagination and memory; what am I saying? To correct and eradicate from the root, its bad prejudices and idols. This way, as much as it is fruitful and beneficial, is also tiring; and as much as it is tiring, it is also difficult to undertake (not to mention difficult to believe), close to the polyglots and indeed to our own sages and teachers of the present century, the Those who do not want to believe in the teaching of the Holy Spirit and of so many God-fearing Fathers, who teach this way in the newly printed book of Philokalia, which is more precious than any precious stone, are justly deprived of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which are enjoyed by many ignorant and illiterates: "God hid these things, according to the law, from the wise and prudent and revealed them to infants" (Luke 10,21). Because, those who do not believe in this mental work, cannot even understand the benefit that comes from it according to: "If you do not believe, you will not understand" (Is. 7,9). When you see that your mind is getting tired and can no longer stay in the heart and in the prayer of the mind that is done in it, then use the second way, that is, let it go outside and deal with studies and observations and in divine and spiritual meanings, both in what is contained in the Scriptures, as well as those found in buildings, especially in imaginary ones, which are colloquially called metaphysics and abstractions of matter. Because, these spiritual meanings, related to the mind, have the subtlety and the quality of the immaterial, they do not let him grow fat, but they make him easily return to the place of the heart and unite again with the mental memory of God. That is why the Divine Maximus says, "that action alone cannot make the mind apathetic, if it is not followed by many and varied theories". Be careful, however, not to get involved in the reasons of material bodies and animals, i.e. in the so-called natural ones, since you are still suffering. For if your mind is not free from the evil imaginations of the senses, before it penetrates into the spiritual and immaterial calculations, which are found in bodies and animals, it grasps only their external form and surface; and being pleased with it, it acquires false doctrines and passions, as Saint Maximus says, instead of finding apathy and truth, as so many philosophers, who are called physicists, suffered. He also used the third way for the rest and consolation of your mind; that is, imagine the mysteries of the life and passion of the Lord, that is, his Birth in the cave, his presentation in the Church; his Baptism in the Jordan, his forty-day fast in the desert; the preaching of of his Gospel, the various miracles he performed; his Transfiguration at Tabor, the washing of his disciples' feet, the passing on of the mysteries, his betrayal, his passions; his Cross, his Epitaph; his Resurrection and his Ascension; all kinds of sufferings of the Martyrs and the long exercises of the Holy of Holies. The same, you may, even for the breaking of your heart and repentance, imagine the mystery and terrible hour of your death, the terrible day of Judgment, the various kinds of eternal hells, that is, the lakes of eternal fire; the dark and subterranean prisons; the many cold graves; the worms that drink blood, the companionship with demons; imagine even the enjoyment of indescribable joy and that heavenly kingdom of the righteous the eternal glory and bliss; the sound of those who celebrate union with God and eternal acquaintance and cohabitation of all the Saints 60 . But, know that I am not telling you to deal with them all the time, but to deal with them only once in a while and a few times, so that your mind rests and returns to the heart and there the unimaginable and the formless work, through the heart memory of God. For, as all ferocious animals, that is, those which carry with them their houses (such as snails and turtles) and shells, do not rest anywhere else, but within the shells, which are clothed and within their holes, so also the mind, with in a natural way, in nothing else does he rest so much as when he is inside the body he wears, that is, inside the chamber of the heart and in the inner man and from there, as if from any battlefield, to fight the calculations and the enemies and the passions, which are hidden there, if and most people do not know this 61 . Above all, I tell you that in order to fight and protect yourself well, do not refine your imagination and memory to remember everything that you saw or heard or smelled or tasted or caught and especially, the obscene and evil. For it has been confirmed by trial that it is more of a struggle for someone to free himself from the imagination and memory of a thing, than from his own sense. Because to see someone - let's say hypothetically - or not to see a person with passion, this is easy and there is no such thing as a war; however, when you see it and wonder about it, it is no longer easy, but it takes a war and a struggle to bring out the memory of of that person from his imagination. And many times, a single, passionate and curious look, that we cast on a beautiful face, impresses its memory on our imagination so deeply that we fight for forty or fifty years, even in our old age, and we cannot eliminate that memory and imagination. And it is worthy of laughter, that that face grows old and ugly or dies and becomes dust; and many times we ourselves grasp with our hands his bones in the grave, but our imagination holds so tightly and strongly its image, that it always thinks it is new and alive; and thus, as if irrational and blind, it makes us sin with it in the heart, as if it were also true, both when we are awake and when we are asleep 62 . I also remind you, to be well guarded and not to believe or completely accept as true, if you see awake or while sleeping, inside your heart or outside any shape, like light or fire or like a kind of angel or saint or something else similar, whatever. CHAPTER KST The soldier of Christ must avoid with all his might tumults and disturbances, if he wishes to fight his enemies well. Just as every Christian has an inescapable obligation, when he loses the peace of his heart, to do everything he can to regain it, so he must know that no event that happens in the world, which would happen to him, is right and wise to deprive him of or shake his peace. similar peace. We must, yes, be sorry for our sins, but with a peaceful sorrow, according to the manner, which I have previously shown in many places; and so, without vexation of the heart, with a reverent disposition of love to sympathize with every other sinner and to weep. inwardly at least; that is, let us mourn over his faults. For the other things that happen, the heavy and torturous things that come to us, such as diseases, wounds, deaths of our relatives, famine epidemics, wars, fires and other similar evils, even the worldly people abhor them most of the time, as nuisances of nature, nevertheless, we can with the by the grace of God, not only to suffer them, but also to want them and to love them, as a just punishment to the lawless and as an occasion of virtue to the good; because in this end we see, and this also pleases our Lord and God, who sends them; Following whose will we will pass with a quiet and rested heart all the sorrows and sufferings of the present life. And be sure that every disturbance and disturbance of our heart is not pleasing to the divine eyes, because whatever it is, it is always accompanied by imperfection and always comes from some evil root of selfishness. That is why you should always have a vigilant observational scope, which immediately, as soon as it sees something that can disturb and disturb you, let it make sense to you, so that you understand what it is about and take up arms in being governed, thinking that all those evils and and many other similar things, even though they seem outwardly bad to the senses, i.e. harmful, but they are not really bad, nor can they take away from us the real good, and that everything is ordered and granted by God, for the right purposes that we said before and that they benefit us and for others, which are not known to us, but very just and very holy without a doubt. And, if in every sad and contrary event that happens, your heart remains thus rested and peaceful, you can have a lot of profit; however, if it is agitated, know that every exercise you do, yields you either no or very little benefit. In addition, I say this too, that when the heart is disturbed and disturbed, it is always under the various blows and wars of the enemies and the most important thing, when we are disturbed we cannot see well and distinguish the straight path and the safe course of virtue; our enemy is the devil who hates us. much this peace (because it is a place where the spirit of God dwells, to work great things), many times he comes as a friend and tries to take it from us, using various desires 63 which seem to us to be good; but how deceitful he is and fake, you can know it from this among the other elements; that is, because they steal our peace of heart. Therefore, if you want to prevent so much damage, when the observer, that is, the mind and the attention of the mind, warns you that some new desire for something good is asking to enter you, do not open the entrance of the heart, if you do not first free yourself from every will of yours and the present to God and confessing your blindness and ignorance, fervently beseech him to illuminate you with his own light, so that you may see if this desire comes from an opposing enemy; and for this, run to your spiritual father and leave it, as much as you can, to his judgment. However, even if that desire is from God, you must, before you attempt it, humble yourself and kill your great eagerness and heat that you have for it, because that work, which is preceded by this humiliation of yours, is much more pleasing to God, even if it is done by the desire of nature - in fact, sometimes he likes that humiliation of yours much more, despite the same work. And in this way, since you expel from yourself the desires that are not good and do not control the good ones, if you do not first calm your natural movements, you will keep peace and security, the citadel of your heart. In order to keep your heart peaceful in all things, you must control it and protect it from some reproaches and internal checks of your conscience, which sometimes are of the devil, although they seem to be of God, by accusing you of some error; the like checks, from their results you will recognize where they come from. For if they humble you and make you diligent in your work and do not take away your hope and trust in God, you must accept them as from God and thank him; hurtful to the good, be sure that they come from the enemy; and pay no attention to them, but follow your way and your practice. Because, and apart from all that I told you, now in common, harassments and confusions are born in our hearts, from the incidents of opposite things, which follow us in this world. But you, in order to protect yourself from these blows of confusion, you can do two things: one is to think about what those incidents are opposed to: the spirit and the soul? or in the love of ourselves and our desires? For if they are contrary to your desires and your love of self (which is generally your first enemy), you should not call them contrary, but consider them favors and help from the Most High God, therefore with a joyful heart and thank you for accepting them; however, even if it is contrary to the spirit and the soul, you should not lose the peace of your heart for this either, as you will learn in the next chapter; the other is to raise your mind to God, and with closed eyes (without to want to know something else), to accept every incident from the visceral hand of his divine providence, as a thing full of various goods 64 . CHAPTER KZ What should we do when we are hurt. When you are hurt, because you have fallen into some sin through your weakness or sometimes by your own will to your own harm, do not be afraid, nor be troubled about it, but having returned immediately to God, speak thus: "See, my Lord; I have done such things as one who I am; nor was it possible for you to expect anything else from me, so ill-willed and weak, but to fall and fall." And here, shine in your eyes for a long time and grieve with pain of heart for the sorrow you have caused to God and without being confused, indignant against your filthy passions, especially against that passion which became the cause of your fall; I said again: "I would not even have stood this far, my Lord, and I would have sinned worse, if you had not kept me with your very great goodness." And thank him and love him more than ever, admiring his great mercy, because even though he was sorry for you, he still gives you his right hand and helps you, so that you don't fall into sin again; finally, say with great courage to his great mercy: "You, my Lord, do as the one you are and forgive me and do not allow me to live separated from you, nor to ever move away, nor to pity you anymore". And in doing so, do not think if he has forgiven you, because this is nothing but pride, annoyance of the mind, waste of time and deception of the devil, colored with various good pretexts. Therefore, leaving yourself freely in the merciful hands of God, follow your asceticism, as if you had not fallen. And if it happens because of your weakness that you sin many times during the day 65 and you remain hurt, do what I told you all the times, not with less hope in God. And blaming yourself more and hating sin more, strive to live with more caution. This teaching does not please the devil, because he sees that it pleases God very much, because the adversary remains ashamed, seeing that he was defeated by him, which he had before he was defeated. That is why he uses different deceptive ways to prevent us from doing it. And many times it achieves its purpose because of our negligence and the little care we have for ourselves. Therefore, the more you find difficulty in this from the enemy, the more you must strive to do it many times, even if you have only fallen once; in fact you must do this, if, after you have sinned, you feel that you are troubled and confused and despair of so that you can thereby obtain peace and tranquility in your heart and courage together; and after arming yourself with these weapons, turn to God. Because, this similar discomfort and agitation that someone has about sin, is not because what he has done has displeased God, but it is because of the fear of his own condemnation; and this means that it comes from self-pity, as we have said many times. The way, therefore, to obtain peace is as follows: to completely forget your fall and sin 66 and to surrender to the thought of the great and ineffable goodness of God; and that he remains very willing and wants to forgive every sin, as long as and if it is heavy, inviting the sinner in various ways and through various roads, so that he may come to his senses and unite with him in this life with his grace; and in the next, to sanctify him with his glory and make him eternally blessed. And when, with these and similar thoughts and reflections, you have calmed your mind, then you will return to your position, doing as I said above; then, when the time of confession has come (which I exhort you to do very often), remember all your sins, and with new pain and sorrow, for God's sorrow, and intend me and decide not to grieve him anymore, reveal them all to your Spiritual and do willingly the rule that he will set for you. CHAPTER K. What tactics does the devil have in generally fighting and misleading people of various situations. Know, beloved, that the devil cares for nothing else but our own loss, and that he does not fight all in one and the same way. And to begin to describe to you some of his wars and their tactics and his deceptions, I present to you five states of men. Some are in the service of sin without any thought of being freed; some again, want to be freed, but do not attempt it; there are others who, after acquiring virtues, fall with greater damage into sin. Others think they are walking towards perfection, others leave the path of virtue they have and others, the virtue they have, make it a cause of evil. I will talk about all of them separately. CHAPTER KTH The war and the deception that the devil uses for those he keeps in the service of sin. When the devil keeps someone in the service of sin, he cares for nothing else than to blind him more, and to take him out of every good thought, which can induce him to know his very unhappy life; and not only does he take him out of the thoughts that invite him to return and repentance, putting in his mind other evil and contrary thoughts, but also with ready and quick motives, causes the tri-cursed to fall often into the same sin or into other greater ones, from which the suffering sinner emerges, more darkened and blind, so that with his blindness he reaches and collapses into the habit of sin and thus the wretch runs from the act of sin to greater blindness and again from blindness to greater sins, he circles almost all his suffering life until death, if God does not save his salvation by grace of. So, whoever is in this very unhappy situation, if he wants to be cured, he must immediately accept that calculation and inspiration, which invites him from darkness to light and from sin to repentance, and he must cry out with all his heart to his Poet; "Lord, help me, help me quickly and leave me no longer in this darkness of sin"; let him not stop saying the same thing again and again and crying out in this and a similar way; and immediately, immediately, if possible, let him ask for help and advice, so that he can to be freed from the enemy; however, if he cannot go immediately, let him run quickly to the crucified Jesus and come to his Holy feet with his face on the ground and to the Virgin Mary, asking for mercy and help; and victory lies in this speed. CHAPTER L War and deception, which the devil uses for those who know their evil and want to be freed. And because our decisions many times do not bring their result. Those who know the bad life they live and want to change it, as for the most part they remain deluded and defeated by the enemy with these weapons; after this; tomorrow, tomorrow; let me finish this case first and after that surrender with more rest to the grace of God and in the spiritual life; let me do this today and tomorrow I will repent. This is a trap of the enemy, brother, which has caught many and is catching even more of the world. The cause of this trap is our carelessness and ignorance. Because even in such a case, on which all the salvation of our own souls and all the honor of God consists and hangs, we do not quickly grasp that powerful weapon and say to ourselves: now, now to live a spiritual life and not after that; today, today to repent and not tomorrow; now and today are in my hands; the after and tomorrow are in God's hands. But even if it had been given to me, after this and tomorrow, what path of salvation and victory would this be, to first want to be hurt and then to be healed, to first do my new misdeeds and to conform? Therefore, if you want to escape, brother, from this error and to defeat the enemy, the remedy is to quickly obey in deed the good thoughts and divine inspirations that call you to repentance and not to give any room in the middle, nor to say, because I have decided definitively to repent after this and I can no longer change; not because these decisions are often wrong and many showing confidence in them, were deceived and remained unrepentant for various reasons. A. Because our own decisions are not founded on our own unbelief and on the courage and hope of God; and after that it happens that we cannot see our great pride, motivated by which, we give confidence to our own decisions, that they are firm. But the light to know our pride and sickness and the help to be healed comes from the goodness of God, who allows, as we said before, to fall even with the fall, invites us instead of hoping in our own courage and hope, to hope and to give trust to him alone; and from our pride, he invites us to the knowledge of ourselves. Do you want to know, man, when your resolutions are strong and firm? When you have no confidence in yourself and when everything is humbly founded on the hope and courage of God. B´. When we ourselves are moved to take any decision, we think only of the beauty and power of virtue, which draws our will along with it, even if it is weak and weak; after this, however, when the difficulty and labor present itself, with which it is acquired virtue, as our will is weak and new, shrinks and retreats and then our decisions remain unworkable. That's why you got used to loving the difficulties that lead to the acquisition of virtues much more than the virtues themselves, and let your will always be nourished by these difficulties, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, if you really want to acquire the virtues. And be sure, that the faster and braver you will defeat yourself and your enemies, the braver you embrace difficulties and the more you love them. C´. Because our decisions sometimes do not think about the virtues and the will of God, but their own interest, which usually follows the decisions we make for spiritual gifts and to obtain divine gifts. So we, in the sorrows that upset us a lot, find no other help than to set a goal and to decide how we will completely surrender to God and to the exercises of the virtues. And if you, brother, love to give yourself up to this, be very cautious and humble in your decisions in the time of spiritual troubles; but especially beware that you do not give orders to yourself and do not make plans, so that you do not you will transgress them and fall into sin; and when you are sad, let your decision and opinion be to willingly bear the cross and the sorrow, as the Lord wills, turning away all earthly help and sometimes even heaven; let it be your search and your desire is one, to be helped by God, so that you can endure everything to the contrary, without contaminating the virtue of patience and without making your God resentful. CHAPTER LA The deception used by the enemy, for those who think they are walking to perfection. When the enemy cannot defeat either those who have depended on sin, or those who seek to be freed from it, as we said above, then the wicked rushes to the virtuous and fights like a sly to make them forget the enemies, who it is close to them and in practice they fight and harm them, but to desire and imagine above their power the high and great 67 and before the appropriate time to have decisive goals, in order to reach perfection. This has the result that they do not take care of the wounds with which they are wounded, but, thinking of these desires and resolutions of perfection as if they were works and things, they boast in various ways. Therefore, not wanting to suffer in deed anything to the contrary, not even the slightest obstacle or a small reason, they afterwards waste their time in great studies of decisions, deciding that is to say with their minds, to suffer great trials for the love of God. And because, when they make these imaginary decisions, they do not feel any sadness or opposition in their body, that is why the sufferers think that they are at the height of those virtuous people who suffer great trials in practice. And they do not know that words and decisions are one thing and actions and reality are another. So, if you want to avoid, brother, this fraud, decide to fight with the enemies, who are really fighting you and from close range, and in this way you will clearly know if the decisions you make are true or false; strong or weak; and so you will walk in virtue and perfection, through the proven safe and royal road. Against those enemies, who do not trouble you at present, I do not advise you to make war, unless you may perceive that in the course of time they will fight you. For with foresight and forethought you can prepare yourself with brave decisions to resist; and when they come, they remain unpracticed, since they find you prepared. Therefore, never think that your decisions have become works and actions, even if you have practiced the virtues for a short time in the appropriate ways; but in this, be humble and fear yourself and your weakness; and hoping in God, run to him with pray often to strengthen you and protect you from dangers and even from every little self-esteem and hope. For if you are humble in yourself in this way, perhaps you are not completely free from some small defects (which God sometimes leaves you in order to make you know your own weakness and to preserve in you some good which you have), nevertheless, you are allowed to desire and take great decisions, in order to rise to a higher degree of perfection. CHAPTER LB' The war and the deception that the devil uses to make us abandon the path of virtue that we are walking. The fourth deception with which the wicked devil attacks us, when he sees us walking the straight path of virtue, is the various desires, which he arouses against us, to make us fall from the training of virtues into vices. For example, when a sick person patiently bears his illness, the enemy, who knows that in this way he can acquire the habit of patience, presents before him many good works, which he could do if he were in another state and takes care to convince him that if he were healthy, he would be able to serve God better and benefit both himself and others. After he throws these desires at him, he goes little by little, increasing them in this way, which makes him worried and disturbed, because he cannot finish them, according to his will. And the greater and stronger the similar desires become, the more does the annoyance and the tumult of his heart increase; and after little by little, with skill, the enemy overcomes him so that he can no longer endure his illness, not as an illness, but as an obstacle to those things. of virtues, which with much appetite he wishes to do, for greater benefit. And after he brings him to this point, with great skill he steals from his mind that purpose he had to serve God better and to acquire more virtues. And so, it leaves him no choice but to bare and alone his desire to be freed from the disease. However, because, according to his will, he does not pass it, he is confused and agitated to such a point that he becomes completely impatient, and thus the poor man falls into the vice of impatience, from the virtue of patience, which he practiced before without realizing it. not at all 68 . The way, then, to resist this deception of the devil, is as follows: When you find yourself in this state of illness, where you are disturbed and disturbed, be careful not to accept or give in at all to the desires that then come to you, no matter how good they look. Because, then not being able to make them work, you are necessarily confused and not at peace. You must therefore, with all humility, patience and submission, believe that these desires of yours cannot obtain the outcome and end that you desire, being yourself more weak and helpless than what you account for; or think that God for them his secret judgments or even for your sins, he does not want from you those good things that you desire, but rather wants to have you humbled with patience, under the sweet and strong hand of his will. Similarly, if you once have a rule from your Spiritual One for any of your sins and therefore you cannot, as you wish, consistently follow every act you do for piety, and especially the Holy Communion, do not be confused and disturbed by their desire; but after putting aside all your will, put on that which pleases God with pain of heart, saying within yourself. Ah, if the eye of divine providence did not see ingratitude and defects in me, I, of course, would not now be in such poverty, to be deprived of the grace of the most holy Mysteries for this, seeing that my Lord, with this, reveals to me my unworthiness, I praise and glorify to the ages his name, saying to him: "Your Charity Despot; hoping well in your goodness, even though I am unworthy the wretch to receive you into my soul by means of the divine Mysteries, with all this, I do not stop in any other way to open my heart to you, for to enter spiritually into it, to make it happy and to strengthen it against the enemies, who want to separate it from you; and I always remain grateful for all those that are pleasing in your eyes, my Creator and my Savior; this is all I desire, that your will be now and always my food and my strength; and this only grace, my beloved, I ask of you; my soul, freed from everything that you do not like, may always remain dressed in the uniform of your holy commandments and be prepared for your conceivable coming and for whatever else you wish to give me". If you keep these orders, be sure that every desire for good, which you cannot complete, which comes either from nature or from the devil, who always wants to trouble you and always take you out of the path of virtue; or never from the God, that your submission to his will may be tested; in every, I say, unfulfilled desire of yours, you will always have occasion to thank your God, as it pleases him. Because this is what constitutes true piety and the service that God asks of us. Know also this, that in order not to become indignant and lose patience with the sorrows and temptations that come, from whatever place they may be, you must use those just and prudent means, which the servants of God are accustomed to use, that is, not to give you are an occasion in them, to beg God to free you from these and other similar things; however, not with so much desire and complete devotion, in order to be freed from these sorrows, but because God wants us to use similar means and instruments 69 . Because, we don't know if God wants to free us from that sorrow by these means. Therefore, if you do otherwise, asking completely to be freed from sorrows, you will fall into many evils, and you will easily fall into impatience, since this freedom does not take place according to your desire and effort; or your patience will be defective, and it will not be all pleasing to God, but it will be worthy of a small salary. Anyway, I am informing you here of a secret fraud of self-love, which is wont to cover our faults and in some way to repel them, as in the example; there is a sick man, a little patient in his illness, who hides his impatience under the cover of some seeming zeal virtue, saying that his sorrow is not true impatience for the torment he suffers from the disease, but that he is sorry for reason, or because he gave the occasion for the disease, or because those who serve him are disgusted by his disease and they resent and get hurt. Thus one can say that even the ambitious, who is confused about the glory he did not get, does not attribute the reason for failure to his own pride and vanity, but to other reasons and pretensions. That the root of their small-mindedness and confusion is not for others or for any other reason, but because they hate and turn away from that which is contrary to their desire, is evident, because not even the sick person above cares and is confused, because the the same who serve him, toil the same, or are disgusted and hurt because of someone else's illness, but only because of his own; nor is the ambitious person, who has been mentioned, so much confused because of other sad cases that happen to him, as because he failed to give him the position that he wanted. Therefore, you, in order not to fall into this error and others, always bear with patience every effort and training that will follow you, from whatever kind of cause it may be. CHAPTER LV The last deception, which the devil uses, so that the virtues we have acquired become the cause of malice. The crafty serpent never ceases to trouble us with his wiles and deceptions, even in those virtues which we have acquired, so that they may become to us the causes of corruption and evil; because, being pleased with them and with ourselves, we reach to be haughty, and being haughty we fall (phew!) after this into wickedness and into the pit of pride and vanity. Therefore, to guard yourself, brother, from this danger, collect all your mind in your heart and always fight this demon, as if you were sitting, on a wide and spacious battlefield, in the true and very deep knowledge of your own nothingness; thinking, that you really are nothing but nothing, and that you cannot do anything, and that you have nothing else, but sufferings, diseases, vices and defects, and that nothing else suits you, but eternal damnation. And after you are convinced of this truth, never allow your mind to be occupied with the external things of the world, not even by the slightest calculation or event that will happen to you, being sure and certain that all external things are so hostile to you that if you had delivered into their hands, you would surely be dead or wounded. And in order to exercise well and to hold well the upper battle-ground of the true knowledge of your ignorance, use this rule: As often as you bring your mind to the thought of yourself and your works, always reckon with that which is yours and not with that which is it is of God and of his grace; and then, believe yourself to be such that whatever you find is with your own power, for example; if you think of the time that was before you were created, you will see that in all that abyss of eternity you were a pure zero, nor could you do anything to receive existence; again at the time you have existence, for God's goodness alone, leaving to him his own (which is the constant providence, with which every hour he guards you), what else? are you, but a zero? For there is no doubt left, that to your first zero (from which God pulled you with his almighty hand), you could return at once, if he would leave you for a single moment. It is therefore obvious that staying in this physical existence, with your own power, you can never count yourself for anything or want others to count you. Then, if you take a good look at the "there is" of grace, you must think carefully that if your own nature is stripped of divine help and grace, what good and worthy thing can it ever do on its own? Of course, nothing. You too can say with Paul "I did not tire, but the grace of God which is with me" (1 Cor. 15,10). Then, thinking from the other side of your many past mistakes, and in addition to these the other very many evils that you would have done, if God had not prevented you with his visceral hand, you will find that your transgressions by the multiplication, not only of the days and years, in which they happened, but even of your bad deeds and your habits and passions (for one vice calls and draws to itself the other), your illegalities, I say, can reach an almost immeasurable number and you would become another wretched Lucifer. So, if you don't want to be a robber and a thief of God's goodness and glory, because God gave everything else to his creations, he kept the glory, so that he alone would be glorified as the Creator of all, therefore he says, "my glory will not be I will give it to another" (Is. 42,8), but you will always stay with your Lord and glorify him only, as is just, in every good deed you do, as the beginning and middle and end of all good things, you must believe that you are the lowest and the worst of all people 70 . And he knew well that this criticism you make of yourself is not at all an exaggeration, so that you have an occasion to be proud of it, but it is fair and true, and subsequently, a cause of humiliation, that is, that you are worse than all the others. But if you also think that, knowing your wickedness, you surpass someone else, who imagines something about himself; he knew that you also fall far short and become worse than him, even if you want to be reckoned with by people and to be thought of by them as such (as a person who can calculate), who you know you are not in reality. Now, if you would have the knowledge of your own wickedness and vanity to keep your enemies at bay and endear you to God, it is necessary, not only to despise yourself as unworthy, and then worthy of all evils, but also to want to be despised by others as well, abhorring honors, rejoicing in accusations, and doing all those things that others who are worldly wise despise. Do not accept their opinion and words at all 71 , nor abandon this holy act of self-contempt, so that it is done by you, for this and only the purpose of your humiliation and not to please people and to be liked by them. consider And if it ever happens that you are loved very much and that others praise you for some good thing that God has given you, stand well collected within yourself and do not move at all from the true knowledge of your nothingness, which was said above, but turn first to God, saying to him with all your heart: "May it never happen, my Lord, that I become a thief of your own honor and grace; to you is due praise, honor and glory; to me shame." "To you, Lord, is the justice and to me the shame of your face" (Dan. 9,7); "not to us, Lord, not to us, but glorify your name" (Ps. 113,9). "The glory is yours and I am your servant" (Esdr. 4,29). After this he turned to him who praises you, speaking thus within you with your calculation: whence does he regard me as good, since there is no other good and good but my God alone? "There is no good but God" (Matthew 19:17). Because, by doing this and rendering to God what is his, you will keep the enemies away and you will become worthy to receive greater gifts and favors from God. But even when the memory of the good works and virtues you do motivate you to pride, immediately think that these works are God's and not yours 72 and as if you were talking to them, say: "I don't know how you appeared and came to my mind! For, I am not your principle, but the good God and his grace; he created you, nourished you and preserved you, so I only want to know him as a true and original father and cause, him to thank and to him to give all praise". Then, think that all the works you did did not reach the proportion and symmetry to the light and grace that was delivered to you, to know and do them, but that it is very imperfect and very far from that pure purpose and due care, with which you should have done. Therefore, if you think carefully, you should rather be ashamed of your virtues than to love them in vain and be proud of them. For it is true that the natural virtues of God, which we must imitate, are in themselves pure and very perfect, they are contaminated in some way and are diminished by the imperfections and shortcomings of our own imitation 73 . Also, compare your works with those of the holy and true friends and servants of God and you will know that the greatest and best works of yours are very insignificant and of very little or no value, if you compare them again with those works of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he did for you in the Mysteries of his life and his Cross (which you should not count as works of God, but in themselves only as works of man) and if you think of the purity of his love, the sinlessness with which he did them, you will know that all your works and the virtues, they are almost sins and impurities. Because it was written: "all our righteousness is like filthy rags" (Is. 64:6); or much more, worse than nothing. Lastly, if you raise your mind to the divinity and the infinite majesty of your God, "before whom the sky is not clean", as it was written (Job 15:15), and to the service and worship that is due to him, you will clearly see that it is not pride and arrogance, but great terror and fear must be created for you in every work of yours, no matter how holy it is, no matter how perfect it is, and that you are only obliged to say with all your heart to God, that humble voice of the Publican: "God is pleased to the sinner" (Luke 18:13). I also order you not to be easy in manifesting the gifts that God gives you. Because this almost always does not please God, as he himself taught us with the following story. Once Jesus Christ appeared as a kind of infant, to a pious and virtuous man, and he, knowing that he was the Lord, simply begged him to say to him the angelic prayer, as it is customary to say it by everyone, that is, the Virgin Mary; Blessed is that infant to say with eagerness: "Hail, Gracious Mary, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women." And here he stood, and he did not want to praise himself with the rest of the words and say: "And blessed is the fruit of your womb." But because he begged him to say the following verse and the rest, it disappeared, leaving his servant in great joy. And with his own example, he revealed to him this heavenly teaching, that is, that no one should ever praise himself and the graces he has. So, learn also to humble yourself and not to praise yourself, knowing yourself and all your works, that they are nothing. "Your neighbor praises you, and not your own mouth, a stranger, and not your own lips" (Prov. 27, 2). This is the foundation of all the virtues 74; God created us from nothing and now that we are beings because of him, he wants to base the whole spiritual structure on this knowledge of ours, that is to say, in ourselves we are a nothing and the more we delve into this, the more the edifice will grow; and the more soil we remove from this depth, that is, the more we know our faults and weaknesses, the more the divine architect will now lay solid stones to increase this spiritual edifice. And don't think, my child, that you can one day deepen this knowledge, as far as it goes. For this is impossible; in fact, make this account to yourself, that even if it were possible to deliver such a thing to any creature, no deeper depth could be found to investigate, than your own ignorance. From this knowledge well put into practice, we can have every good thing; and without it we are almost nothing, even if we wanted to do the works of all the saints and be always occupied with God; O blessed knowledge, which makes us happy on earth and glorified in heaven! O light that comes out of the darkness and makes souls bright and pure! It's a joy that you don't recognize yourself as you lie among our filth! Zero, which if you know, you make us masters of the universe! I can never get enough of talking to you about it, dear. If you want to praise God, blame yourself and be willing to be blamed by others; humble yourself to all and below all, if you want to exalt God and yourself in him. If you wish to find him, do not exalt yourself, because he is leaving; humble yourself and humble yourself as much as you can; and he will come to find you and embrace you; and so much he wants to receive you and unite himself tightly with you with love, and so much more beloved, The more you are humiliated in his eyes and the more you want to be humiliated by others and everyone turns away from you, as if it were a sorry thing. So, for so much grace that God, who is so saddened by your sins, gives you, brother, to unite you to himself, do this also, that is, to think yourself unworthy and worse than all and do not fail constantly, to give thanks and to be in debt to those who become an occasion for you to be humiliated; that is, to those who despised you or still despise you. And if you suffer their scorn unwittingly and with the ill will of your heart, strive as much as you can, not to show any external sign that they look bad on you. And if with all these thoughts and accounts, which are very true, the devil's craftiness and our ignorance and bad inclination, they could have wanted to prevail over us, in such a way that the calculations of prudence do not lack from us they trouble and wound our heart, even then it is a suitable time, all the more to humble ourselves and despise and hate ourselves, as we see from the trial, that we fight, yes, and strive with all our strength, to be freed from it; however, we can free ourselves from its tyranny, because we also suffer from the troubles of pride, which has its root and beginning in our vain and cursed self-esteem, and thus it will extract honey from the bitter medicine, healing from the wounds and humility from the same pride. CHAPTER LD Some knowledge that is useful to conquer the passions and acquire new virtues. Even though I have told you a lot so far, showing you the way you will use, in order to defeat yourself and arm yourself with the virtues, it is still necessary for me to order you a few more. And let me tell you this: if you want, brother, to acquire the virtues, do not follow the order that some treat and do spiritual exercises on the seven days of the week, another exercise for another virtue and another for another, no; but let the order of your own practice be to make war against those passions, which always tease you and harm you and still continue to harm you, but adorn yourself with the opposite virtues of your passions, as much as you can. For if you acquire these virtues, the ones opposed to the passions that tempt you, of course all the other virtues, with ease and with a few actions, you will acquire them; each one in its proper time and its usual cause; because the virtues they are always connected together and whoever has one completely, has all the others close at hand at the door of his heart. B´. Never put off time for the acquisition of virtues, neither days, nor weeks, nor months, nor years. But almost, always fight, as if you were born then; and like a young soldier, fight continuously and march to the height of their perfection and don't stop for a moment. Because to stand on the path of virtues and perfection is not to take breath and strength, but to turn back or become weaker. To stop, I mean, to think that you have completely acquired the virtue and to look a little for the small omissions that you still have, or also for the occasions and causes that invite you to acts of another new virtue. Therefore, may you always be knowledgeable and warm and skilful, so that you do not miss even the smallest occasion and cause of virtue. Love all the reasons and reasons that motivate you to virtue and even those reasons that are more difficult to overcome. Because the actions that are done to overcome the difficulties of the virtues, more quickly create the habits of the virtues and with a deeper root. However, avoid those reasons that can motivate you to the temptation of the flesh with all care and speed, as I told you before. C´. Be prudent and discerning in those external virtues which can cause harm and disease to the body, such as torturing it with excessive fasting, vigils, studies and the like; for these must be acquired little by little and by degrees them, as I will say below. For the other virtues, which are entirely internal and mental, such as loving God, despising the world, humbling yourself in your own eyes, hating passions and sin, being patient and meek, being you love everyone and whoever harms you and other similar things, these virtues, I say, you do not need to acquire them little by little, nor to climb to their perfection by degrees and steps, but hurry to do every deed for them as you can, as quickly as possible. D. Let all your calculation, all your desire and heart, not count, nor desire, nor want anything else, than to conquer that passion, which you fight and fights you, and to acquire virtue, which is opposite to it; let this the whole world is for you, this heaven and earth; let this be your whole treasure and let this be your whole goal, so that you may also please God with it; if you fast, if you fast, if you toil, if you rest, if you are awake, if you are sleeping, which is done inside your house and if you are outside, if you pay attention to the devotions and to the work, let all these be directed and aimed at mastering and defeating that passion and acquiring the corresponding virtue. Eh. You are a common enemy of all the pleasures and pleasures of Pygeia. Because, in this way, you will fight less than the other vices, which all have pleasure as their root. When this cuts through our self-hatred, they lose their power. For if, on the one hand, you want to fight some evil, to be precise, some partial pleasure, and on the other hand to attend to other earthly pleasures, even if not mortal, but forgivable and light, of course, your war will be cruel, bloody and very uncertain and subsequently your victory will be rare. Therefore, always remember those divine decisions: "Whoever loves his life will lose it, but he who does not count his life, as long as this world lives, will keep it for eternal life" (John 12,25). "Brothers, we are debtors, but not as towards the carnal man, who demands conduct in accordance with his desires. For if you live according to the desires of the natural man, certain death awaits you. But if you put to death your natural desires, with the help of the Spirit, you will live" (Rom. 8,12). F. And lastly I order you, because it is very good and perhaps necessary, for the acquisition of the virtues, to first make a general confession, in all those due ways that you must, in order to be more sure that the grace of your God is thinking of you, from whom you will expect all gifts, all virtues and victories. CHAPTER LE: Virtues must be acquired gradually, step by step, and first we must deal with one and then the other. Even if the true soldier of Christ, who loves to reach the fullness of perfection, will never set a time limit on his progress, nevertheless those excessive heats of the spirit, which in fact kindle at the beginning with great desire, must be restrained with some distinction. they disappear after that and leave us halfway. Therefore, not only the external and physical virtues must be acquired little by little, as if by steps and steps, as we said, but also the internal and mental virtues, in this way must be acquired. Because, in such a way, a little quickly becomes a lot and remains. So, for example, in order to acquire the inner virtue of patience, you cannot immediately rejoice or desire the insults and other opposites that someone will do to you, because their joy and desire are the highest degrees of patience; to these you must not ascend unless perhaps you first pass through the lower degrees and steps of this virtue. These steps are, first of all, to despise yourself; to not consent to revenge; to hate revenge and the like (see the next chapter). I also advise you to practice mainly not in all the virtues, nor in many, but first in one only and after that in the other. Because this is how the virtuous habit is planted in the soul more easily and more firmly; because even with the continuous training of a virtue, your memory runs more easily to it and your mind is always more refined, in order to find new ways and reasons to acquire it; and the your will leans more easily and with a greater disposition to it. These, of course, will not follow if you are caught up in many virtues. On the other hand, the actions of a single virtue, being similar to each other, are made with the same and similar practice, less laborious. For one calls and helps the other, its likeness and because of this likeness, they impress us even better, by finding the throne of the heart already ready and disposed to accept those new actions, which we will do again, just as it accepted the others before. their likenesses. These accounts, which we have said, have so much power and truth, that we know of course, that whoever exercises well in one virtue, learns together with the others and the way, in order to exercise in the other, and thus with the increase of one, they all increase together, for the inseparable unity, which they have among themselves, because all the virtues are rays, which come from one and the same divine light. CHAPTER LST By what means are the virtues acquired and how should we be governed in order to practice for some time in one only. For the acquisition of the virtues, there needs to be a brave and great soul and a will, not weak and soft, but resolute and strong, with a certain condition, that we have to go through many opposites and hard and even, we must also have a special attitude and love towards them; which we can acquire, if you consider how much these virtues please God and how noble and excellent they are in themselves and how beneficial and necessary they are to us. Because, each of our perfections and advances has both the beginning and the end of them. Therefore, every morning, let active intentions and decisions be taken by us, in order to train ourselves in whatever causes of virtue, possibly, can occur that day; in the evening, we must examine, if we have used them well; and the next morning, let us again renew the same decisions and desires more vividly and in fact, in order to practice the acquisition of that virtue, which we then have in our hands. Similarly, the examples of the saints and our prayers and the studies of the life and passion of Christ, all these, which are so necessary in every spiritual exercise of the virtues, should be done mainly for that virtue, in which we then want to exercise; but also whatever occasions and causes we encounter on that day, and if they are different from each other, we must treat them all, as much as possible, in the acquisition of the virtue that we desire (see in the second chapter). In this way we should not take care, to get used to doing the virtuous actions, internal and external, and with as much willingness and ease, with as much willingness and ease as we did before and their opposite vices or better, with as much ease as the natural desires of the our hearts; in other words, we must acquire so much habit in the virtues that they become natural to us. And the greater difficulties we encounter in them (as we said above), the faster and deeper these difficulties will put and plant the good habit in our soul. The appropriate sayings of the Holy Bible, when they are said by us, with the voice or with the mind, have a wonderful power, to help in the training of the required virtue; for Solomon says: "What will you observe, child? The words of God" (Prov. 31,2). For this reason, let us have many sayings about the virtue we practice, which should be put into practice and said throughout the day, and indeed, when by chance the opposite passion of that virtue fights us. For example, if we are dealing with the acquisition of patience, we can say the following sayings and others similar: "A long-suffering man, much in wisdom" (Prov. 14,31). "The patience of the poor will not fail" (Psalm 9:19). "Woe to those who lost patience" (Sir. 2,15). "The long-suffering is superior to the strong. And whoever restrains his anger is better than he who conquers a city" (Prov. 10:32). "By your patience you will save your souls" (Luke 21,19). "With patience we pass the race that is before us" (Heb. 12,1). "Behold, we bless those who show patience" (James 5,11). "Blessed is he who patiently accepts trials" (James 1:12). "Your patience must last until the end" (James 1:4). "You have need of patience" (Heb. 10,36). Likewise, we can say these little prayers: "O God, when will my heart be armed with the vehicle of patience?" "When shall I pass every trial with a rested heart, to give joy to my God?" "My beloved trials, which made me like my Lord Jesus, who suffered for me? O Jesus, only life of my soul, will I ever live rested in a thousand sufferings for your glory?" "Blessed am I, even if in the midst of the fire of sorrows I burn with desire, to suffer greater sufferings!" We will use these small prayers to encourage the virtues and others suitable for each virtue that we are practicing, as many as the spirit of piety will inspire us. These little prayers are called javelins and darting prayers, because they are like javelins, i.e. poles and arrows that aim and dart in the sky and have great power to arouse us to virtue and to reach like the angels of God, even though they are accompanied by two things, as by two wings: one is the true knowledge of the joy of our God, which he receives for the training we do in the virtues, the other is a warm and ardent desire to acquire them, in order to please his divine majesty 75 . CHAPTER LZ That we must proceed with care and constant diligence in the practice of virtue. Among those that are necessary and contribute to the acquisition of virtues, in addition to what I said above, there is also the following: that is, to always go forward, if we want to reach the goal that we want here. For otherwise, if we only stop, we turn backwards; for, when we stop from virtuous actions, it necessarily happens, through violent inclinations of the emotional disposition and the other things that motivate us externally, it happens, I say, that many disorderly passions are born in us, the Which corrupt the virtues or at least diminish them and thus deprive us of many graces that we could, progressing, achieve from God. That is why the spiritual path is different from the path taken by the traveler on earth. For on the earthly course, if the traveler stops, he loses nothing of the course he has traveled; but on the spiritual course, if the traveler of virtue stops, he loses all the virtues he previously acquired; and even the fatigue of the traveler increases, the more he will walk, however, on the spiritual path, the more one walks forward, the more authority and power he always acquires. Because with virtuous asceticism, the lower part, i.e. the body, which with its war made the path of virtue hard and arduous, always weakens more, while the higher part, in which virtue resides, i.e. the soul, is always supported and strengthened more. Therefore, the more we advance in goodness and virtue, the less is the trial which we feel at the beginning of virtue; and also, some secret sweetness (which comes from God), unites with us and becomes greater every hour. And thus always proceeding with more ease and power, from virtue to virtue, we finally reach the top of the mountain, where the soul becomes perfect and acts after that every good thing, not with disgust, but with special joy and exhilaration. For having conquered and tamed the passions and subjugated the whole creation through the subjection of her body, she lives happily in God; and there, laboring with pleasure, she receives rest. CHAPTER III Having the obligation to always fight the battle of the virtues, we must not avoid those which become occasions for us to acquire them. If you want to walk always ahead on the path of virtues without stopping, you must be very careful not to let go of your hands, that which can become an occasion to acquire virtue. Therefore, those who avoid think badly, as much as they can the opposites, which can help them in the acquisition of virtue; for example, do you wish to acquire the habit of patience? It is not good to avoid those cases and those actions and calculations, which motivate you to impatience; and therefore you should not refrain from some actions that are bothersome to you. But in associating and conversing with whoever it is, that causes disgust and sorrow, always have your will ready and willing, to endure everything disgusting and unappetizing that can happen. Because if you do otherwise, you will never get used to patience. Similarly, you must do whatever action disgusts you, either by itself or because of the one who motivated you to do it, or because of the one who prevents you from doing the other thing, which you like more; that is, you must treat and follow the action and that work that confuses and bothers you and you could rest, if you let it. Because in this way you can never learn to suffer; but neither can it ever be true rest that you seek, when it does not come from a soul pure from the passion of self-love and adorned by virtue. I tell you to do the same for those calculations, which sometimes bother and confuse your mind. You must not reject them yourself, because, with the trial they give you, they make you at the same time accustomed to endure the opposites. And whoever tells you the opposite of these, advises you to better avoid the temporary trial you feel, than to follow the true virtue you desire. It is certainly true, that the novice soldier must fight contrary to the hostile causes we have said, with care and dexterity; and sometimes to fight them, sometimes to despise them and to affine them, according to the more or less progress and power acquired through virtue. However, he should not completely turn his back on his shoulders and retreat, to the point of abandoning any cause of opposition that might happen to him. For, although in the past we wished to escape the danger of falling through this flight, yet in the future we shall be in greater danger of being defeated by the blows and insults of impatience, since we shall not have been previously armed with the use of the opposite virtue, that is, of of patience. However, these reasonings have no place in carnal passions, as we said above in part about them. Because their causes, we must always and with perfection avoid them. CHAPTER LTH We must love all the occasions which cause the acquisition of virtues, and especially those which bring more difficulties. You must not, dear, in any way, avoid those, which become occasions, in order to acquire the virtues. But on the contrary, you must always accept them with joy, as soon as they are presented to you, and to consider those, which are more disgusting and unappetizing to your senses, now honorable and beloved. And you will achieve this, with the help of God, if you print the following thoughts well in your mind. First you have to think that the reasons are proportionate instruments and even necessary, in order to acquire the virtues. Therefore, when you ask for virtues from God, the next thing is to ask also for their instruments and their causes; otherwise, your prayer is in vain and only done to tempt God. For God is never wont to give the virtue of patience without sorrows, which are the occasions and instruments of patience; nor humility, without contempts and dishonours; the same with all the other virtues. For this reason, we should like and love these instruments and the causes of virtues, the more laborious they are. Because the actions that we do on these occasions that happen to us, are braver and stronger and now easier and faster they open the way to virtue. However, we must not only practice in the big occasions and contrasts that happen to us, but also in the small ones; for example, we must not only endure the blows or curses that happen to us, but we must also endure the heavy look and look that someone will give us or the cold words you will tell us 76 . Because the acts that are done in these small matters, happen more often and then make us get used to endure the big ones more easily. Secondly, to think that everything that happens to us comes from God for our benefit and so that we can reap the benefits of it. And if some of these, because they are our own shortcomings or those of others, no one can say that they come from God (who does not want sin); nevertheless, they are said to be of God, although he allowed them to happen and because although he could prevent them, he did not it prevents them. Even all the sorrows and sufferings, which come either from our lack or from the malice of others, are said to be from God and of God, because He wants us to suffer and be tormented, for that good of virtue, which we can gain from it and for other judgments of God, which are certainly incomprehensible to us, but just and reasonable, as Saint Augustine says (see also in my chapter). Therefore, we who are certain that God wants us to willingly suffer every kind of annoyance, which comes from others or from our own unjust deeds, to say (as many with a pretext of impatience say) that God does not want, indeed confuses the evils that are done, not it is different than covering our faults with a vain pretense and turning away from the cross of sorrows, which we cannot deny that it is pleasing to God and that he himself commands that we take it up; in fact I say that God loves more that we suffer those trials that come from the wickedness of people, and indeed those who are favored by us, rather than those sufferings that come from other sad events. For, of course, our proud nature is more oppressed and humiliated by them; and moreover, willingly suffering it, we heal and glorify our God excessively, by cooperating with him in a wonderful work, in which his inexpressible goodness and omnipotence shines very brightly. And this is, to extract from the deadly medicine of sin, the sweetest fruit and honey of virtue and goodness. Therefore, as soon as God sees that we have a truly lively and ardent desire and that we beseech him as we should, for such a glorious acquisition of good, he prepares for us the cup of the fiercest and strongest temptations and the hardest occasions, so that we may accept them in due time. Therefore, we, knowing his love for us and our own interest, must with closed eyes receive it with joy and drink it all down to the bottom, willingly and with security; because it is medicinal, given by an infallible hand and composed of herbs, the more beneficial to the soul, as bitter as they are in themselves. CHAPTER M How we can use the exercise of one and the same virtue on various occasions. Because we said above that the practice of a single virtue, which is done for a short time, is more fruitful and beneficial than that which is done by practicing many virtues together, and that according to that the occasions that happen to us will be governed, even if they are different from each other, so now take care to learn the way, which can be done very easily. Many times it happens on one and the same day or even hour, that someone checks us for no reason for an act of ours, which is good, or that a favor is not granted to us that we have asked from someone, or that some other luck happens to us, that gives us a suspicion of evil without cause, or that some pain of our body follows; or that our superior orders us to do something that we do not like, or that other cruel and hard-to-bear things happen to us, of which the suffering life of man is full. In the great variety, I say, of these or other similar events, we can display various acts of virtue; but in order to preserve the rule that has been determined, we must exercise ourselves with acts, which are all alike and similar to the virtue, which we then have in our hands. For example: if the time comes when the said occasions will come, we train ourselves in patience, we will take actions, to suffer all these occasions willingly and with joy of soul; if our practice is in humility, it will make the let him know himself, that he is worthy of all evil in all these opposites that have brought us, if our struggle is in submission, he will willingly submit to the much stronger hand of God; rational buildings, and even in horses and inanimate objects, from which these sufferings and sorrows come to us. If we practice poverty again, we must endure and be pleased with every consolation, big or small, of this world. If our asceticism is in love, we will project acts of love towards our neighbor as well, and he has become an instrument of good for us, which we can also obtain towards God, since he is the first and beloved cause from which they come or these sorrows are allowed, for our own practice and spiritual progress. From what we have said, it becomes clear that even with a single occasion of illness or other sorrow, which may follow us for a long time, we can do acts of that virtue, which we then practice. CHAPTER MA The time we must put into the practice of every virtue; and about the signs of our precoup. As for the time period that we should allocate for the practice of each virtue, this should not be determined by us. Because one must arrange this according to his position, his need, the progress he makes in the spiritual life and according to the discernment of that Elder or Spiritual One who guides us in it. But if we show real diligence and use the ways we have said, there is no doubt that within a few weeks great progress is made. A sign that we have made some progress in virtue is the steady continuation of the practice of virtue. And this must happen even in the time of darkness and distress of the soul, even in the time when spiritual joys and consolations will be taken away from us, according to divine economy 77 . A very clear sign of our progress is also the war that the flesh wages on us in order to promote the works of virtue. For, as much as the carnal war weakens, we must know that we have interfered with virtue. Thus, when we do not feel war or apostasy in the sensual and lower part, or when causes and insults 78 suddenly occur, this is a sign that we have succeeded in virtue. But also when our actions are accompanied by a greater willingness to perform them from the beginning and there is also spiritual joy, then we can more likely calculate that we have progressed in virtue. However, in spite of all this, we should never have the certainty that we have acquired the virtues or completely conquered some passion, even though after a long time and many wars we no longer felt its movements, because here may be hidden the craftiness and energy of the devil and our nature that deceives us. Thus, sometimes this is vice, which from some secret pride presents itself as virtue; and besides, if we think of the perfection to which God invites us, even if we had made much progress in virtue, we still cannot think that we have entered at the beginning and at its first borders 79 . Then, in the depth of our heart, there are so many hidden and so subtle passions, that we don't even know they are passions. So how can we be discouraged that we have been cleansed from passions? And if those very powerful and prophetic eyes of David could not know these things, how can we know them? Therefore, just as he begged God to cleanse him of these, "Cleanse me from my secret passions" (Ps. 18:13), so we too are always obliged to pray for the cleansing of similar secret passions. Because we only understand the actions and branches of the passions, we cannot, however, know their powers and their roots, without the illumination of the Holy Spirit. That is why, and only when they act, do we understand that we have passions. However, when they subside 80 , we think we have reached perfection. Therefore you, as a beginner in war, and like an infant who was then born to fight, should always exercise willingly, as if you had not yet made a beginning in virtue. And it is better to take care to progress in the virtues, than to examine and ask for signs of your own spiritual progress. For our Lord, the true God and only examiner of our hearts, enlightens some to know their progress and some does not enlighten them, as he knows that because of this knowledge humiliation or pride can follow, and on the one hand as a loving Father it prevents danger, and on the other hand it gives them an occasion to increase virtue. However, even he who does not know their progress, let him continue the practice of his virtues and he will know it then, when he appears pleasing to God; and this for his own greater good. CHAPTER MB We must not desire much to be freed from the sufferings which we endure with patience. And how we must govern all our desires in order to be virtuous. When you find yourself in a trial and bear it gladly, be careful not to be defeated by the devil or by your self-love and wish to be freed from it. For from this you will suffer two great losses; one is that, although this desire for the present will not deprive you of the virtue of patience, it will gradually bring you to the state of impatience; the other is that your patience will become deficient, since you will lose the wages and rewards that God gives, only during that period of time, during which you suffer. For if you yourself did not desire freedom, but in all trials devoted yourself to the divine goodness, even if that trial which you suffered in practice, may last an hour or less, yet God could consider it as a treatment that lasted a very long time. That is why in all things you must keep your desires away from your own will, and simply face them all and clearly with their only true purpose, which is the will of God. Thus, in this way, they will be just and correct, and you, in every contrary event, will be rested and will remain quiet. Because, because nothing can happen without God's will, and you don't want anything other than God's will, it is obvious that you will reach the point of wanting and having all your desire, wherever it happens at any time. However, what we say, whatever God wills, is not meant for your sins or the sins of others, because God does not will them, neither according to his previous will, nor with the next one, as the theologian Damascene 81, but it is meant for every education and punishment that comes from our sins or from something else. This trial and sorrow, being called a cross, is so dear to God that with it he sometimes benefits his own and his beloved friends. His next will is also fulfilled with this, which is always just and beneficial for us, according to Saint Damascene (see also in the last chapter). Again, what I say here, to endure, i.e. every sorrow and trial, understand it for that which remains in us and it is pleasing to God that we endure it; that is, after we have first used those means that are permitted to free ourselves from it, (as it is prayer and not giving reasons ourselves, not entering into temptation and the like); however, we must use these means as God wills and as He commands them, who chose them for our service; that is, because He wants us to use them in this way and not according to our own effort and our own our will, nor because we wish more to be freed from those annoying situations and trials, but to use them for the service and pleasure of God. CHAPTER III How we must resist the devil, when he tries to deceive us with indiscretion. When the wicked devil knows that we walk rightly in the path of virtue, with lively desires and rightly placed and orderly, from which he cannot distract us by open deceptions, then he disguises himself as an angel of light and with friendly calculations and sayings of of the Holy Scriptures and with the examples of the saints, he motivates us, at times and times, to march indiscernibly to the height of perfection, only to then cause us to fall into the precipice. Thus he incites us to afflict our bodies severely with fastings, continences, scourgings, chamaikoitis and other similar afflictions, either to be proud thinking that we have accomplished great things or to be afflicted with some disease and unable to do good works, or from toil and exercise, to disgust and praise spiritual exercises; and so little by little, after we have grown cold for the good, to fall with more desire than before into earthly pleasures and extravagances. And this happened to many. Following the impulse of an indiscernible zeal and passing the measure of their virtue, with many tortures, they were lost in their inventions and became the game of the wicked demons. But this would not happen, if he thought well of what we have said; and if he also thought that these acts of torture, although they are worthy of praise and fruitful, nevertheless require physical strength and a corresponding humiliation of the soul, similar that is to say with physical strength; it is necessary however, similar wines in terms of quality and character. But those who cannot contend with this harshness of life like the Saints, can imitate their lives in other ways: namely, by having great and effective desires for virtue; by making fervent prayers; by desiring the most glorious crowns of the of true wars for Jesus Christ; despising all the world, even themselves; giving themselves up to silence and solitude; being humble and meek with all; suffering evil and doing good to their enemies and the ungrateful; guarding themselves from all error, be it small; all these things are more pleasing to God than the exercises and hardships of the body. That is why I also advise you, in the similar hardenings of the body, to walk with distinction, so that you can increase them; because with excesses you will necessarily reach the point of abandoning them. However, I advise you not to fall into the other error and the exaggeration of some who are considered spiritual men. They, flattered and deceived by the excessive love of their bodies, take great care to preserve their physical health, and seem so jealous and that they desire it so much, that with the slightest trouble and the slightest annoyance, they tremble and fear lest they lose it. And for another thing they do not discuss with greater appetite, nor do they think of anything else, as the governance of their lives. That is why they are always careful to ask for food more suited to their appetite than to their stomach, which often loses its strength from the great pleasure. And if they claim that they are doing this in order to be able to serve God better, of course, this does not mean anything other than that they agree with each other, without any profit and even to the detriment of one and the other, two arch-enemies, i.e. the spirit and the body. Because with this care, health is removed from the body and reverence is lost from the spirit. Therefore, the safest and most beneficial thing for both the body and the soul is for there to be a free way of life, but not without the distinction that I mentioned before; with this distinction, the different situations of people and the different states of bodies, which are not they are all subject to one and the same rule, as Basil the Great says in his Ascetics 82 . I also add this, that not only to acquire the external virtues, but also to acquire the internal virtues, we must proceed with some moderation and degree, little by little, as I said above in the 19th chapter. CHAPTER MD Our self-esteem and the motivation of the devil make us presumptuously judge our neighbor. How should we resist them? From the root of selfishness, which we have mentioned many times, that is, from the love and honor we have for ourselves, comes another evil that causes us very great damage: this is the self-righteous judgment and criticism we make against our neighbor. From this criticism we reach the point of humiliating the brothers, scorning and humiliating them. This defect, as it comes from pride, is cherished and nourished by it willingly. For this pride, along with the criticism, is constantly increasing, because, without realizing it, they like each other and they go astray at the same time. The more respect and honor we have for ourselves, the more we are motivated to criticize and despise others, thinking that we are far from those imperfections and defects that we think they have. And the crafty devil who sees in us such a bad disposition, always remains awake to open our eyes and keep us awake to see and examine and magnify the faults of others. But the negligent do not believe it and do not know how much this enemy cares and cooperates to imprint on our minds these small defects of one and the other. Therefore, if, my brother, he is awake to harm you, stay awake too so that you do not fall into his traps. And immediately as soon as he presents you with some fault of your neighbor, turn back from this calculation, because it is written: "Each of you should not consider the evil of your neighbor" (Zach. 8,17). And if you still feel that you are motivated to judge him, think that this power was not given to you. But even if it had been given to you, you would not be able to judge correctly, being yourself surrounded by a thousand calculations and passions and very easy to have a bad idea about others, without just cause. The most effective remedy for this evil is to be always engaged in investigating your own passions and your own evils, which are so many and so hidden, that only to know them and to cure them, all the days of your life will not reach you, and Not to spare time to examine the actions of others. If you thus search and judge only your own passions, you will cleanse the inner eyes of your mind from those evil juices and the great beams that are within; by which you are induced to see the little sticks that others have in their eyes, as said the Lord: "Why do you see the mote in your brother's eye and do not understand the beam that is in your own eye?" (Matthew 7,3). He knew that just as you examine with a bad mood some passion of your brother, some root of the same passion is also found in your heart, which according to the mood and passion it has, so with empathy it judges the things of others, as it is written: "the bad man from the store of his heart brings forth evil things" Matt. 12.35). Because in another way, a clear and dispassionate eye sees things dispassionately and not with cunning: "The eye is clean when it does not see wickedly" (Abb. 1,13). Thus, when some calculus has come to you to judge others for some fault, be indignant against yourself as the culprit and worker of the same fault, and say in your heart: "how shall I, the sufferer, being in the same fault, lift up my head to see and Do I judge the faults of others?" And so the weapons that you will use for the faults of others, use them against yourself, to heal your wounds. And even if the error of a brother may be public and obvious, you justify it with love and friendship and say that in that brother, with other virtues hidden, in order to protect them, God allowed him to fall into this error or if he has that defect for a short time, so that he may remain more humble in his own eyes; and even with the contempt of others he may produce some fruit of humiliation and please God more, and thus his gain will be greater than his loss. Again, if someone's sin is not only obvious, but also great and comes from a heart of strong judgment, do not criticize him; but run with your calculation to the terrible judgments of God and you will see there also other people who were previously in lawlessness to a very great extent, that they have reached great measures of holiness through repentance; and others again, while previously they were in the highest degree of perfection, to have fallen into a miserable precipice. Therefore, always stand with fear and dread, more for yourself than for anyone else. And be sure that all those good words you will say about your neighbor and the joy you will taste for him, are the fruit and result of the Holy Spirit. And on the contrary, all contempt and self-righteous judgment and abuse of our neighbor comes from our wickedness and diabolical motivation. So if some fault of your brother offends you, never rest, nor give sleep to your eyes, until you drive it out of your heart with all your might. Even though unbelief towards ourselves and hope towards God and practice are so necessary in this war, as has been shown up to this point, even more necessary than these three is prayer (which we said is the fourth weapon in the first chapter); with this we can receive from our Lord, not only what we said, but also every other good. Because prayer is a means and an instrument to receive all those graces that flood us coming from that source of God's love and goodness; with prayer you will put the knife in God's hand, so that he will fight for and defeat you. And in order to treat this prayer well, you must make it permanent and become a habit, and work hard to have the following results. a') To always have a living desire to serve God in every case, in that way, which is pleasing to God. And in order that this desire may be kindled in you, think well that God, because of his wonderful excellencies, goodness, I mean, majesty, wisdom, beauty, and other innumerable perfections, is more than worthy to be served and honored; served, tortured and toiled thirty-three years, healed and healed your stinking wounds, which were poisoned with the malice of sin; not with wine and oil and plaster; but with his precious Blood, which flowed from his virgin veins and from pure flesh, torn apart by scourges, thorns and nails. And also, think how much this service benefits us. Because we become masters of ourselves, superior to the devil and sons of God himself. b) To have a living and warm faith that God will give you everything you need for his service and for your own benefit. This holy faith and hope is the vessel which God's mercy fills with the treasures of his graces. And the bigger it is and has a greater capacity, the richer the prayer will turn into our chest. And how is it possible for the unchanging and all-powerful God to stop making us partakers of his graces, the moment he himself commanded us to ask for them? and he promised to give us his spirit, if we ask him with faith and patience? For he said: "How much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?" Luke 11:13). Again: "Whatever you ask in prayer in faith, you will receive" (Matthew 21:22). c) You must approach prayer with a firm decision to desire only his divine will and not yours, both in asking and in receiving what you ask for; that is, to pray because God wants it and to want him to obey you, because he too That's what he wants. And in short, your decision should be to unite your will with the will of God, and not to want God to yield to your own will. And why is that? Since your will is contaminated by selfishness, it often makes mistakes and does not know what it is asking for. Whereas the will of God is always united with inexpressible goodness and can never err. So this is the rule and queen of all other wills and all the other wills of logical structures must follow it and obey it. That is why you must always ask for those that please God. However, if you have any doubts about something because God does not like it, you will ask for it with the decision that, you want it, if God wants you to have it. And those that you know are certainly pleasing to God (as the virtues are) you will ask for them more, in order to serve and thank him only and for no other purpose and goal, even if it is spiritual. d) You must go to prayer adorned with works corresponding to your issues; and after prayer work harder to become receptive to the grace and virtue you ask from God. Because, unlike someone asking for a virtue from God, he insisted that he not use ways and works to become receptive to the grace of the virtue he asks from God (because the practice of prayer must always be accompanied by the struggle to overcome ourselves, so that we help each other following the other), but to show indifference, this means that he tempts God and that he does not plead with him. That is why Uncle James said: "The prayer of the righteous is very effective 83", that is, "The prayer of the righteous has great power and effectiveness" (James 5:14). e') In your prayer you must keep those four things that Basil the Great said: first, to glorify God; second, to thank him for the favors he has done you; third, to confess to him that you are a sinner and a transgressor of his commandments; and fourth, to you ask for what is necessary for your salvation. For example, you can pray in the following way: "Lord and God, I praise and thank you for your natural glory and infinite majesty, and I thank you because you created me only because of your goodness and redeemed me so many times that I too I myself know that you have delivered me from the hands of my enemies; yes, I confess that I have always been a transgressor of your holy commandments and ungrateful for all the favors you have done me. But you, my God, do not be offended by my ingratitude, but help me even now and do not deny me what I ask of you for the salvation of my soul". And if you practice some virtue, ask God for it in the same way; and if someone upsets you about something, don't forget to thank God for the opposite he gave you. Because even this is no small favor. f) In order for prayer to receive its power and for God to fulfill our desires, both because of his natural goodness and mercy, as well as from the merits of the life and passion of his Only Begotten Son and because of his promise to listen to us, finish your prayer with one or more of the following words: Grant me, my God, this grace, because of your excessive mercy. May the merits of the life and passion of your beloved Son be before you, so that I may obtain this grace that I ask of you. Remember, Lord, that you promised us that you would hear us, saying: "While you are still speaking, I will tell you; yes, I am in front of you" (Is. 58,9). And other times again you will ask for favors because of the parsimony of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the other Saints who have great power near God and are greatly honored by him, because in this life they greatly honored his divine Majesty. g) You must pray always and with patience. Because humble patience defeats the invincible God and attracts his mercy. And if the frequent and unrelenting patience of the widow of the gospel made the judge yield to her issues, and indeed a judge who was all injustice and wickedness, according to the gospel narrative, which the Lord spoke on purpose, so that we would not yield, but rather we persist in prayer; "he also told them a parable that they should pray continually and not fall away" (Lk. 18,1); if I say the judge of injustice gave way to the widow's issues, how will not God, who is the pinnacle of good things, yield to our pleas? Thus, if once during your prayer, God is slow to answer you, and even if he shows you signs that he does not listen to you, you should continue to pray again, having a firm and alive hope of his help. Because God never lacks, rather they exist in excess to an excessive degree, all those that compel him to benefit others. Therefore, if you lack and the cause does not come from yourself, be certain and certain that you will receive what you ask for; however, if you do not receive it, because it does not suit you, know that even then you received again, perhaps even more than what you asked for and that from the this failure, you will have greater benefit. And the more you disobey, the more you humble yourself before the eyes of God; and reflecting on your unworthiness and always relying on God's mercy, always increase your courage and your hope in him. The more this hope is fought by the enemy, the more it will please the Lord. Above all, always thank God, confessing and recognizing him as your good, wise and beloved benefactor, both when you do not receive some of what you ask for, as well as when all that you asked for is given to you 84 , remaining steadfast and happy in your every request under the humble submission of divine providence. CHAPTER MST What is mental prayer and how should it be done. The mental and heart prayer, according to the Holy Fathers called the Nipticians, is the concentration of the human mind in his heart mainly, and without speaking with the mouth, with only the intended speech, which is spoken in the heart, let him say this short and single-minded prayer, i.e. the "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me", while also holding the breath for a while 85 . However, any other prayer that will not be done with the mouth, but with the willing speech of the heart that was mentioned, is also called abusive and more widely mental prayer. If, therefore, brother, you love to hear more easily from God and to receive what you ask of Him, strive as much as you can in this mental prayer, beseeching God with all your mind and heart to have mercy on you and to give you what they are necessary and beneficial for your salvation. Because, the more effort this mental prayer has, than that which is said with the mouth orally, the more God hears it, who hears better the mental clamor of the heart than the loud voices of the mouth. That is why he said to Moses, who only mentally and with his heart begged him for the Jews: "Why are you shouting loudly at me?" (Exodus 14,15). He also knew that, because the mercy of God, is a universal Law and contains all the graces 86 that we also ask from God, and God gives them to us, that is why for every case and grace that you ask from God, you can use this prescribed brief prayer, the "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me". Because the mind also gathers with it more easily, while in the other prayers, the longer and many, the mind is scattered. However, if you wish, according to the various cases and graces you are asking, to pray, here I quote some prayers for you to have as an example. For example, when you ask for some virtue and grace, you can say with your heart the following; "Lord, my God, show me this grace and virtue for your glory and honor"; or like this: "My Lord, I believe that it pleases you and it is your glory that I ask for and receive this grace; therefore fulfill this desire for me according to your will." When you are actually fighting from the enemies, you will pray like this: "Run quickly, my God, to help me, so that I will not be defeated by my enemies; or my God, my refuge, strength of my soul, help me quickly, so that I do not fall." When the battle follows, follow the same way of prayer, bravely resisting the one who fights you. Then, after the cruelty of the battle is over, turn to God, present before him the enemy who fought you and your inability to resist him saying: "Behold, Lord, the creation of the hands of your goodness, the one purchased with your Blood. Behold your enemy who seeks to destroy it and devour it; to you I turn; to you alone do I hope that you are good and almighty; and curse my weakness and the speed (if you do not help me) to submit willingly; therefore help me, you who are the hope and strength of my soul". I also remind you of the following: When you are tired of praying mentally and with your heart, you can say with your mouth and orally both the prayer "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me", as the Fathers say, as well as the other prayers that will you will However, take care to collect your mind then to pay attention to the words of the prayer. Some even say that the following is also called a mental prayer: when a person, after gathering all the mental powers of his soul in his heart, without saying any words, either spoken or intended, with only his mind thinks and immeasurably reflects that God is present before him; and that he stands before him sometimes with fear and awe like a convict; sometimes with living faith to receive his help; and sometimes with love and joy to serve him forever. And this is what David said: "I always saw my Lord before me" (Psalm 15:8). This prayer can only be done with an unchanging look of the mind towards God, mournful and supplicating, which look is like a silent reminder of that grace, which we had previously asked him with the word and with the prayer of the heart. Therefore, because this prayer can be done easily in every place and for every occasion and occasion, keep it in your hands like a strong and easy-to-use weapon, and you will benefit and be helped a lot. CHAPTER MZ The prayer made through study and theory. Because also the intellect with which the mind theoretically passes from one meaning to another and makes its reasonings is called intellectual speech, therefore also the theory and study when it is done with the similar intellectual speech in the divine and spiritual meanings, by the fathers it is considered as a prayer 87 , and when at the end of the similar study ask God to give us some grace and virtue that we desire, with the power of the meanings of those we have studied. Because in a certain way, those transitory movements of the mind and theory, and in fact that which is done with some contemplation and with the theophilic passions of the heart, is a mental voice and prayer, which the Lord who is the first Mind and poet of thoughts. That's why you too, wanting to pray for a certain period of time, for example for half an hour or for an hour or even more, you can add to your prayer a spiritual study, such as the life and passion of Jesus Christ, always mentioning and testifying his actions to the virtue that you you ask and desire; as, for example, if you desire and want to receive the virtue of patience, you will somehow study the Mystery of the Scourging and the gift of the Lord in the following way: A') That after the order of Pilate, Jesus stood in the designated place dragged by the servants of injustice with shouts and insults to whip him. B) That he remained naked from those who were very angry and these pure flesh remained completely naked and undefiled. C) That his hands, which never sinned, were tightened with a hard rope and remained tied to the post. D) That his body remained wounded and torn apart by the whippings and scourges, and thus his divine Blood ran down to the ground like a river. E') That the wounds, added one to the other and in the same place, tore him apart and thus worsened and irritated his wounds, which previously existed in the Immaculate Members of 88. These studies or others like them will first of all make the inner dispositions of your soul feel as vividly as possible the bitter anxieties and cruel sufferings which your Beloved Lord suffered in all the parts of his most holy Body, and in all together; and then, they will give you the disposition to acquire patience. After the external wounds of the Body, pass to his most holy Soul and think, as much as you can and as much as your mind can hold, the patience and gentleness with which he suffered so many sorrows, without ever satisfying the thirst he had to suffer more and greater sufferings for the glory of his Father and for your benefit. Then think that he himself suffers from a living desire to want you also to suffer the trial you have; and that he begs his Father to give you the grace to bear with patience the cross and the sorrow that torments you and everyone else man. So for these studies and theories, you too want to suffer everything with a patient heart. And then, turning your mind to the heavenly Father, thank him who only for your own love sent his Only Begotten Son into the world, to suffer so many cruel sufferings and beg continuously for you; then ask him for the virtue of patience with the power of his Son's works and prayers. CHAPTER MI Another way of praying through study You can also pray in this way and study the same passions of the Lord, in order to receive your request. For example: after you carefully consider the passions of our Lord and with your calculation you see the willingness of his heart with which he suffered them, as we said above, from the magnitude of his sufferings and his patience, you will pass to two other reflections: One is of his merit, i.e. of the countless wages that Jesus became the cause both to himself, as a man, and to the whole human race, for these passions and his patience. And the other is of the joy and glory of his Father, which he received for the perfect submission of his Son who suffered these passions. Presenting these two to His Divine Majesty, you will ask for the grace or virtue you desire because of their power. And you can do this not only in every type of the Lord's passions, but also in every other partial act, internal and external, that he did in his whole life. CHAPTER MTH Method of prayer through the Virgin Mary You have another way, dear, to study and pray through the Holy Theotokos, turning your mind a) to the heavenly Father, b) to Sweet Jesus, c) and finally, to this most glorious Mother of his. Turning your mind to God, think about the great joy that God had centuries ago thinking about the face of the Mother of God, her virtues and actions, from the time she was born into the world until the time she rested. Study it in the following way: Raise your calculation above all time and time and building, mental and tangible. And entering, so to speak, into eternity itself and into the mind of God, think of the sorrows and the inexpressible joys that God received through the Virgin Mary 89 . Finding God in the midst of these sorrows, ask him to give you, because of their sparkling rejoicings, grace and strength, so that you can overcome and defeat your enemies; and indeed he, who then fights you; after reflecting on so many and excellent actions and virtues of this Theotokos, and presenting them sometimes all together and sometimes one of them to God, for their strength, ask from his infinite goodness all that you need and desire. After this, turning your mind to our Lord, her Son, remind him of the Virgin Mary who bore him for nine months; the reverence with which she worshiped him when he was born and knew him as a true God and a perfect man, her Son and poet; the lovers her eyes, which saw him so poor; the embraces that received him, the milk that he nursed, the toils and sufferings that she suffered for him in his life and in his death; and I promise you that with all this you will cause a favorable disposition in her godchild to give you a child obey. In the end, turn your mind also to the Virgin Mary and remind her that she stood chosen by God's own providence and goodness, as a Mother of grace and mercy and as our own Mother and advocate and that after her Son she has no safer and stronger refuge to let us resort to her; remind her that all of us Christians, as we do not call our father above all on earth, as her Son commanded us because above all we have only one Father, the one who is in heaven: "And do not call anyone on earth your father, for one it is your Father who is in heaven" (Mt. 23,9) - in the same way we do not call any other mother on earth, because above all we have only her Mother in heaven and we all boast to be called her children. That is why we look to her to have complete mercy on us, as she looks without deviating to her mother and the infant who has been weaned, as it is written: "I raised my soul like a suckling child close to its mother" (Ps. 130,3). Also remind her of the truths that the books write about her, that all believers believe in so high and so wonderful and great achievements and gifts that she brought to the whole human race, because she alone, being between God and men, made the one God a son man, but men the sons of God. That without her intercession no one can approach God, neither man nor angel, because she alone stands between the created and the heavenly creation; for she alone is God direct with God, and she has the second parts of the Holy Trinity, because she is true Mother of God; and that she is not only the treasure-keeper of all the wealth of the Godhead, but also the distributor to all, Angels and men, of all the supernatural brilliance and spiritual gifts given by God to creation. And that there is no one who invoked her with faith and did not listen to him with compassion. Anyway, present to her the sufferings and passions of her Only Begotten Son who suffered for our salvation, and beg her to ask for grace for you from him, so that for you too these passions will bring about the result for which her Son suffered them; and this is yours. salvation; and this not for anything else, but for his own glory and pleasure. CHAPTER N Some thoughts on turning to the Theotokos with faith and courage If you want to run to the Theotokos with faith and courage for your every need, you can achieve it when you think: A) That all those containers (as you know from your experience) in which musk or other similar precious scent has been placed, although not there is the perfume in them, these vessels retain the fragrance of that perfume. And the longer the perfume remained in the container, the more those containers retain the fragrance; and in fact, the more they perfume them, the longer the perfume remains inside, even though that musk or similar scent is of a limiting and limited power. Similarly to think that even one who stands near a big fire, retains the heat for a long time even after moving away from the fire. And because this is true, from what unspeakable fragrance of charity, from what flame of love and from what thoughts of mercy and compassion can we say that the wombs of the Theotokos are full, who for nine months kept Christ in her womb, the empty myrrh, which always holds in her breast and in her love, the Son of God, which is the same self-love and the same self-pity and self-pity and not of limited power and short duration, but endless and unlimited? Just as whoever touches the vessels containing the myrrh receives the fragrance upon him, and whoever approaches a great fire cannot help but receive from its heat, so much more every poor person who is in need and approaches with humility and faith the heavenly myrrh, to the fire of love, mercy and compassion, which always smells and always burns in the breast of the Virgin, he will certainly receive help, favors and graces, the more, the more often and with greater faith and courage he approaches. B) That no creature loved Jesus Christ, the Son of God, so much, nor conformed so much to His will, as the Virgin Mary His Mother, on the one hand because she gave birth to him alone without a man, on the other hand because she gave birth only to him and no one else, and so she was not shared at all with another her love. Therefore, if he is the Son of God and the beloved Son of the Virgin, he gave his whole life and his whole self for the needs of us sinners and gave his mother as our mother and advocate to help us, and after that she is the means of our salvation, how and in what way will this beloved mother and our advocate be able to become an apostate of the will of her much loved Son and not help us? That is why, beloved, run, run with courage for your every need to the Virgin Mary. Because that trust and the courage you show in it, is rich and blessed and a safe refuge and always gives your heart graces and mercies. CHAPTER II How one should study and pray through the Angels and all the Saints. You can use two ways to receive the help and protection of the heavenly saints. One is to turn to the Heavenly Father and show him the love with which he is loved and the praises with which he is praised by all the saints in heaven, and the struggles and sufferings that these saints suffered on earth for the glory and so with the power of these things to ask of his Majesty what you need. The other is to seek the same spirits of Angels and Saints, because they desire not only our earthly salvation and perfection, but also our glory in the heavens and ask them to help you against all the evils of your enemies and to protect you. even at the time of your death. Think once in a while about the many and excellent graces that these Saints of heaven received from God, arousing and igniting in you a strong joy and love for them, because they are enriched with so many supernatural gifts that you can count as if they were your own. In fact, if it is possible to rejoice more because they have it and not you, because this is the will of God, who is gracious and blessed. And in order to do this exercise with ease and order, divide the orders of the Saints of the day with the following order: On Monday, pray for the nine Orders of Angels; on Tuesday, the Holy Forerunner; on Wednesday, the Patriarchs and Prophets; on Thursday, the Apostles; on Friday the martyrs; on Saturday the Hierarchs with the other Saints; on the Sunday of the Virgins with the other Saints. But daily do not stop turning to the Virgin, the Queen of all Saints, to your Guardian Angel, to Archangel Michael and to all the Saints, your advocates and helpers. Pray daily to the Virgin Mary, her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ and his heavenly Father, so that they may merit you of this grace, that is, to give you as your main and universal advocate and defender the righteous Joseph the Mentor. And then draw upon Joseph himself with blessings and courage to accept you under his protection. Because the favors received from him by those who revered him and turned to him were innumerable, not only when they had spiritual needs, but also material ones, and especially to guide them how they should pray and study correctly. For if the other Saints are loved by God because they honored him and submitted to him, how much more should we believe that he loves this humble and holy one? and how valid are his supplications before God, since he had so much honor from God himself, when he was physically on earth, that he wanted to submit to him and to obey him as his Father, as the Holy Gospel reports (Luke 2:51), and to serve him in What was necessary, as Basil the Great clearly demonstrates in his Ascetics 90? CHAPTER NB The study of the passions of the Lord causes various dispositions and theophilic passions in our hearts. What I said before about the passions of the Lord, is for us to pray and study them and then ask for the grace we want. Now here I add that we can from the study of these own passions bring about in our hearts various moods and holy passions. If you want to study the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, you can think of the following meanings: A') That at the time when our Lord was on the mountain of Golgotha, that furious people stripped him with fury and snatched his flesh, which had previously been stuck to his clothes by the skins. B) That before the cross they removed from his head the crown of thorns, which, after the crucifixion by placing it on him, became the cause of new wounds. C) That with the blows of hammers and nails it was fixed very hard on the bare and dry wood of the cross. D) Because his limbs did not arrive to crucify him, those bloodthirsty soldiers spread them with such force that all the bones came out of their place, and they could be counted one by one, as the psalm also mentions that passage: "They numbered all my bones" (Ps. 21,18). E') That at the time when they hung him on the dry wood, because he could not be supported by anything other than the nails, necessarily with the weight of the body the virgin wounds opened more and from this our sweetest Jesus felt sharp pains in his heart. Thus from these or from other similar studies, if you wish, you can induce in yourself a disposition and passion of love for your God, take care, then, from the knowledge of similar passions to pass to the greater knowledge of the infinite goodness of your Lord and his love to you; and when this knowledge increases within you, love for your Lord will also increase. So that you may receive in your heart pain, sorrow and brokenness, because with your sins you have grieved your God so many times and with so much ingratitude, think of this infinite goodness and love shown to you by the Lord of all, who suffered and suffered so much for the iniquities you. That you may be moved to hope, think that a great and high Lord came to the point of suffering so much, to wipe out your sin, to free you from the bonds of the devil and from some of your faults, and to propitiate your eternal Father and to give you courage to turn to him in your every need. In order to be moved to joy, he passed from his sufferings to the results of his sufferings. In other words, think that with those sufferings he cleanses the sins of the whole world. He spares the wrath of his Father. It confuses the lord of darkness. It kills death. With the souls of the saints he fills the place of the fallen Angels and brings joy to his Anarchic Father and to his Cognate Spirit, winning the Virgin Mary and the whole triumphant Church in the heavens and the warring Church on earth. To hate your sins, to use all the calculations you will study for this purpose only; that is, think that our Lord suffered for no other purpose than to make you hate your sins and evil desires; and indeed the desire that dominates you more and is opposed to the majesty of God. That you may come to wonder and admiration, think what thing can be greater than this, that is, to see the Poet of all, who grants life to all, condemned to death by his creations; to see the supreme majesty trampled and debased; condemned to the justice; beauty spat upon; the love of the Heavenly Father to be hated; to see that uncreated and unreachable light, to be in the power of darkness; for pride and bliss to be considered dishonor and contempt of the human race and to reach the greatest suffering. In order to grieve with your sorrowful Lord, leaving his external sufferings, think of others incomparably greater that tormented him internally. Because, if you are sorry for external things, much more, it will certainly be a miracle, how your heart is not torn by sorrow for his internal passions! That is, when you consider that the soul of Christ, seeing God clearly on earth with that so-called blessed sight, as it now sees him in heaven 91 , and then it knew him as supreme and superior to all honor and service, that is why it desired all buildings with all their forces to give him this honor. Thus, seeing God now, on the contrary, to have been so badly offended and to be cursed by the innumerable errors and abominable lawlessness of the world, he was immediately afflicted with innumerable pains and sufferings; these sufferings tormented him all the more, the greater was the love and the his desire to be honored and served by all such high majesty. And so, just as no one can understand the magnitude of this love and desire, so no one can understand how hard and how heavy this inner sorrow of the Crucified Jesus was for him. Along with this, think that the Lord excessively loving all his buildings, in proportion to his love for them, was excessively sorry for all their sins, for which they were going to be separated from him. Because for each of them a mortal sin that all people have committed and will commit, those who have been born and those who will be born, and to put it more simply, the more times someone is going to sin, the more times he is separated from the Lord, with whom he could be united. with love. This separation was so much harder for Jesus, than the separation of bodily members, when they are separated and come out of their natural place, as the soul, being a pure spirit, is nobler and more perfect than the body and is subsequently more capable of pain. Among the passions of the Lord that he tried for the buildings, the most severe is the one that he tried for all the sins of those in hell, who, not being able to unite with him, are going to suffer indescribable eternal suffering. If your soul, brother, did not ache from the said sufferings of the beloved of Jesus, let her proceed a little further with her calculation and she will find in him more sufferings and much heavier to sympathize with him. Because the Lord was tortured and with his countless pains he paid off not only the sins that have been committed, but also those that will be committed by people 92; and those of course he forgave, but the others he gave us the power to avoid them. There will be no shortage of other thoughts to sympathize with the Crucified One. Because the Lord on the cross felt all kinds of pains, without any exception, that every person could go through from Adam to the end of the world. Thus the insults, the temptations, the slanders, the cruelties and every distress and trial of all the people of the world, tortured the soul of Christ much more strongly than those who suffered were tortured. For all the sorrows great and small, both of the soul and of the body, which men have experienced in the whole period of their lives, down to the smallest headache and to the embroidery of the needle, he tried them all to the end, and for his infinite love he wanted to sympathize and engrave in his heart our most visceral Lord, because he was a new Adam and the spiritual Father of all men. However, it is not possible for anyone to tell how much the pains of His Virgin Mother grieved him, because she too in every way and for all the causes that tormented her Son, sympathized and sympathized with him to a very great extent. Thus these pains of the Virgin His Mother renewed in her blessed Child his inner wounds and his sweet heart remained as if it had been wounded by countless red-hot arrows; this heart of his, for so many sufferings that I have said and for others almost countless and unknown to us, one could easily say that he was a lover of a hundred sufferings, as it is said that he used to call a pious soul with holy simplicity the Crucified. Anyway, if you loved, you would think carefully about the cause of all the sufferings that were mentioned, which our Redeemer and Lord suffered, you would not find any other than sin. "He carried our sorrows and bore our pains" (Isaiah 53:5). Thus, the conclusion is clearly drawn that to really empathize with your Crucified God and to return the favors that he asks of you and you are obliged to do so without any pretext or excuse, is to really suffer for his love, because you regretted, to hate sin more than anything else and to fight bravely against all your enemies and against all your evil inclinations and wills, in order to remove from you, in this way, the old man with his deeds and to put on the new, adorning your soul with the evangelical virtues. CHAPTER N The benefits we can receive from the study of the Crucified and the imitation of his virtues. Next to the other benefits that you can receive from this holy study of the Crucified are: A) To be sorry and to be in pain not only for your past sins, but also for the passions that still live in you, which put the Lord you on the cross. B) To ask him for forgiveness for your sins and grace to hate yourself perfectly, so that you no longer feel sorry for him. In fact, as a reward for the many sufferings of loving him and serving him in the hereafter perfectly, a thing which cannot be done without this holy hatred of your sins. C) To drive out of yourself every bad inclination, no matter how small it is. D) Strive with all your strength to imitate the virtues of your redeemer, who suffered not only to save us by paying for our sins, but also to set an example for us to follow in his holy footsteps: "Christ suffered for our sake, leaving you an example to walk in his footsteps" (1 Peter 2:21). And here I show you a method of study, which you will use in order to imitate the virtues of the Lord and to proclaim them, as it is mentioned: "Proclaim the greatness of him who led you out of darkness into his wonderful light" (1 Peter 2,9). So, in order to acquire the virtue of forgetfulness and not to have hatred towards your enemies and malice, but to love them, to forgive them and to pray for them with all your heart to God that he also forgives them, even if you they cursed, even if they harmed you, and if your life was in danger until death, then look once at your Lord nailed to the cross and full of blood. Look at him how, with the crown of thorns on his head, with a humiliated and spitting face and with dry lips, he cries out and begs his Father to forgive his crusaders: "Father, forgive" (Luke 23:34); although he could order the earth and swallow it right now! And so from this think the following: If that Almighty Despot forgave the sin of his so deadly enemies, what a great thing it is, if you are the worthless, if you are the stinking and worthless worm of the earth, imitate forgive him and your enemies from your heart! In order to acquire the virtue of obedience to your spiritual fathers and in order to have humility in your heart, think of this eternal and identical Word of the Father, who with his only nod created all things, who became so obedient to the paternal will and was so humbled, that He accepted death, even death on a cross, as Paul said: "He humbled himself willingly, obeying even death, and even death on a cross" (Phil. 2,8). With the word of the cross, it shows the most dishonorable and the most condemned and the most cursed death, which the Lord accepted. "Whoever hangs himself is cursed by God" (Deuteronomy 21:23). A death that no human has ever accepted in the history of the world. And briefly, notice the indignities he suffered in the following incidents: He is betrayed by one of his disciples; the other denies him; the rest of the disciples and apostles leave and leave him alone! These became causes of very great dishonor for our Lord. Because the whole world spoke against him, that is to say, he was a man of such bad character that even his own disciple hated him for his vices and betrayed him, and the other disowned him as a deceiver and a liar. And then all the rest of the disciples, because they did not love him with true love, but hypocritically, then they hated him and forsook him and left. He stands before many and various criteria of Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod! The pioneer Varabbas is considered better than Jesus and is preferred by the people! and all this is a very great dishonor! He is pampered by Herod, after he dressed him in a brilliant dress and is sent away accompanied by his royal troops! He is being pampered by Pilate with the purple dress, with the crown of thorns and with the reed in his right hand and he worships as a false king! He spits! He covers his face and thus gets slapped and hit! Everyone sees how dishonorable all this is. He lifts his cross on his shoulders by himself 93 and runs through Jerusalem to the place of the Skull! He strips himself and is crucified like a robber with robbers, not without nails 94, but with nails, so that those who will see him will think that he was an evil man and an apostate and a rebel! He is mocked on the cross, being from such a populous city, that Jerusalem could then have more than two million people! In front of them, he even acted theatrically and was presented with the trilingual title 95 that was on the cross, and instead of being watered with water in his thirst, he was watered with gall and vinegar. His indignities did not end here. And after his death, he receives a spear in the side, he is declared shot, and his Tomb is supposedly sealed so that it will not be stolen! Of course, he could have been unburied by those heartless people, if that blessed Joseph of Arimatheus had not sympathized with him and had not dared to ask him to bury him. You, therefore, now, be ashamed, brother, and do not be proud any more, but in general do not allow even the slightest thought of pride to enter your soul, thinking of such a great humiliation of your God. Anyway, in order to acquire the virtue of patience and to imitate Christ, think: A') That the soul of Christ, having all its attention on God's Word, felt surprised when he saw that incomprehensible and infinite majesty, before which all the things of the world are as a zero, to suffer on earth so many indignities for him man (and she remains motionless in her glory), from whom she received nothing but infidelities and insults. For whatever dishonors and insults man heaped on the humanity of Christ, God the Word did to him, with whom it was united in hypostasis. B) Think that God and the Father willed and motivated the soul of Jesus Christ, that is, his Son, to suffer similar passions for us, that is, beatings, blasphemies, whippings, thorns and finally the death on the cross, revealing to her that he likes to see her full of all kinds insults and sorrows. C) Think, seeing with her brightest mind, how much this is pleasing to God and loving with absolute love his divine majesty, as soon as she accepted the invitation to suffer for our love and for our example, she accepted with joy and willingly wanted to obey the holy will and who can go with his calculation into those deepest desires that that soul, the kindest and purest of all 96, had for him! She was there as if she were in a labyrinth of suffering, always asking and not finding (as she wanted) new ways and new ways of suffering. And for this reason, she freely gave herself and innocent bodies to the slaughter and destruction of lawless people and the forces of hell, so that they may do what they want. D') After that, look at your Jesus, who turns to you with calm and visceral eyes and says: "Look, my child, why don't you want me to resist your passions, which your naughty desires have made me become, don't you see how much I suffer too how much joy for your love, to give you an example of true patience! I beg you, therefore, my child, for all my pains and you willingly to take up this cross and any other that I want, leaving yourself in the hands of those people who persecute you, to whom I will repay according to your honor and according to your body. If only you knew how happy I would be with that! and you can see this in these wounds which I accepted with excessive joy, as precious and beloved things in order to adorn with precious virtues your poor soul, which is loved by me, more than all that, which you cannot understand! and if I suffered so much for you, why should you, my beloved bride, not want to suffer something, in order to heal my heart and to sweeten the wounds that your impatience inflicted on me, which gave more bitterness than my own wounds?". E') Think carefully about who it is that speaks to you in this way and you will see that it is He the King of Glory, Christ the true God and a perfect man! Think also of the magnitude of the sufferings and insults that did not deserve to be inflicted even on the worst robber in the world! See your Lord standing in the midst of so much suffering, not only motionless and with wonderful patience, but also rejoicing as if he were at his weddings! and as with a little water the fire burns more, so with the increase of the sufferings, which were small in front of his so rich love, there was more and more joy and the desire to suffer more! F) Then think about all that reason, for which the most visceral Lord suffered this, (not without his will, but willingly and for his love for you); it was so that you too, imitating him, could train yourself in the virtue of patience, so that you go deeper into what he wants from you and the joy he will give you, if you strive in this virtue, so that you can take up your cross not only with patience, but also with joy and with fervent love and every other sorrow, so that you can better imitate your God, to rest him more. Thus, putting before your eyes the insults and bitterness that your Lord tasted for you and his care and patience, you must feel pain and shame because all your pains and sorrows and contempts and all your patience, in comparison with those, do not it is true patience, but a shadow of patience; and to be afraid and to be afraid that there is still in your heart a small calculation that you do not want to suffer for the love of your Lord. This crucified Lord is, my child, the book I give you to study continuously, from which you can learn the true image of every virtue. Because it, being a bible of life, not only teaches the mind with words, but also warms the will with its living example. The whole world is full of books. But in spite of this, all the books together cannot so perfectly teach you the way to be able to acquire all the virtues, as Jesus teaches you. To this crucified one I advise you, my child, to turn to him and kiss him with tears and embrace him warmly every time you are bitten by the imaginary snakes of demonic and human temptations, and you will surely be healed of your wounds, just as the Jews once were were healed from the bites of real snakes, when they saw the bronze serpent hanging on the wood, which modeled our Lord, as he himself said: "And as Moses lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of God be lifted up man, so that whoever believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:14). Know this too, my child, that those who spend many hours weeping over every passion of our Lord and reflecting on his patience and then in the miseries and diseases and trials and dishonors and insults that happen to them seem impatient, they are like the cowardly soldiers of the world, who before the battle under the instead they promise great things and fight and conquer alone; but when the enemies appear, they abandon their weapons and flee. What can be more foolish and without wisdom and more ridiculous, than for someone to reflect on the virtues of the Lord and to love and admire them and then to forget them completely or not to honor them, when the time has come to do you practice them? CHAPTER A The most holy mystery of the Eucharist Hitherto I have offered you, as you have seen, my reader, four weapons, which are necessary to you in this war, so that you may be able to defeat your enemies; that is, not to have courage in yourself, to hope in God, to strive always, and to you pray Now I show you another one. This is the most holy mystery of the Eucharist. Because just as this mystery is superior to the others, so is a weapon superior to the others. The four weapons that we have said, take their power from the merits and the grace that the blood of Christ earned for us. But this weapon is the same Blood and the same Body with the soul and with the Divinity of Christ. With them the battle against the enemies is done with the power of Christ. With this weapon, however, we fight them with Christ and Christ fights them with us. Because whoever eats the body of Christ and drinks his Blood, remains with Christ and Christ with him "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him" (Jn. 6,56). That's why if we defeat the enemy, we defeat him with the power of his blood, as mentioned in Revelation: "They overcame with the blood of the Lamb" (12,11). And because this mystery which is the most holy, and this weapon, rather Christ himself who is within this mystery, can be realized (put into practice) in two ways, i.e. if one receives it sacramentally, i.e. with reverence, very often and as many times as he can, (if of course he does not have any obstacle from the Spiritual) with the necessary preparation, that is, contrition, confession, satisfaction and the fasting that is according to his strength; and one must receive it spiritually and mentally every hour and every moment, so you too do not stop doing it you receive in the second way many times, and when you can, according to the first way that follows. CHAPTER II How one should receive the most holy Mystery of the Eucharist, i.e. how one should receive Christ sacramentally. In various cases we can get closer to this divine mystery, which in order to achieve it we have to do various things which are divided into three periods: Before the Reception, the time of the Reception and after the Reception. Before Ascension, we must be cleansed with the sacrament of Repentance and Confession from the contamination of both mortal and non-mortal sin that we have committed and to keep the Rule that the Spiritual will give us. And with the disposition of all our hearts to give completely with all our soul, with all our strength and with all our strength to Jesus Christ and to whatever he likes. Because in this mystery he himself gives us his Body and Blood with his soul and Divinity and with his merits. And thinking that our gift, comparing it with his, is little and almost nothing, we must desire to have such a great gift, as never before offered to him by all the buildings, human and heavenly, so that we can give it to his divine Majesty. Therefore, when you want to receive this Sacrament, so that both his and your enemies will be destroyed, before you partake, start from the evening or even earlier to think how much the Son of God wants you to give him a place in your heart with the Sacrament this, to unite with you and help you to conquer your every passion. This desire of the Lord is so great and immeasurable that it cannot be understood up to the height of the created mind. You, however, in order to somehow fit it in your mind, you must put two things in your mind: One is the inexpressible desire that the Son of God has to be within us. Because he calls this union with people his own tenderness and pleasure: "My pleasure is with the sons of men." The other thing is to think carefully that God hates sin very much, because it is a reason for God to unite with us, something that he so much desires, and it is contrary to his divine perfections. Because God, being by nature absolute good, pure light and infinite beauty, cannot but by nature hate and be silent countless times over sin, which is nothing else, but absolute evil, darkness, lack and unbearable ugliness in souls us. And this hatred of God against sin is so strong and so much, that for its destruction an order was given and all the works of the Old and New Testaments were done, especially those of the Holy Passion of his Son. That is why some theologians and teachers say that in order for God to eliminate from us every sin, even the smallest, if it was necessary and necessary, he was ready to surrender to thousands of deaths. From these studies and thoughts, even if to a very small degree, understanding the magnitude of the desire that God has to enter your heart, in order to completely defeat His enemies and yours, you will kindle within you a living desire to receive Him, for to bring this result in you. And so, after you are filled with courage and taking courage from the hope that your heavenly Commander-in-Chief Jesus will come to dwell in you, call loudly many times to war that passion that you want to conquer and bring it down with double and triple desires and appetites, hating it and projecting acts of virtue opposed to that passion. This is how you will spend the evening. In the morning again, just before Holy Communion, cast a short mental glance within yourself at the errors you have committed from the time you received until then, all that you have done with as much fearlessness as if God did not exist to see you and judge you, nor that he suffered for you so many passions on earth. cross. Because you also preferred your vile and worthless desires and not the will and honor of God. And thinking thus with much shame and with holy fear, you will be ashamed of your ingratitude and unworthiness. But again thinking after this that the immeasurable abyss of the goodness of your God invites into his Mysteries the abyss of your ingratitude and your little faith, approach him with courage, and grant him a comfortable place in your heart, so that he may become in her entire Despot and Sovereign. How and in what way? When you expel from your heart every mood and love of the buildings, closing it so that no one else can enter, except your God. And after you have partaken, enter immediately into the recesses of your heart, first worshiping the Lord with all humility and reverence and speak to him mentally in this way: "You see, my only good, how easily I harm you and how much power this passion has against me he is fighting and alone I do not have the strength to free myself. That is why this war is mainly yours and from you alone I hope for victory, even though it is necessary for me to fight too". After this, turning your mind to the heavenly Father, offer him as thanksgiving and for your own victory his blessed Son, which he gave you in the Mysteries and which you now keep in your heart. And fighting bravely against the passion of the one who fights you, wait with faith for the victory from God. And there is no chance that he will deprive you of the victory, if you have done everything you could, even if God is still late in giving it to you. CHAPTER III. How we should prepare ourselves for society, to be motivated by God's love. In order to be motivated by this heavenly mystery to love God, you will think with your mind about the love that God has for you, thinking from the previous night that that Great and Almighty God was not content only to have created you in his image and likeness and that he sent his only begotten Son to the earth to walk for thirty-three years, to ask for you and to suffer cruel passions and the torturous death of the cross, to redeem you from the hands of the devil, but he still wanted to leave him for your need and for your nourishment in this divinity Mystery. Think well, my child, of the incomprehensible greatness of this love, which makes it in all its parts very perfect and wonderful. A') Because if we think that God has loved us eternally and eternally, and as much as he is eternal according to his Godhead, so is his love, with which before all ages he decided to give us his Son with him wonderful way! Therefore, rejoicing inwardly, you can say the following with spiritual joy: So in that abyss of eternity was my smallness, so voted (calculated) and loved by the absolute God, in such a way that he thought of me and desired with the will of his indescribable love to give me his Only Begotten Son for dinner? B) All the other loves of the world, no matter how great they are, have a certain measure and limit and cannot be extended any further. But only this love of God towards us is without measure. And for this, God wanting to be fully healed, gave his Son, equal in majesty and infinity with himself and of the same essence and nature. That is why his love is as great as his gift, and conversely his gift is as great as his love. Both the one and the other are so great that no created mind can imagine a greater size. C) God was not motivated by any need to love us, but only by his natural goodness and by his love for us so great that we cannot understand it. D) Not even any work or any good deed of ours could come before that infinite God to show such an excess of love with our suffering. But because of his freedom alone, his buildings were completely given to us, of which we are completely unworthy. E) If you think carefully about the purity of this love, you will see that it is not like the loves of the world, mixed with some personal gain. Because God has no need of our goods. Because he alone and without us is very happy, blessed and very glorious. Thus, he used his inexpressible goodness and love towards us, not for his own benefit, but for ours! Reflecting on this, you will say to yourself: "How is this possible? How could a God set his heart on a building so low? What do you want, King of glory? What do you expect from me, who is nothing but a little dust and powder? I see, well, my God, in the light of your love, which is like fire, that you have only one purpose, which now clearly shows me your love for me, which is without guile. Because you are not given to me for any other purpose than food and drink, only to change me completely to yourself, not because you have need of me, but living you in me and I in you, I will be able to become through the loving union as you are same; and from the union of my earthly heart and yours of the heavenly one to become in me a single mental and divine heart". From such calculations, then, you must be filled with wonder and joy, seeing yourself so honored and loved by God, and knowing that he, with his almighty love, asks nothing else, nor wants anything else from you, but to take all your love to himself and to set you apart first from all creation and then from yourself, because you are a creation, so that you may offer your whole self to God as a burnt offering and so that from here on his only love and his divine pleasure will motivate the mind you, your will and your memory and to rule all your senses. And seeing after this that no other thing can produce in you the similar divine results, as the all-holy Mystery of the Divine Eucharist, open your heart to it with the following erotic and loving inspirations and say: "O heavenly Brosis, when will that time come when I will sacrifice myself completely for you, not with another fire, but with that of your love? When will I live only from you and for you and only for you? Ὤ, when, my life? Beautiful life, pleasant and eternal life, heavenly manna, when shall I abhor all other earthly food and desire only you, feed only on you? When will it be, my Sweetness? When only my good? O Lord, please, and with all your might, free this poor heart of mine from every obstacle and from every criminal passion. Adorn her with your holy virtues and with that true purpose, for which I can do everything to please you. In this way I will come to open my heart to you. I want to beg you and I want to thank you, to enter it, in which, you, Lord, will without resistance bring those results, which you always want to act". In these loving moods you can exercise from evening and morning for the preparation of Holy Communion. Then, when the time draws near, think about who it is that you have to live, because that is, he is the Son of God, who has a majesty that we cannot understand, before which the heavens and all powers tremble! Because he is the Holy of Holies, the purest mirror! The purity that is not possible to understand, according to which there is no clean building! Because it is He who, like a worm of the earth and like a grape (dregs from a grape), willed for your love to be despised, to interfere, to be crucified by the wickedness and lawlessness of the world! That God is the one in Whose hands is the life and death of the whole world. And because you, who are going to receive him, are, on the contrary, a zero and because of your wickedness you became worse than the zero and from every worthless and impure creation, worthy only to be ashamed and disgusted by the dark demons! and that you, instead of thanking him for his many innumerable favors, despised with your imaginations and appetites such a glorious and immortal Lord and despised his precious Blood! But he, in spite of all this, because of his eternal love and his unchanging goodness, invites you to his divine Table. And sometimes he hurries you to go, threatening you with death, saying: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). And he neither closes the door of his mercy on you, nor turns his divine back on you, even though you too are by your nature full of the leprosy of sin, lame, watery, blind, possessed and enslaved to the passions of dishonor! This is all he asks of you: a) that your heart ache for the sorrow you have caused him, b) that you hate sin more than anything else, small and big, c) that you offer all of yourself to him and that you give yourself with a disposition and heart love always and for everyone subject to his will and submission, d) to hope and have firm faith that he will forgive you, cleanse you and protect you from all your enemies. And after you are strengthened by this inexpressible love of God, you will approach the Holy Communion with a holy fear and a fear that causes love saying: "I, my Lord, am not worthy to receive you, because so many times I have pitied you and I still didn't cry like I should have because I felt sorry for you. I, my Lord, am not worthy to receive you, because I have not yet sincerely surrendered to your love, to your will, to your submission. O God, Almighty and infinitely good, you alone by the power of your goodness deserve me to receive you with this faith". And after you have partaken, shut up immediately in the recesses of your heart and forgetting every created thing, speak to your God with him or in a similar way: "O King of heaven, what has brought you into my heart, to me who am wretched, poor, blind and naked?" And he will answer you: "Love". And you again say: "O love of creation! Dear sweetie! What do you want from me?" And he will tell you that he doesn't want anything, I don't want anything else but love, saying: "I don't want to light another fire on the altar of your heart and in all your works, except for the fire of my love, so that it will consume all other love and all your personal will and to hand it over to me as a scent of fragrance. This is what I asked and always ask of you. Because I want him to be all yours and you all mine, a thing that will never happen, if you do not submit yourself, but remain attached to your own love, to your own opinion and to your every desire and honor of the world (philotimia). I ask you for your self-hate to give you my love. I ask for your heart to be united with mine, which for this reason was opened to me with the lance on the cross. And I ask for all of you to be all of you. You see that I am of incomparable value, and yet I become as much as you deserve. So buy me, O my beloved soul, by giving yourself to me. I want, my dearest child, to want nothing, to hear nothing, to see nothing but me and my will, so that I too will want everything for you, to think about you, to obey you, and to see you, so that your zero, after falling into the abyss of my inexperience, is changed to that, and so you will be in me full of content (you will not feel empty) very happy and blessed, and I from you very satisfied and pleased". Make sure that your faith in this Most Holy Mystery of the Eucharist increases and becomes aware in your soul every day, and never stop admiring this so incomprehensible Mystery and rejoicing thinking how God looks under those humble items of bread and wine, to make you holier, more worthy and happier. Because blessed are those who do not see, but believe, according to the word of the Lord: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (Jn. 20,29). Do not wish for God to appear to you in this life under any other kind of appearances, besides that of the Mysteries. Try to warm your will to this Mystery and daily to be more willing to carry out the will of God in all things. And always, when you offer yourself with this Mystery to God, that is, when you partake, you must be willing and prepared to suffer for his love all the sufferings and all the sorrows and contempts that will befall you and any physical illness 97 . Finally you will offer to the heavenly Father his Son, first for his pleasure and then for your needs, for the whole holy Church, for all your relatives, for all those to whom you are indebted and for the souls of those who they have rest in faith. And you will make this offering in remembrance and unity of that same offering, with which the Son of God offered himself, that is, when he was all full of blood and hung on the cross, he offered himself to the Father. And in this way you can offer him all the sacrifices, that is, liturgies and prayers, which are done on that day in the holy Church. CHAPTER D Spiritual and Mental Communion, that is, how Christ is mentally and spiritually communed. Even though mystically we cannot receive our Lord more than once a day, yet spiritually and mentally we can receive him every hour and every moment through the work of all the virtues and commandments and especially with the divine prayer and even mentally 99 . Because the Lord is also hidden in his holy commandments, and whoever does a virtue or a commandment, immediately receives in his soul the Lord who is hidden in them, who promised that he will dwell with his Father in him who will guard them commands to him saying: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him" (Jn. 14,23) 100 . This society and unity cannot be taken away from us by any building except by our indifference or by some other fault of ours. And sometimes this Society is so fruitful and so pleasing to God, as perhaps many other mysterious societies are not because of the lack of those who accept them. So, as many times as you have the will and prepare for a similar communion, you will find the Son of God willing and ready, alone to feed you spiritually with his own hands. In order to prepare yourself for this mental communion, do as follows: Turn your mind to God and, seeing with a brief glance on the one hand your sins and on the other God, be sorry for the harm you have caused him and with all humility and faith beseech him to accept to come to your humble soul with new grace to heal it and strengthen it against the enemies. When you are going to exercise and harden yourself against some desire of yours or to do some new deed of virtue or to keep some commandment, do all this with the aim of preparing your heart for God who always asks it of you. And then turning your attention to Him, call upon Him with great desire to come with His grace to heal you and to free you from your enemies, so that He alone may have your heart in His power. And remembering the prayers of the communion of mysteries, which were mentioned above, say with a heart that is on fire: "When, my Lord, shall I receive you once more?" When? When? etc." And if you want to commune spiritually in an even better way, direct and put from the night before all the hardships and the acts of virtues and every good work you think of doing for this purpose, that is, to receive your Lord spiritually. And in the morning as it dawns, think, what a good thing! What happiness! What bliss there is in the soul that worthily partakes mystically of the all-holy Mystery of the Eucharist! Because with this, the virtues that have been lost are regained, and the soul returns to its former beauty and it becomes a sharer of the wages of the passion of the Son of God (the fruits and wages of the passion of the Son of God are shared in it). And from the mysterious communion he passed to the secret communion, and thinking that mentally you enjoy the same goods with the sacramental communion, take care to kindle in your heart a great desire to receive him mentally and spiritually, and after you are satisfied with this desire, turn to your Lord and say: "Because, my Lord, I cannot mysteriously receive you this day, do you, who are the goodness and the uncreated power, that I may receive you worthy now spiritually and every hour and every day giving me new strength and grace against all my enemies, and even against of that passion of the enemy against which I oppose and make war with your help 101 . CHAPTER E The performance of graces and thanksgiving Because all the good we do comes from God and is done for God, that is why we are obliged to thank him for every good deed we do, for every victory and for all the favors we have received from his visceral hand, both visible and hidden, both common, as well as the particular ones, as stated: "Give thanks to God for everything, because this is the will of God as it was revealed to us through Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5,18). Because according to St. Chrysostom "the best safeguard of grace is the memory of grace and eternal gratitude" 102 . And in order to do this in the right way, we have to think about the purpose from which God moves in order to transmit his favors to us. And because God in every favor first and foremost means honor and submission to his will, for this reason you should think that: A) The greatest thanks you can give to God for all the favors he has done to you is to you keep his commandments, to honor him, and to be ready to follow his will, as it is written: "What does the Lord ask of you? Rather than willingly follow the Lord your God" (Mic. 6:8). B) Seeing that you have nothing worthy of any favor, because you have done nothing but sins and ingratitudes, with very deep humility say to God: "And how is this possible, my Lord, that you accept to offer me the dead and stinking dog so many favors? Blessed is your name forever and ever." C) Thinking that with the favors he does you, he asks you to love him and to serve him, ignite from the love of such a lovable Lord and from the sincere desire to serve him, as he wants. However, for this you must make a comprehensive offer of yourself in the following way. CHAPTER VI The mental offering, i.e. how one should mentally offer himself and his every work to God. In order for your self-offering to be perfect and lovable to God, from all sides, two things are needed: one is to unite your own offering with the offerings that Christ made to his Father. The other thing is for your will and your heart to be detached from the love of every created thing. For one, he knew that the Son of God, living in this valley of Clathmonos, offered not only himself and his works, but also us together with our works to his heavenly Father; so that our own offerings, in order to be divine, must be made with unity and with hope of Christ's offerings. For the second, think carefully before making the offer, if your will has any obstacle (obstacle). Because if you have something similar, you must detach yourself from all love, as much as you can, and run to God, so that he may completely detach you with his right hand and thus be able to offer yourself to the divine majesty untied and free from everything. And be careful at this point. For if you offer yourself to God while you are attached to the buildings, you do not offer yourself to him but the buildings, because even then you do not belong to yourself, but to the buildings, to which your will is attached, a thing that is not please God, and it is the same as if you wanted to mock him. Because just as in the Old Testament all sacrifices that had a blemish were not accepted by God - that is why God commanded that any animals that were blind or had the slightest blemish should not be offered to him: "Everything that has a blemish you shall not offer to the Lord, because you will not be accepted" (Leviticus 22:20) - in the same way our self-offering is also not accepted, when it has a similar blemish and obstacle 103; because what is offered to God must be worthy of God according to Sirach who says: "Offer to the Lord worthy offerings" (Sir. 14,11). For this reason it happens that the many offerings we make to God, not only remain empty and unjust and without any fruit, but also after them we fall into various faults and sins. We can, yes, offer ourselves to God, even though we are attached to the buildings, but with the aim that his goodness will release us from the bonds of those we are attached to, and so afterwards, to be able to give completely to his divine Majesty and to his service. And we must do this many times and with a great disposition and love of our hearts. Therefore, brother, your offering to God is without dependence on anything, without any will of your own and without paying attention to earthly or heavenly goods, but only to the will and providence of God, to which you must submit yourself whole and be you are sacrificed as an eternal sacrifice. And forgetting every created thing, say to him: "Behold, my Lord and my Maker, I offer all and every will of mine to the hand of your will and to your eternal providence. So do to me what you think and please in my life, in my death and after my death and in all my stay and eternity". If you make your offering cleanly in this way (as you will know when various adversities happen to you in this), from earth you will become a marketer of the gospel and very happy. Because you will be God's and God will be yours. Because he too is always a friend of those people who raise themselves from the (earthly) buildings and give themselves completely and sacrifice themselves to his Divine Majesty. Now then, my child, you see here a very powerful way, by which you can defeat all your enemies. Because if the offering that was said thus unites you with God, you become all of God and God becomes all of you. So, what enemy and what power will ever be able to harm you? When you again want to offer him any of your works, such as fasting, prayer, every act of patience and other good works, think, as we said before, of the offering that Christ made to his Father, of his fasting, his prayers and his other works and thus with the courage of their power offer him yours as well. Again, if you want to make an offering of Christ's works to the Heavenly Father for your debts, you will do it in the following way: Take a general look at all your sins, and sometimes at each of your sins, and seeing clearly that you cannot by yourself to atone for the wrath of God for your many sins, nor to heal his divine justice, you will necessarily run to the life and passion of his Son, thinking of some work of his 104, or when he was fasting or praying or being tortured or shedding his blood. There you will see that in order to appease the Father for the debt of your sins, he offered him those works, those passions, that blood, as if to say to him: "Eternal Father, who, according to Your will, rest your justice abundantly for the sins and debts of your servant: may your divine Majesty be pleased, may you forgive him and may you accept him among the number of your chosen ones." Then, therefore, offer to the same Father this same offering and these same blessings for yourself, inviting him to free you from every debt through their power. And you will begin to do this not only by passing from one mystery to another of his life and passion, but also from one act to another act of each mystery. And not only for yourself, but also for others you can also use this way of prayer. CHAPTER G The felt piety and the coldness and dryness of this piety Sensual piety, i.e. to feel yourself internally, brother, that he is willing to the gods, that he has love, that he has devotion and piety, this comes sometimes from nature 105 and sometimes from the devil 106 and sometimes from grace From its fruits you can understand where it comes from. For if the improvement of your life does not follow, you may suspect that it comes from the devil or from nature, and all the more so, as this piety follows from appetite, sweetness and dependence (attachment) and from some imagination (idea) about yourself. When, therefore, you perceive that your mind feels some sweetness from spiritual tastes, do not sit down to think from what place they come to you, nor lean on them, nor let your mind go out of the humble knowledge of yourself, but with more care and with more self-hatred, take care to keep your heart free from all attachments, even spiritual ones. And to desire only God and whatever pleases him. Similarly, the coldness and dryness of reverence comes from the three causes we said before: From the devil, to hinder the mind and to direct it from spiritual works to works of vanity and pleasures of the world. From us, from our desires and the dependencies we have from earthly things and from our indifference, and from grace for the following reasons: that is, to make us learn to be more diligent and to give up every attachment and preoccupation that does not it is God's, nor does it end with God either to know in practice that all our good comes from him alone or to honor his gifts more and to be more humble and take care to guard them, or to unite even more strongly with his divine majesty with the complete renunciation of ourselves, even in these spiritual tribulations, so that we do not split our heart in two by having the heart attached to them, because God wants it all His own or because He himself is happy to see us fighting with all our strength and using this same grace. So, if you realize that you are cold and dry and do not have the reverence and love and devotion that is due to the goddess, examine yourself and see for what fault you were deprived of such reverence, and fight against it not to receive again the feeling of grace, but to remove from yourself that which does not please God. However, if you do not find the cause and the defect, your sensual piety, let it be the true piety, i.e. the willing submission to the will of God. Therefore, take care not to abandon your spiritual exercises for any reason, but to follow them with all your strength, even if they seem fruitless and without benefit, drinking with your will the cup of bitterness, which he gives you with the coldness of reverence and the deprivation of spiritual sweetness the beloved will of God. And you don't want to follow Jesus only when he goes to Mount Tabor, but to follow him also when he goes to Mount Golgotha. That is, you don't just want to feel the divine light and the spiritual joys and sweetness within yourself, but you also want the darkness and the sorrows and the distresses and the bitter medicines that the soul tastes from the temptations of the demons, internal and external. And if ever the like coldness and dryness is accompanied by so many killings of the mind, that you know neither what to do, nor where to look 107; nevertheless do not be afraid, but remain steadfast on the cross, far from all worldly pleasure, the which the world or the buildings can offer you. Hide even this passion of yours from every person and reveal it only to your spiritual father: but also to reveal it to him, not to free yourself from the trial, but to interpret the way for you to be able to endure it as it pleases God 108 . Even the prayers, the divine meditations, and your other exercises and struggles, do not treat them for the divine sweetnesses and to come down from the cross and for the execution of your will: but to get strength and to be able to raise the cross for the greater glory of the Crucified One, being pleased with whatever he wants. And when at any time from the confusion of your mind you cannot pray and study as you usually do, study as best you can, and that which you cannot do with your mind, try to do it with your will and with your words, speaking to yourself. you and with God, and you will see wonderful results and your heart will take courage and strength. So in the time of darkness of your mind you can say: "My soul, why do you grieve and disturb me? Hope in God: again I will praise the Savior of my existence and my God" (Ps. 42,6). And again: "Why, Lord, do you stand afar off? Are you absent in difficult times and sorrows?' (Psalm 9,2). "Do not forsake me, O Lord and my God, do not turn away from me" (Psalm 37:22). And remembering the sacred teaching that the God of sorrows inspired in Sarah, the beloved wife of Tobit, to treat her and to say with a loud voice: "This will happen to everyone who worships you: this life, if it is for trial, will be crowned he who endures: if he is in sorrow, he will be freed from sorrow. And if it is to be destroyed (if it is corrupted), it cannot be without your mercy, because you do not rejoice at our destruction, because after the stormy sea you cause peace, and after the lamentations and tears, you spread joy. God of Israel, may your name be blessed forever and ever" (Tobit). Even if you remember Christ who, when he was in the garden and on the cross for a greater trial, he was abandoned by his Heavenly Father in the sensible part. In the same way, with this remembrance, suffering the cross, you will say with all your heart: "Lord, not my will, but yours be done" (Matthew 26:39). And acting in this way, your patience and your prayer will raise the flames of the sacrifice of your heart and will reach the throne of God, and you will remain truly reverent, because true reverent is a living willingness of the will and a steadfast love that one follows Christ with the cross to the people on every road that he himself invites us to himself, and to want God for God himself, that is, because that is what God wants. For this reason, if people wanted to measure their progress by this true piety and not by that which is seen with the senses, that is, by feeling only in their hearts the spiritual sweetness of grace, they would not fall into error, not even by themselves. them neither from the devil nor would they grieve without benefit. In fact, they would thank God for such a good thing that he does for them and they would take care to work with greater zeal in the divine majesty that rules the universe and allows similar things many times, for his own glory and our own benefit. That is why some go astray who with fear and prudence certainly avoid the occasions of sin, but when they are troubled sometimes by horrible and ugly thoughts, sometimes again by terrible and ugly dreams, they are confused and cowardly and think that they have been abandoned by God and thus they are completely alienated from God. God. And so they remain very withered and almost despair, and abandoning all good practice of virtues, they return to the Egypt of passions and do not understand well the grace that God gives them, leaving them to be disturbed by these spirits of temptation, in order to understand the humble them and approach him as sick and as people in need of help. That is why they ungratefully complain about that for which they should be thanking His immeasurable goodness. When things like this happen, what you have to do is the following: to think well and reflect on your perverted inclination, which God wants you to know which is for your own good: to know that you are ready to fall into any great evil and because without God's help, you would have suffered the greatest disaster. Then hope and be sure that God is ready to help you, because he makes you see the danger and wants to draw you closer to him, motivating you to pray and run to him. And for that you owe him humble thanks. And be sure that the like temptations or blasphemies are either wicked or evil thoughts that tempt you, they are better driven out with a patient attitude and with a skilful aversion and perfect contempt, and not with a skilful resistance and with an objection war. And pay attention to the first footnote of the first chapter of the first part. CHAPTER The examination of conscience For the examination of conscience, think about three things: the errors of each day, the cause of these errors and the narrow-mindedness and willingness you have to fight them and to acquire their opposite virtues. For the mistakes, do what I told you in the sixth chapter (what we should do when we are hurt, etc.). For their sake, force yourself to fight it, defeat it and throw it to the ground. For the willingness which is necessary to do this and to acquire the virtues, strengthen your will by unbelief of yourself, that is, by having no courage at all in yourself, by hope and courage in God, by prayer and by hating the deeds of wickedness and with the desire of the deeds of the corresponding virtue. Take care, brother, always in your every calculation, word and deed that you have an undisputed conscience, that is, that your conscience does not accuse you and does not feel sorry for any thing. Because whoever examines in depth the right and holy conscience, can never err, or if he errs, not be corrected. Because conscience is the natural law that God gave to the hearts of people to always lead them as a lamp to all good things. As Saint Neilos also said: "Use your conscience as a lamp for your actions". And the Apostle said that "the commandments of the law of God are written in the hearts" (Rom. 2,15). Against four things you are obliged to keep your conscience unaccused: towards God, towards yourself, towards your neighbor and towards other things. As far as God is concerned, you must examine your conscience if you have guarded all that you are obliged to guard against him. That is, if you keep all his commandments and the most insignificant ones 109; and if you loved him and served him with all your soul and are ready to die for him, as you are obliged to do. And if you didn't preserve them, take care to preserve them next. As for yourself, you will preserve your conscience unaccused, if you are not indifferent, but do all that duty that is due and you are obliged and it is according to your power, both to God, as well as to the neighbor and to other things. And apart from these, if you do not fall into excesses and deficiencies, untimely destroying your health and your life and your physical powers with excessive and irregular exercise and you do not give the body its just measure, taking care of its constitution and maintenance. Because this too is contrary to conscience and reason. Towards your neighbor you will keep your conscience clean, if you do not do something that is contrary to the love you owe to him, giving to your elders and your equals and your inferiors what is due to each, according to rank and profession and taking care not to you scandalize either by word, or by deed, or by shape and gesture, as the Apostle says: "Be careful not to put a stumbling block or an obstacle to your brother" (Rom. 14,13) and that of Solomon: "Think rightly before the Lord and of people" (Prov. 3,4). But even if some things happen to you that are not according to the commandment of God, but are allowed and are in your judgment, about these things I say, if your conscience is informed that you are strong and can protect them or not, it is scandalized however, your brother's conscience being weak, you are also obliged by this not to give cause for scandal, but to rest his conscience: "Do not eat what is idolatrous (says Paul) for him who warned you and for the conscience...". By conscience, however, I say not his own, but the conscience of the other: "Why should my freedom be regulated by another conscience?" (1 Cor. 10:28). But in all things that are God's commandment and the conscience of the other is scandalized, then you must despise that person's conscience and not violate God's commandment, as Basil the Great says. You will have a clear conscience against other things, if you have a just measure and do not use excesses and deficiencies, both in food and drink, as well as in clothes and money and property. For it is considered unconscionable not only to despise someone and to allow his worthless food and clothing to be destroyed, or his money and possessions, with which he can provide for his physical needs, but also to want and ask for tender foods, soft dresses and money and possessions that are not necessary for his service. And to speak in general, every thing that is outside of the right logic, is called conscience. That is why you too, brother, for everything you are going to do, big or small, first consult your conscience and examine it, not carelessly and superficially, but in depth and with great care and precision. Because as wells, the more they are dug and exhausted, the better and sweeter water they bring out, so also the conscience, the more it is examined and uncovered from the passions with which it is covered, the better it teaches us what we should do. But because there are also various consciences, not only good and pure, but also adulterated, as Paul says, that is, wicked and insensible and defiled by passions, and then, because of their insensitivity or defilement, or because they are examined with great care, they do not always teach correctly and well, for this reason it is correct not to always trust only in your conscience, but what it advises you to compare, if it is in accordance with what the Holy Bible teaches or to reveal it to the Spiritualists, if it is correct, so that you don't go astray. I added "or because consciences are not examined with such care", because the conscience of man, however passionate and cunning and insensitive it may be, when it is examined with precision and care, it always stops to check and to repent and to accuse the person, because he sins and he is going to go to hell for his sins, if he does not repent. Because this was put in us by God as an adversary, according to the gospel which says: "Be quickly reconciled to your adversary" (Mat. 5:25): and an infallible witness, according to: "To this their conscience also agrees" (Rom. 2:15): and at the same time he is a judge without excuses and very just and very strict and his reason is right: that is why he cannot be silent. But when man is overcome by passions and wants to indulge his desires without any rein, just as he disobeys and violates the law of God, so he also disobeys and violates the controls of the holy conscience. And so that he is no longer controlled by it like some other Herod cuts off the head of John, i.e. he does not consider his conscience and makes the decision to go to hell. That is why Solomon, knowing this, did not say that the conscience, when properly examined, does not control the sinner, but when the sinner reaches the height of his evils, he despises: "When the wicked man reaches the height of his evils, then he despises" (Prov. 18.3). I also advise you on another thing that is worth being informed about: That is, never trust your conscience, if it does not accuse you of some of your affairs, because it is called conscience only for those things that we know and not for those things that we do not know. Because according to the Prophet Jeremiah "the heart is deeper than all things" (17,9), and within it are hidden many subtle passions, which the one who has them does not know at all, and from which David begs to be cleansed saying "cleanse me of the hidden passions" (Ps. 18:13), so you too believe that your heart is never clean of hidden and subtle passions, which are known only to God who alone examines hearts, as Solomon says: "You alone know the heart of all people" (3 Kings 8,39). And take for sure what John says, that is, God is greater than the conscience of our heart: "God is greater than our conscience and knows everything" (1 John 3:20). That is why the apostle Paul, knowing this, said that he does not know that his conscience controls him for anything, but again because of it he does not think that he is righteous before God: "My conscience does not accuse me of anything, but it does not prove that I really am sinless" (1 Cor. 4:4). And all the good works and all the victories you have achieved, let them be considered suspicious. I advise you not to think too much about these things with your conscience, because there is some danger of hidden vanity and pride. Thus, leaving behind all these and throwing them to the mercy of God, whatever it may be, lead your calculation before the road that remains for you for that day. After this, when that day is over, examine yourself, whether you have made good use of what has come to you. And for what you did wrong, repent and ask God to forgive you and then try to correct yourself. Then thank him for the favors and favors he gave you that day. Recognize him as the Poet of all good, and thank him more because he saved you from so many obvious enemies and even from those who are not apparent. Because he gave you good thoughts and reasons for virtue and for every other benefit that you do not know. CHAPTER I How we must prepare ourselves against the enemies who fight us in the time of death. Our whole life is an eternal war on earth and we must always fight until the end of life, as we said in the 10th chapter of the first part. However, the main and most important day of the war is during the last hour of death. Because whoever falls during that time can no longer get up. But don't be surprised about that. Because if the enemy dared to go to our sinless Lord at the end of his life, perhaps to find some fault in him as well, as the Lord himself said, "the ruler of the world is coming, even though he has no power over me" (Jn. 14,30), much more he dares to it comes at the end of our life against us who are sinners 110 . Therefore what you must do in order to be well prepared then, is to fight with courage this time of life that has been given to you: because he who fights well in this life with the good habit he has acquired, easily wins the victory at the time of death. Even if you often think about death carefully. Because when it comes you will be less afraid and your mind will be free and willing for war. The people of the world avoid this calculation and the memory of death, so as not to cut off the appetite and desire they have for earthly things, to which they are attached and they are sad if they think that they will leave them. That's why the naughty inclination they have towards things does not diminish, but gains more power. That is why, when they are about to be separated from this life and from the things they love so much, they feel great and indescribable sorrow and experience great pain. Therefore, in order to better make this necessary preparation, you must, with your calculation, find yourself alone sometimes, without any help, exposed in the anguish of death and to think about those who can fight you at that time. Here I will talk to you about their treatment, so that you can better face that last distress. Because that blow and that war that is going to happen once, whoever is going to do it, must know it well, so as not to make a mistake at that moment, because after that there is no room for correction. CHAPTER I What are the four insults that our enemies bring us at the time of death. And first the offense of faith and its cure. Four are the main insults and most dangerous with which our enemy demons are used to fight us at the time of death. The war they wage against faith, despair, vanity and the various ghosts and the transformations of demons into Angels of light. As for the first offense, I say to you that if the enemy begins to fight you with his false arguments, putting in your mind calculations of unbelief, immediately leave your mind to your will, saying: "Get behind me Satan, father of lies, for I do not want to listen to you at all, because it is enough for me to believe what my holy church believes". And do not leave any place in your heart for the calculations of unbelief, as it is mentioned: "If the Spirit of the ruler, that is, of the enemy, attacks you, do not move from your place" (Eccl. 10,4). Consider these calculations as movements of the devil who is trying to scandalize you at that time. And if you cannot support your mind, stand with courage and remain firm with your will so that you do not fall into any calculation or even into any saying of the Holy Bible, which the enemy will offer you. Because, whatever sayings of the Holy Scriptures remind you of that time, they are mutilated (incomplete), they are offered with a bad purpose, poorly explained even if they still seem clear, good and obvious. And if the wicked officer asks you and tells you with calculation what the church believes, completely despise him and do not answer him. But seeing his lies and cunning and that he tries to catch you with his words, believe without any doubt with all your heart. In the event that you are strong in faith and have strong reasoning and want to put the enemy to shame, answer him that my holy church believes in the truth. And if he tells you what this truth is, answer him: the one who believes it. Above all, always keep your heart firm and careful and turned to the Crucified One saying: "My God, my Poet and my Redeemer, help me quickly and never allow me to fall from the truth of your holy faith. But grant that, as by your grace I was born in this truth, so I may end my mortal life in it for the glory of your name". CHAPTER 1A. The offense of recognition and its treatment. The second insult with which the wicked one tries to overwhelm us, is the fear that provokes us with the memory of our sins, in order to make us fall to the bottom of the abyss of recognition and despair. You therefore, my brother, even in this danger, keep yourself firm in this sure rule, that is, that the remembrance of our sins then is of the grace of God and aims at our salvation, when it humbles you and makes you feel pain in the heart and sorrow, because you grieved God, and when he makes you have hope and courage in the goodness of God. But when this memory bothers you and leads you to unbelief and pettiness and makes you think that you are in hell and that for you there is no longer a time of salvation, know that it comes from the devil. Therefore humble yourself and hope more in God. And in this way you will defeat the enemy with his weapons and you will glorify God. Yes, brother, you must be sad every time you remember your sins and feel pain that you lost God's grace, but you must have courage in his passion and ask for forgiveness. Even if it seems to you that God himself is telling you that you are not one of his sheep, you must in no way lose the hope and courage you have in him, but humbly say to him: "Yes, you are right, my God, to reject me for these my sins But I have greater courage in your mercy that you will forgive me. That is why I ask you for the salvation of this suffering creature of yours, who was certainly condemned by his wickedness, but was redeemed with the honor of your holy blood. I want, my redeemer, to be saved, for your glory with the hope of your immeasurable mercy. That is why I leave myself entirely in your hands and let whatever pleases you be done to me. Because you are my only Lord. And even if you kill me, I place my living hopes on you." CHAPTER II The offense of vanity and its cure The third offense is that of vanity and the esteem with which you have confidence in yourself and in your works to be saved. Therefore, always and especially at that last hour of death, do not let your mind think of even the slightest evaluation of yourself, or of your works, even if you have achieved all the virtues of the saints. But let your appreciation be in God, hoping purely in his mercy and in the works of his life and his passion so that you may be saved. Always in front of your eyes to spoil yourself, until your last breath. And if you happen to think of a good deed, acknowledge only God, because he is the one who did it and not you, and because it came from him alone. To turn, yes, to God's help. But don't expect to receive it right away because you deserve it for the many big battles you fought and won. Always stand in a holy fear, sincerely confessing that all your predictions and provisions and all your labors and struggles would be in vain, if God did not help and take them under the shadow of his wings; to have all your hope only in his defense. If you follow these orders, the enemies will not be able to appear superior to you at the time of death. But the way will be opened for you to pass with joy from this earth and exile to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the sweet homeland. See also the 5th chapter of the 1st part, where you will find more extensively the medicine of vanity and pride. CHAPTER III. The offense of imagination and its treatment If our wicked and obstinate enemy, who never tires of teasing us, once wanted to fight you and especially at the time of death with some false appearances and with transformations into an Angel of light, may you remain steadfast in the knowledge of humility and nothingness of yourself. And to say with a firm heart and courage: "Be converted, wretch, in your own darkness, because I have no need of visions, nor of anything else, except from the mercy of my Jesus and from the prayers and supplications of the Immaculate Conception Mary and the other saints." But even if you have many signs of understanding that these visions are true and come from God, in spite of all this you must always turn away and drive them as far away as you can. And don't be afraid that God will not like this aversion you are doing, thinking about your unworthiness. Because if these visions are from God, he knows well how to make them clear to you and he will not be displeased if you do not accept them. For he who gives grace to the humble, does not take it away from them again for actions that they themselves do because of humiliation. These are the most common weapons that the enemy tends to use against us in that last hour of death. But he also fights each one according to his personal inclinations and the passions he has, to which he knows that he most often succumbs. Therefore, beloved, before that terrible time of the great war approaches, we must arm ourselves against the most powerful passions that dominate us most and fight with courage, in order to facilitate then that time the victory, which takes us every other time. CHAPTER XI The spiritual peace of the heart Your heart, beloved, was created by God only for this purpose, i.e. to be loved and inhabited by him. That is why he calls out to you every day to give it to him: "Son, show me your heart" (Prov. 23,26). However, because God is the peace that is superior to any mind, the heart that is going to receive him must be peaceful and undisturbed, as David said: "Your place was born in peace" (Ps. 75,2). That is why you must first of all fix your heart in a peaceful state, so that all your external virtues are born from this peace and from the other internal virtues, as that great quietist Arsenius said: "Take care that May all your inner work be in accordance with God's will and conquer the outer passions". For though physical hardships and all the exercises by which the body is exercised are praiseworthy, when they are distinguished and moderate, as befits the person who practices them, yet you will never acquire any true virtue alone through the virtues mentioned before, despite futility and vanity, although these exercises do not gain strength and life and are not governed by the inner and mental virtues. Man's life is nothing but a constant war and temptation, as Job said: "Is not man's life on earth a robbery?" (7.1). Therefore, because of this war, you must always be alert and be very careful and observe that your heart is always peaceful and rested. And when any wave of turmoil rises in your soul, be willing to be still and immediately pacify your heart without letting it change course and be destroyed by that turmoil. For the heart of man is like the weight of a watch and the rudder of a ship. And just as when a weight of a watch is thrown out of its place, all the wheels immediately move, and when the rudder does not take a good turn, then the whole ship leaves its normal course, the same happens with the heart: when it is once disturbed, immediately all the parts are moved. internal and external organs of the body and the mind itself emerges from its correct movement and its correct speech. That's why you must always calm your heart, every time there is some internal disturbance and confusion, either at the time of prayer or at any other time. And know the following: then you know how to pray well, when you know how to work well and remain peaceful, because the apostle also orders us to pray peacefully, without anger and meditations (1 Tim. 2,8). So think that all your work should be done with peace, sweetness and without violence. In short, all the general practice of your life should be done in order to have peace in your heart and not to be confused, and then with this peace to perform all your works with peace and meekness, as it is written: "My son, do your works with meekness" (Sir. 3:17), so that you deserve the blessing of the meek which says: "Blessed are those who treat others with meekness, for they will inherit the promised land" (Mat. 5:5). CHAPTER IE The care that the soul must have in order to be at peace So, before anything else, have this peace and restraint, brother, in your five senses: that is, in not seeing, or moving your hands, or speaking, or walking restlessly, but peacefully and with good movements. Because when you get used to maintaining this peace in your external movements, you will easily and effortlessly manage to be at peace internally, because according to the Fathers, the internal man is transformed with the external. Get used to loving all people and being at peace with everyone, as the apostle Paul commands: "As much as it depends on you live at peace with everyone" (Rom. 12,18). Take care that your conscience does not accuse you of anything, but that it is at rest with God, with yourself, with your neighbor and with external things, as we said in the chapter of this part. And in fact, don't be accused of having omitted some commandment of God, because maintaining a clear conscience gives birth to the peace of the heart: "They have much peace who love your law and do not encounter an obstacle in front of them" (Ps. 118,164). He used to bear the insults without perturbation. It is, yes, true that you will suffer a lot until you get this peace, because you are naked. But once you get it, your soul will find much comfort in every opposite situation it encounters. And from day to day you will learn this exercise better to be at peace spiritually. When again you see yourself distressed and sad and disturbed so much that you cannot have peace within yourself, immediately run to prayer and persevere in it, imitating our Lord who prayed in the Garden three times, so that you set an example so that in every sorrow you have prayer as a refuge, and no matter how sad and low-spirited you are, you must not abandon it, until you find your will in accordance with the will of God, and then find it pious and peaceful and at the same time with a lot of courage and boldness, so that he can accept and embrace what he previously feared and avoided. Because even the Lord was afraid of the passion at first, but after the prayer he received courage and said: "Get up, let us depart: behold, the one who will betray me is drawing near" (Mat. 26,46). CHAPTER IX This peaceful abode is slowly being built Take care, as has been said, that your heart is never confused, nor that it gets involved in some case that disturbs it, but that you always strive and keep it peaceful and at rest. And the God who sees you acting like this and struggling, will build with his grace in your soul a city of peace. And your heart will be a house of joy (joy), as, in a way, that psalm is meant: "Jerusalem that is built like a city" (Ps. 121,2). This is all God wants from you: every time you happen to be agitated, immediately change and try to calm down and be peaceful in all your actions and thoughts. And just as a city is not built in one day, so you should also think, that is, in one day you cannot acquire this inner peace. Because this means nothing else than to build for the God of peace a house and a tabernacle in the highest and to become his church. And know that God himself is the one who will build this house. Because otherwise your labor would be in vain, as the scripture also says: "If the Lord does not build the house, those who build have labored unjustly" (Ps. 126,1). Apart from this, know that the basic foundation of this peace of heart is humility 111 and to avoid, as much as you can, riots and scandals. Because in the Bible we see that God did not want to build a church and a residence for David, who had wars and riots almost throughout his life, but his son Solomon, because, according to his name, he remained a peaceful king and did not make war with anyone. CHAPTER IZ The soul must shun all honor and love humility and poverty of Spirit, by which peace of soul is obtained Well then, brother, if you love peace of heart, strive to enter it by the door of humility (for there is no other entrance to it but humility). But in order to obtain humility, you must strive and labor (and especially at the beginning) to embrace all sorrows and oppositions as your beloved brothers, to shun all glory and honor, desiring to be despised by everyone and let there be no one to defend you and comfort you, except your God alone. Confirm and support this calculation in your heart, that is to say, only your God is your good, your only refuge, and that all other things are for you such thorns, which, if you put them in your heart, will harm you with death. If someone shames you, you should not be sad, but bear the shame with joy, being sure that then God is with you. And do not ask for any other honor, nor anything else to strive for, than to suffer for the love of God and for that which brings greater glory. Strive to be happy when someone curses you or checks you or despises you, because under this dust and dishonor is hidden a great treasure. And if you accept him with your will, you will quickly become rich, without the knowledge of the one who brings you this gift, that is, the one who dishonors you. Never ask for someone to love you in this life, or to honor you, so that you can allow yourself to suffer with the Crucified Christ and that no one prevents you from this. Protect yourself from your own self, as from the biggest enemy you have. Do not follow your will, nor your mind, nor your opinion, if you want not to perish. That's why you should always keep your weapons, to protect yourself. And when your will wants to lean towards something, even if it is holy, isolate it first and strip it and place it alone before your God, begging it to be His will and not yours. And this with heartfelt desires, without any admixture of selfishness, knowing that you have nothing that comes from yourself, nor can you do anything. Beware of the calculations that bring with them a form of sanctity and zeal that has no discernment, about whom God says: "Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, while inside they are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will recognize them" (Matthew 7:15). And their fruits are any anxiety and annoyance they leave in the soul. Because all these take you away from humility and from that inner peace, in whatever color and shape it may be. These are the false prophets, who, being clothed in sheep's form, that is, with the hypocrisy of zeal, without discrimination, in order to benefit the neighbor, are indeed ravenous wolves, who seize your humility and that peace and quietness, which is so necessary for anyone who wants to have certain spiritual progress. And the more this hypothesis has outwardly more surface and color of holiness, the more you must examine it, and this, as said, must be done with a lot of calmness and inner quietness. But if at any time you lack any of these things, do not be confused, but humble yourself before your God and know your weakness and next to know well, because God may allow it perhaps to humble some of your pride, which is hidden within you and not you know it. Again, if you ever feel that your soul is pierced by some strong and medicinal thorn, i.e. by some passion and calculation, do not be disturbed by it, but show more attention, so that it does not pass into your bowels. Turn back your heart and with thanks put your will in the place of peace and quiet, keeping your soul pure before God, whom you will always find in your bowels and in your heart for the correctness of your opinion, being sure that everything happens to test you, to you can understand your interest and to be worthy of the crown of justice, which is prepared for you by God's mercy. CHAPTER II The soul must be kept in mental solitude and quiet, so that God may bring his own peace within it Because the God of gods and Lord of lords has made your soul his dwelling place and his own church, you must honor it so much that you do not allow it to be humbled and inclined to another thing; let your desires and your hopes always be in the coming of God, who if she does not find the soul alone, she will not come to visit her. He wants her without calculation, as much as he can: completely alone out of desires and much more alone out of her will. That is why you should not harden yourself alone and indiscriminately, nor look for reasons to suffer for the love of God, with the sole opinion of your own will, but with the advice of your Spiritual father who governs you as God's overseer, so that through him the God commands and acts on your will what he wants. Never do what you want. But may God do what He wants in you. Let your will always be free from yourself, that is, you should never want anything, and when you want something, let it be of such a kind, that even if what you want does not happen, especially the opposite, you will not be sorry, but May your spirit remain as quiet as if you did not will anything. This is the true freedom of the heart and solitude, that is, not being bound by mind or will to anything. So if you give your soul to God, so freed, free and single, you will see miracles that he will work in it, but exceptionally and especially the divine peace, which is that gift, which can cause it to contain all the his other gifts, as the great Gregory of Thessaloniki said 112: O wondrous solitude and secret treasury of the Most High! In which only he wants to be heard and nothing else, and there to speak to the heart of your soul. O wilderness and peace that became paradise! Because only to her does God give permission to be seen or spoken to. "As I pass by, I see what a great vision this is," said Moses, when he was in the sensible and mental desert of Sinai (Exodus 3:3). But if you also want to reach it, enter this land unimpeded, because it is holy. First strip your feet, i.e. the dispositions of your soul, and let them remain bare and free from every earthly thing. Do not carry, neither a bag, nor a rod on this road, as the Lord commanded his disciples (Luke 10,4), because you should not want any thing of his world, like what others want. Nor do you shun any person on this road, as Elisha commanded his boy (Kings 4:29) and the Lord said to his disciples (Luke 10:4), having all your thoughts and disposition and love only for God and not for the buildings: "Leave the dead to bury their own dead" (Matthew 8:22). You go alone to the land of the living, and let death have no part with you (death has a part with you). CHAPTER ITH The prudence we must have in loving our neighbor, so that it does not cause us a disturbance in this peace. The Lord told us in the Gospel that he came to put the fire of his love on earth, i.e. in the heart, and he showed us how much he wants and wishes to light it: "I came to put fire on earth, and I want nothing else than that lit up" (Luke 12:29). Thus (whence) the love of God has no limit, just as God himself who is loved has no limit and measure, but the love towards the neighbor must have. Because if you don't use it in the right measure, it can separate you from God's love, cause you great damage and destroy yourself in order to win others. Yes, to love your neighbor, but to the point where you will not harm your soul. You are of course obliged to set a good example for him, but you should never do everything just for the sake of it. Because in this way, you would not do anything else, but you would cause damage to yourself. To do all things right and holy, without looking anywhere else, except to please God. Humble yourself in all your works, and you will understand how little you can benefit others with them. Consider that you should not have so much heat and zeal of your soul, to the point where you lose the quietness and peace of the heart 113; to be very thirsty and to strongly desire that everyone should know the truth, as you understand and mean it, and get drunk. from that wine that God promises and gives to everyone without payment: "And you will buy wine and fat without money" (Is. 55,1). You must always have this thirst for the salvation of your neighbor. But it must come from the love you have for God and not from your indiscernible zeal. God is the one who can plant this love in the mental loneliness of your soul, and when he wants, gather the fruit. You yourself do not sow anything, but offer to God the soil of your soul pure and clean from everything, and he will then, as he wants, sow the seed in it, and thus it will bear fruit. Always remember that God wants this soul of yours alone and free from every bond, in order to unite it with himself. Just let him choose you and don't stop him with the free will you have. To sit without having any account of yourself, except that you should please God, waiting to be called to work. Because the householder has already left his house and is looking to find workers for his vineyard, according to the parable of the Gospel. Put away all care and calculation, strip yourself of all self-care and all love for temporal things, so that God alone can clothe you and give you what you cannot imagine. Forget yourself as much as you can and let only the love of God live in your soul. Even with all care you must calm the zeal and fervor you have for others, so that God may protect you with all peace and tranquility. (Consider) Take care that your soul is not deprived of its own capital (which is the peace of the heart), in order to put it indiscriminately in the position of others. Because the only celebration that you must trade in order to become rich, is the submission of your soul to God, free from everything. Now, however, do this without attributing it to yourself or having the impression that you are doing something, because God does everything and does not want anything from you, except that you humble yourself before him and offer him your soul completely free from earthly things, desiring in you that the will of God be done in everything to perfection and for everything. CHAPTER K The soul, having stripped itself of its will, must stand before God Hoping, brother, in the same God who invites you saying: "Look to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Mat. 11:29), i.e. come all of you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest, you must follow this call, I say of God, waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. And throw yourself resolutely with closed eyes into the ocean of divine providence and eternal bliss, in such a way that you behave like an inanimate object only by the mighty waves of God's will, without offering any resistance to it with your own will, in order to be transported in the harbor of your perfection and salvation. So by doing this many times a day, strive and take care with as much security as you can, internal and external, to approach with all your mental powers, those actions that motivate you to love God, and these are prayer and eternal memory of his sweetest name, the tears that come from love, the warm reverence and joy towards him and the other spiritual works. And let these actions always be done without violence and oppression of your heart, so that they do not weaken you through indistinct and annoying exercises and perhaps harden you and make you a person who cannot accept and hold something spiritual within him. For this matter also accept the advice of the experienced and try to always get used to being willingly in the memory of the goodness of God, from the beginning to the end, and in the theory of his continuous and lovable favors. And humbly accept the drops and sweets that will descend on your soul from his inexpressible goodness. All these, and especially tears 114, do not search for them by force, but remain quiet in your inner solitude, begging for them and waiting for God's will to be done. And when he gives it to you, then it will be sweet and fruitful without your effort. That is why you will accept them with all thanks. And most of all with every humiliation. But the key with which the secret coffers of the spiritual treasures of knowledge and divine love are opened, is to know to renounce yourself at all times and in all circumstances. And with this same key, the door of ignorance and coldness that we had until then is also closed. As much as you can, love to stand with the Mother of God at the feet of Christ, and listen to what God will tell you. Take care that your enemies (the greatest of whom you are yourself) do not prevent you from this holy silence. And when you seek with your mind to find God in order to rest in him, do not ask for places and borders with your weak and narrow imagination 115 . Because he is incomparably infinite and is everywhere in everything, rather all things are in him. You will find him in your soul 116 every time you really look for him, that is, to find only him and not yourself. For the joy of God is to be with us the sons of men, as we said, to make us worthy of himself, without having any need of us. When you read or study the Holy Scriptures, don't do it just to leaf through them, but in those words where you will find comfort or divine love or spiritual joy, stop there and enjoy God in every way that he wants to communicate with you you. And if you stop studying what you had planned, don't worry about it, because the purpose and end of all these exercises is to please God. With the opinion, however, that you do not choose as your main goal this similar enjoyment of God, but rather, to love his holy will, desiring to imitate his works in everything you can. Thus, when you yourself find the end, you should no longer care about the means that are indicated, not for any other reason, but to obtain this end. Similarly, when you are studying one of Christ's passions or one of his works, on the one that you find most difficult, on that one you should stop and study for the longest time. One of the many steps to peace and quiet, brother, is to take care and force your calculation that you must read every day so many sittings of the Psalter, so many reading chapters from the holy Gospels or the Epistles, and to be disturbed if you do not go through them alone, without to make sure that your heart is satisfied by what you read or that your mind receives some spiritual meaning 117 , which is nothing else, than to seek God by leaving God and to want to serve God, without doing the will of. If you really wish in this life to live virtuously and to reach the end you desire, have no other goal than to find God; and wherever he wants, there let him appear. And then forsake every thing and do not go forward any longer, where you have no will; but forget everything else and rest only in your God; and again when the majesty of God wants to be hidden and no longer manifest to you in that way, then you can again to return and seek him by following your exercises again with the same purpose and the same desire, that is, through them to find the one you love and finding him, to do what we said, abandoning everything and resting only in God, knowing well that then his wish is fulfilled. And you should also know the following well, that is to say, many spiritual persons do not have spiritual fruit and peace, because they increase their spiritual exercises so much and think that they do nothing, if they do not finish everything, placing perfection in it and becoming idiosyncratic and thus following their will: the sufferers are tormented and toil a lot, but they never reach the true rest and inner peace, in which God truly is and rests. CHAPTER K No one should ask for food or anything that causes appetite, but only God To always choose the sufferings and the sorrows and to love to have the joy of a few kisses and defenses that do not bring you any benefit to the soul and to be happy to be under the power of others and to depend on the will of others. Everything should become a reason and a reason for you to walk towards God and nothing should hinder you from this path. This should be your joy, i.e. every thing for you should be bitterness and only God should be your rest. Bring all your sufferings to God. Love him and offer him all your heart without any fear and he will find a way to dispel all your doubts and to lift you up even if you have fallen. In closing, I tell you briefly: If you love God, you will receive every reward. Offer yourself to this God as a sacrifice with peace and spiritual calmness. However, in order to better continue the course and to remain without fatigue and agitation, you must surrender your will to the will of God at every step. And the more you subdue her, the more you will receive. Your will must be disposed in such a way that you want everything that God wills and that you don't want anything if God doesn't want it. Always and in every case you renew the intention and decision of your soul, that is, to be pleasing to God. Be careful that you never decide about any of your things that are going to follow outside of the time you are in, because you don't know what will happen the next day" (Prov. 27,1), but to keep yourself free. However, no one is prevented from paying careful attention to what he needs, according to his position and profession. Because this attention and care is in accordance with the will of God, and does not hinder peace, nor true spiritual progress. In all your affairs to decide to do what you can and what you must and you are obliged to do, and not be interested and involved in what happens outside of oneself. What you can always do is to offer your will to God and not to desire more, always having this freedom and being cut off from all places (which you can have at any time and in any place), you will rejoice peace and quiet. In this peace of the Spirit consists that great good which you hear from the divine Scriptures, and which freedom is nothing else than the abiding of the inner man in himself, without spreading out or outwardly desiring to seek some thing from himself. All that time during which you will remain free in this way, you will enjoy at the same time that divine and indescribable joy, which is the kingdom of God, which is within us, as the Lord said: "the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21). CHAPTER KB The servant of God should not be worried even when he still feels within himself some resistance to the peace we mentioned above Know that many times you will feel yourself being disturbed and missing from within this holy peace and sweet solitude and beloved freedom, and sometimes dust may rise from the movements of your heart, which will disturb you along the way which you are going to perform. And God grants you this for your greater good. Remember that this is the war from which the saints received the crowns of great wages. To all those who confuse you, you must say: "My Lord, you see your servant here, let your will be done in me. I know and confess that the truth of your words always remains firm and your promises are false and I hope in them. I remain only for you." Happy, of course, is the soul that offers itself in this way to its Lord, every time it is disturbed or confused. And if this war continues and you are not able to unite your will with the will of God as quickly as you want, do not be afraid of it nor be sad. But keep offering yourself and worshiping and you will win. Take a look at the garden where your Christ was and where humanity turned away from him saying: "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me". But immediately he ordered to put his soul in solitude and with a simple and free will he said with very deep humility: "but not as I will, but as you will" (Mat. 26,39). When you find yourself in some difficulty, do not yield at all, unless you first lift up your eyes to Christ, on the cross, and you will see printed there in large letters that you too are going to be led into that tribulation; and copy this type with your works in yourself, and when at any time you are troubled by your self-love, do not be afraid, nor be separated from the cross, but run in prayer and show patience in humility, until you conquer your will and want the will of God to be done to you. And after you leave the prayer, gathering only this fruit, be happy. But if your soul has not reached it, it still remains fasting and without its food. Strive so that no other thing dwells in your soul, not even for a short period of time, but only God. Do not be sad or bitter about anything, nor observe the wickedness and bad examples of others, but be like a little child, who does not suffer from any of these bitterness, but overcomes them all without any harm. CHAPTER KG What is the care that the devil has to disturb this peace of our soul. We must avoid his tricks and deceptions It is customary for our enemy the devil to rejoice in our every sin and turmoil of our heart, as the wolf rejoices during the winter and the storm. For this reason he tries to destroy our souls and to make them, as much as he can, turn away from humility and simplicity; even to give ourselves and our care some respect and not to see the work of divine and so-called preliminary divine grace, without which no one can say the Lord Jesus Christ, as Paul also says: "No one can say the Lord, Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12,3). And if we can resist this grace with our free will, we cannot, however, accept it without this same grace, in such a way that, if someone does not accept it, it is his own fault; however, if he succeeds in accepting it, then he cannot do any work without this grace which is initially given to all people. So the enemy tries to make us judge and to think that one person shows more diligence than the other and shows a better disposition to accept the gifts of God; and then the enemy tries to make a person do good works with pride, without thinking about his weakness, and in the way he accepts the calculus of scorning others. Therefore, if you also do not take great care and do not change quickly, so that you are ashamed and humiliated and despise yourself, as we said, he will make you fall into pride like the Pharisee who tells the Gospel, who Who boasted of his good deeds and judged the bad deeds of others. And if the enemy once dominates you with your will, surely afterwards he will dominate you many times, and he will overthrow you in every kind of evil. And so you will suffer a great loss and you will be in great danger. That is why the Lord ordered us to be awake and to pray: "Fast and pray, so that you do not enter into temptation" (Matthew 26:41). It is therefore necessary to be careful, as much as possible, with every detail so that the enemy does not make you and you lose such a great treasure as the peace and tranquility of the soul. Because with all his power he tries to drive out of you this rest and peace of the soul and to make the soul live in anxiety and confusion, a thing in which, he knows, lies all its damage and destruction. Because when a soul is peaceful, it does everything with ease, it does many works and everything is good, it perseveres with its will and easily resists whatever happens to it. On the contrary, if she is confused and anxious, she does little work and that is largely incomplete, she gets tired easily and finally lives a torture without benefit. That is why you, if you want to win and not let the enemy spoil your wealth, you must be more careful than anything else, not to allow your soul to be disturbed and not to allow it to remain confused even for a moment. And in order that you may know better to guard yourself against the tricks and frauds in this event, keep the following as a certain rule: that every calculation that separates you and distances you from the love of God and in general from all your hope in God, is a terrible angel of wrath, and as such you must remove him and do not accept him or listen to him. For the work of the Holy Spirit is none other than to unite souls in every case always and on every occasion with God, warming and strengthening them in the sweetness of his love and putting in them new conviction and love towards God; whereas the work of the devil it is the complete opposite. Because he uses all the means and ways he can for this purpose, that is, he puts more fear in the heart than normal, increases the usual weakness of the soul, does not allow the soul to be disposed or sweetened as it should be, neither in confession nor in thea take part, not even in prayer, but he makes her treat all these things without courage, without love, but with fear and submission. The lack of sensual reverence and the deprivation of inner sweetness, which happens many times in prayer and in other exercises, makes the soul accept them with an impatient sorrow, giving it to understand that this is done by God, not to test it, but that in the way now all her works are lost and it is better for her to abandon her spiritual exercises. And in the end, it makes her come to such great despair and despair, that she thinks that whatever she does, it is completely useless in general and fruitless. Thus fear and sorrow increase within her, and she thinks that God has abandoned her. But this is not the truth. Because if the soul experiences dryness and a lack of spiritual sweetness, it can always do countless good works, following only simple faith and having patience and determination to do good, as it can. So that you too may understand this better and that this good and the benefit which God is going to give you through the deprivation of similar piety and sweetness do not become a cause of harm to you, I will place in the next chapter the good things that come from humble patience (karteria), which someone will show during this drought of piety, so that you too may learn it and not lose your peace for this reason, if you happen to find yourself in a similar drought of mind and sorrow of heart, both for the lack of piety and spiritual sweetness that you had, as well as for the bitterness you taste from every internal temptation and from the wicked calculations. CHAPTER KD The soul must not be confused about internal temptations and calculations Although we said before, in the seventh chapter, about the bitterness and the inner dryness of piety, but now we will say what we omitted there, namely that there are many good things that bitterness and this spiritual dryness bring to the soul, that is, the deprivation of spiritual joy and sweetness, if we accept them with humility and patience, things that if man understood, without a doubt it would not bother him so much and he would not be so sad when they happened to him because he would accept this bitterness and deprivation, not as a sign of hatred which God shows him, but as a sign of great and extraordinary love, and he would accept it as an extraordinary grace that God gives him. Because similar situations happen to everyone, except for those who want to give themselves completely to the service of God and to distance themselves from those who can harm them. And generally they happen at the beginning of their return, but after they have served God for a certain period of time and after they have moderately cleansed their hearts with the holy prayer and sunset and they feel in part in their hearts some spiritual sweetness, warmth and joy, and they decide to devote themselves completely to God and to serve him with more perfection even when they have already started the work. Why do we never see sinners and those who are given to the things of the world complaining about similar temptations. Thus it is clearly seen that this bitterness is an honest and precious food, with which God invites those he loves to host them. And if it is not tasty to our taste, nevertheless it benefits us without knowing it when we taste it. For the soul which is in such dryness and bitter taste, and has such temptations and thoughts, that only to think of them disturbs us, let them medicate the heart and almost paralyze the whole inner man, in this way it acquires fear, hatred and self-loathing and that humility that God asks of us and on top of that he acquires a warmer love for God, a more accurate attention to calculations, a stronger stomach so that he can digest temptations without harm and trained senses so that he can easily distinguish between good and evil, as Paul said (Heb. 5:14). However, the soul which then does not understand these secret causes, abhors and avoids the bitterness that was said, as if it never wants to be without spiritual taste and pleasure and without it, it considers every other exercise as wasted time and unnecessary effort. CHAPTER 9 Temptations were given by God for our benefit And in general, in order to understand that all our temptations were given to us by God for our benefit 118 , we must think that man, because of the evil inclination of his corrupt nature, is proud, ambitious, extremely self-righteous and a supporter of his own opinion, and he always wants everyone to think of him as more than he actually is. However, this esteem is so dangerous for his spiritual progress, that even its smell alone is enough to prevent a person from reaching true perfection. That is why God, as a loving Father, who has a loving interest in everyone and especially in those who have given themselves to his service, always takes care of the temptations he allows to happen to us, in order to put us in such a position that we can we come out of this terrible danger of such pride, and almost by force to come to the true humble knowledge of ourselves, as he did to the apostle Peter, whom he allowed to be denied three times, that he might know his weakness and not he has courage and confidence in himself: as he also did with the apostle Paul, who, after he raised him to the third heaven and revealed to him the divine and occult mysteries, gave him a physical temptation to know his natural lust and disease, to he is humbled by boasting about his illnesses and thus the magnitude of the revelations he received from God did not make him proud, as he himself says, "a rod was given to me in the flesh, Angel of Satan, to strike, so that I would not be proud" (2 Cor. 12.7). So God, sympathizing with our suffering and illegal tendency, allows us to be visited by temptations that are sometimes so horrible and terrible in various ways, so that we humble ourselves and know ourselves, even though it seems to us that it is without benefit. And at this point, at the same time, he shows his goodness and his wisdom, because with that which we consider more harmful, with that he benefits us, because we humble ourselves more, which is the most necessary of all in our soul. Thus, if in general all temptations cause humiliation, the servant of God must also be humbled who feels in his heart the temptations and thoughts that we mentioned above and so much irreverence of spiritual joy and sweetness and should think that these are happening because of his sins and that can there be someone who has such a broken soul and serves God with such lukewarmness, as his own soul is, and that such calculations do not happen to others, except to those who are forsaken by God and for this reason he himself is worthy of abandonment. What profit then comes from these humble calculations: He who previously did not think that he had any evil, now thinks that he is the most illegal man in the world and that he is unworthy even of this Christian name. Of course, he would never have been able to think so low of himself (in an insignificant sense), nor come to such a depth of humility, if he had not been forced by great sorrow and those special temptations and bitterness of the heart, which is a blessing that gives God in this life in that soul that dedicates itself to him humbled, in order to heal it with those medicines, with which he alone knows well that they are necessary for its health and good condition. Apart from these fruits that similar temptations and the lack of piety bring to our soul, there are also many other fruits. For whoever is distressed by these inward temptations, is almost compelled to draw near to God, and tries to do what is right for the cure of sorrow and bitterness of heart, and that he may be speedily freed from such mental torment. He goes by examining his heart, avoiding every sin and every other slightest flaw that distances him from God in any way. And so that sorrow, which he thought was so contradictory and damaging, then this sorrow becomes for him like a center, from which he starts and seeks God with more heat, and he distances himself even more from that which he thinks is not in accordance with God's will. And to speak briefly, all the sorrows and sufferings which the soul endures in these interior temptations and lack of spiritual gifts and pleasures, are nothing but a friendly purgatory with which God cleanses it, if He wills it with me. humility and patience: and these can make us receive in heaven that crown which is obtained only through them. And the greater the suffering, the more glorious is heaven. From this it is clear that we should not be confused and feel sorry for the other external temptations that come to us, as well as for the aforementioned internal ones, as those who have little experience in similar things do and attribute what happens to them to the fact that it comes to them or from the devil or from their sins and imperfections, and the signs of God's love, they think of as signs of hatred, and their favors and gifts they consider to be trials and blows, which come from an angry heart and everything they do is lost and without salary and that this damage cannot be cured. For if they believed that no harm results from similar temptations, but a great acquisition of virtues, if their souls handle them and receive them with thanks, and if they believed that they are only a reminder of God's loving love towards us, they would not they could be disturbed and lose the peace of their hearts, because they are saddened by many temptations and strange and blasphemous thoughts and find themselves dry and lukewarm and without reverence in prayer and in the other spiritual exercises they do. In fact, then with a new persistence they would want to humble their souls before God and to decide in every case to fulfill the divine will in any way that God wants and to serve him in this world and to take care to appear peaceful and quiet, thinking that they accept everything from the hand of the heavenly Father, in whose hand is this bitter cup that is given to them. For whether this annoyance and the temptation they suffer is from the devil, or from men, or for their sins, or for any other reason, always and in all things it is God who grants them by various means, as he deems right, so that you reach another evil, than that only of punishment and punishment, which he always allows to come for your benefit. And if the evil of guilt, i.e. the sin committed, for example, by the neighbor, is contrary to his will, he still uses it for your own benefit and salvation, if you endure it without disturbance. So instead of being sad and worried, you should thank him with inner joy and rejoicing, doing everything you can with perseverance and determination, without wasting time and with it losing many and big wages, which God wants you to earn with me the occasion that allows it to come. CHAPTER KST Which medicine should we use so that we are not bothered by our faults and weaknesses If you ever fall into some forgivable error either in words or in deeds, that is, to be confused with some event that will happen to you, or criticize or listen to others criticize, or quarrel with someone or show impatience or curiosity or suspicion of others or fall in negligence, you should no longer feel sorry for yourself or despair and feel sorry for what you have done, sometimes thinking that you will not be saved from such weaknesses, sometimes that your imperfections are the cause of them and your impossible choice, and sometimes putting in your mind that you are not you really walk in the way of the Spirit and in the way of the Lord, and you load your soul with a thousand fears in everything that happens because of your sadness and pettiness. So what's next? To be ashamed to stand before God, to not have courage in him, as if you did not keep the faith you should have and to fall and waste time thinking about these things, looking for how long you remained in each fault and if you consented, if you wanted to this or not, if you put aside the calculus that and the like. And the more you are sorry, the more the appetite and discomfort and anxiety to confess increases. But even when you go to confession, you confess with an annoying fear, and since you spend a lot of time in confession, you still can't rest your spirit, because you think you haven't said everything. And so you spend a bitter and restless life with little fruit wasting your time. And all this is done so that we may think better of our natural lasciviousness and so that we do not know the way in which our soul should deal with God: that is, it is better to treat with humble repentance and return to God, when it falls into one of the forgivable and non-mortal sins, despite being sorry for it and being so upset and agitated. I said forgivable sins because only to these is the soul accustomed to fall that lives according to the way we have assumed here, speaking only of those who live a Spiritual life and seek to progress spiritually and are without mortal sins. Because for those who live simply and as it happens and with mortal sins, every now and then grieving God, another kind of advice and order is needed, and the medicine we said is not for them; such people should be disturbed and cry with pain and have great reasoning, always examining the their conscience and to confess so that they do not miss the necessary treatment and salvation due to their indifference. So wanting to say about the peace and tranquility that must be had by the one who works and serves God, we say that this return and repentance so that it is all reserved in hope towards God, must be understood not only for light and daily sins, but also and for the bigger and heavier and common ones, into which the servant of God sometimes falls, not only from weakness and lasciviousness, but sometimes also from malice and predilection 119 . Because the crash that makes the intellect of the spiritual man to be disturbed and to wonder, will never lead the soul to perfect stasis, if it is not united with the trust and the beloved hope of God's mercy and goodness. And this, in the first place, is necessary and necessary for those who wish not only to get out of their sufferings, but also to acquire a great degree of virtue and great love and union with God, a thing which many spiritual people do not want to understand men, they always remain with one heart and one mind almost in despair, which holds them back and does not let them move forward or become receptive to the greatest gifts that God has prepared for them and day by day they often live a miserable and useless and unworthy life to make them cry. Because they want nothing more than to follow their own imagination, not accepting the true and saving teaching that directs them through the royal way to the high and stable Christian virtues and to that peace that Christ left on earth saying: "Peace I leave you; mine I leave you in peace" (John 14:27). It is also the duty of the like, every time they find themselves in some trouble due to some doubt, to accept the advice of their Spiritual father or from someone else whom they consider capable of giving them similar advice and to devote themselves to it and to rest completely. And briefly, to finish the talk, as for the annoyance that comes from the lacks, the next chapter follows. CHAPTER KZ' The soul must be at peace and progress without wasting time Do what I told you in the sixth chapter of the first part, that is, every time you see yourself falling into some forgivable fault, smaller or bigger, and a thousand times a day to do it and always with your will and with your knowledge, don't be confused with me. disturbing sorrow and do not be troubled, nor lose much time examining it, but immediately knowing what you have done, humble yourself, and seeing your weakness, turn with love to your God and with your mouth or with your mind, say to him: "My Lord, I acted as who I am. And no one could expect anything else from me, despite these flaws and others. And I would not have remained alone in these, if it were not for your kindness to help me and not to abandon me. I thank you for this, because you set me free, and I am in pain for what I did, not responding to your grace. Forgive me and give me the grace so that I no longer feel sorry for you, and that nothing separates me from you, whom I always want to serve and obey." And after you do that, don't waste time thinking or thinking that God hasn't forgiven you. But trust me and rest, move forward, always following your usual exercises, as if you had not fallen into any error. You must do this not once, but if necessary a hundred times, and each time with as much courage and rest the last time as the first. Because in this way you greatly honor the goodness of God, whom you must always understand that he is all good and infinitely compassionate and more than what you can think. And so your progress and your patience and your path forward will never be hindered. So don't waste your time unjustly and your fruit. You can still remain peaceful, when you fall into any of the above defects, by acting in the following way: By being motivated by some inner energy to recognize your wretchedness and humble yourself before God. And with another action: by recognizing God's mercy that he has shown you and to love him and exalt him more, with the help that God will give you. In what we have said, those who are troubled and wonder and hesitate, when they happen to make a mistake, should be careful to see how great their blindness is, because by moving forward with so much damage, they are wasting time. For this reason, and we report to them this news, which is a key, with which the soul can open great spiritual treasures and in a short time become rich with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom all glory, honor and worship are due together with Anarcho His Father and His Holy Spirit now and always and to the endless ages. Amen. The perfection of Christians is required as a commandment and is delivered in the New Testament because the Lord says: "Be perfect, just as your Father is" (Matthew 5:48). And Paul says "you are born in evil, but be ye perfect" (1 Corinthians 14:20); and again "be perfect and fulfill the will of God in everything" (Colossians 8:12). And again: "Let us be led to perfection" (Hebrews 6:1). This was announced as a commandment in the Old Testament, because God says to the Jews in Deuteronomy: "Be perfect before the Lord your God" (18,18). And David orders the same to his son Solomon. "And now, my child Solomon, to know the God of your fathers and to serve him with all your heart and willingness of soul" (1 Paral. 28,9). So we conclude that God requires all Christians to practice and be full of perfection, that is, God asks us to become perfect in all virtues. For this see below in our chapter. He noted that, according to theologians, every sin is called God's harm, simply because it harms, hurts and opposes God. And since it does not exist as a living organism, it damages and opposes the being of God, and since it is evil, it damages the goodness of God, since it is a disease and weakness, it damages his power, since ignorance, it damages his wisdom. And simply, since this is and is called imperfection and omission, it damages and opposes the infinite perfections of God, and since it is a transgression and iniquity it damages and injures the laws and commandments of God, and as every word against God is called blasphemy, because it damages the reputation and name of God. God, so also every sin is said to be God's harm, not only because in itself it is opposed as a greater evil to the greater evil, but because even if it is done in the buildings of God, it causes their Creator to be blasphemed, that he is also such an evil, and then that he also built such evils; as well as the virtue of buildings, causes their Creator to be glorified. See, beloved, how excellent is the class and method used in this book. Because every class and art is known by its purpose, according to the philosophical principle and the end which is pre-constructed and aimed according to the intellect, it becomes the beginning and reason of the work and endeavor of every thing; therefore this book, before everything else, adds here to the beginning, the perfection and the purpose of all of it of the invisible war, so that, knowing all those who are going to fight, not to be misled by anything else, but to direct themselves towards it, as if to a point and to a single direction to direct all their actions. That is why the Holy Apostle orders us to generally do all our works for the glory of God, saying "Whether you eat, or drink, or do anything else, do all for the glory" (1 Cor. 10:31). And truly, to always submit to the will of God and to prefer it to ours, and with his voice, the head and finisher of our salvation, Jesus, who commanded us to pray and say "Our Father in heaven... let us be born" your will as it is in heaven and on earth" (Mat. 6:10), and with his example, because even at the beginning of his life, as soon as he entered the world, he asked to do God's will according to Paul who says: "Behold, I come to do your will" (Heb. 16:9); and in the middle of his Gospel, he said: "I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me" (John 6:38); and at the end of his life, he sealed the same saying, in prayer: "Father, let Not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42). The same thing is said by Abbot Isaac (Loc. Kg), where he says: "It is better to free yourself from the bond of sin, than to free slaves from slavery"; and many others according to what is explained here (read also the words of of God). The prophet Jeremiah also calls cursed an apostate of God, the one who dares and hopes in himself, saying: "Thus says the Lord; Cursed is he who hopes in man and leans his arm on him, and let his heart turn away from the Lord" (qv 5). Interpreting this saying, Basil the Great says that for him, who has his hope in man, the prophet revealed that we should not hope in another by his arm supporting the flesh, he revealed that we should hope in ourselves; and these two He called it apostasy from God (see above, p. And interpreting this saying in another way, he concludes that he is cursed and apostate, he who hopes in himself. Because, he says, whoever trusts in man is accursed and an apostate of God. See here also how excellent is the class that uses this book, because it starts the war from self-love, which is the preliminary cause and the root and the beginning of all other passions and vices. To think that we are some, this is called pride, which is a passion that is born only from self-love, but it gives birth again and becomes the root and beginning and cause of all other passions, and such a subtle and hidden passion is this passion, in a way which, because of its great subtlety, those who have it do not even feel it at all, however, as subtle and hidden as it is, it is also a great evil. For, at that first door of the mind, through which the grace of God is to enter and dwell in man, this accursed passion stands and closes it and does not allow grace to enter, which justly departs; for how can grace come to enlighten or to help that person who thinks he is something big? how is he wise? And that he doesn't need any other help? may the Lord deliver us from such Luciferian passion and disease, those who have this passion of pride; God torments it with the prophet, saying: "Woe to those who think they are wise" (Is. 5,21); and the Apostle us orders this: "Do not have the illusion that you are wise" (Rom. 12,16); and Solomon "Do not think yourself wise" (Prov. 3,7). That is why Saint Chrysostom says that whoever thinks himself to be nothing, he knows himself more than anyone: "in fact, he is himself as knowledge, he who thinks himself as nothing". But the uncle Maximus "is a mountain of virtue, the mountain of human sickness in recognition of the divine power of unity" (chap. oth of the 100th Philocal.). As for Peter the Damascene: "no believer knows this sickness and ignorance, no hand ignores it" (Philok. p. 611. About not dying). Not only when a person falls into any sin, but also when he falls into various miseries, circumstances and sorrows, and even into physical and long-term illnesses, he must know the humble knowledge of himself and his weakness, and humble himself, because for this purpose they are granted by the God, let all the temptations come to us, those from the devil, those from people and those from nature. Therefore, the Apostle thinking about this purpose, he said that for this and only this the deadly temptations followed in Asia. "But they have wrought in themselves the temptation of death, so that you may not believe in yourselves, but in God, who raises the dead" (2 Cor. 1:9). And to say briefly, whoever wants to know his disease in action, let him observe, not for a long time, but for one day only the calculations and the words and the works, which he thought and spoke and did and finding that most of his calculations and words and works are wrong, wrong, foolish and evil, from this test he will understand how sick he himself is and from this understanding and true knowledge, he will definitely be humiliated, and in the future he will not hope for himself. Nothing less than what we said above, will bring us to the awareness of our illness, the material principle of our being, that is, when we think that it is ours,... The words of Revelation are these: "Behold, I stand before the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door to me, I will enter his house and dine with him and he with me" (3, 20). That is why King Augaros, after he restored the unmade icon of our Lord, on the Gate of the city of Edessa, wrote these words on it: "Christ, God, who hopes in you, never fails" (from the Synaxaris of Augustus). That is why the theologian Gregory, according to this, says that the truth is usually stolen from love or hatred: "there is nothing so pleasing to people as to discuss foreign matters, and indeed when they are influenced by hatred or sympathy for someone, because of the whose truth, as usual, disappears" (Log. apologetic.) That is why Basil the Great commands that all worldly tales be to us as a bitter taste; prophet David, says: "The outlaws told me of iniquity, but not according to your law, Lord" (Ps. ri' 85). That is why the Apostle orders us to test what is the will of God, not only the good, but also the pleasant and in all circumstances perfect. "Continually be transformed towards the good... so that you can discern what is the will of God, that which is good and pleasing to God and perfect" (Rom. 12,2). Because if a single circumstance is missing or if we do not do the will of God with all our will and power, it is obvious that it is imperfect and incomplete and it is done and called. To feel active motivation from God, this is done either by divine illumination and mental illumination, with which the will of God is revealed to the pure in theory, or by the inner inspiration of God by word; or by other actions of divine grace that act on the a pure heart, which is a warmth that gives life, an unspeakable joy, spiritual struggles, darkness, heart tears, divine love and other godly and blessed passions, which are achieved not by our own will, but by God, heterogeneously and passively; through the sense of all these we are informed, that what we ask to do is according to the will of God. However, before this, we have a debt for our subject to make a fervent and pure prayer to God, once, twice, and many times. That's why Uncle Gregory the Sinaite wrote: "Be careful with your intention; (that is, your choice) with precision investigate every hour that moves; if you sit quietly before God, for this good or for the spiritual benefit, whether you sing or speak, Either you pray, or by doing some virtue so as not to be arrested without knowing what you are doing" (Chap. 15. Philokal.). These three wills are also called laws by the Apostle Paul (Rom. ch. 7). The rational will, the law of the mind, the irrational law that is in the members and opposes the law of the mind, the desire of God, a spiritual law and the law of God, with which the law of the mind is connected, and adds a fourth law, that of sin, which is, according to the peace of the divine Damascene, the the enemy is an unleashed attack of evil calculations, in which the mind is captured by the law that is in the members; but the logical desire, and the law of the mind, the Divine Damascene, calls conscience. (Bibl. Theologi. ch. 99). Because, according to Solomon "When the ungodly comes to the depths of evil, he despises". For such a great and delicate thing is perfection and union with God, that such a small obstacle, as small as a single hair, can deprive us of it and prevent us from being united with God, as Saint Simeon says new theologian (Log. nz´). "Sir, if we have from our negligence any small calculation, or hesitation of unbelief, or double-mindedness, or cowardice, or any other passion and effort, we do not want to deserve to have God dwelling in our soul." Note here, brother, also about some natural inclinations or passions, which are neither called mortal sins, nor forgivable, since they are not done by our choice, they depend on the temperament of the bodies, and these are called imperfections, defects and blemishes of course, as for the sake of reason, many are by nature bitter and melancholy; others austere and quick-tempered; others light-hearted and fickle, others stubborn; others philanthropic, and others have other physical defects. Therefore, we must also fight against these defects, correcting their excesses and deficiencies with the discernment of the right reason and turning them into virtues. Because no natural being, no matter how wild it is, is so resistant to predestination that, with God's grace and with our own effort and care, it cannot be defeated. I say to fight these too, because even if naturally and not optional, they still prevent us from perfection. Those who, after failing in practice, became strong in reasoning, by being freed from all false and absurd glory, but acquired a correct reason through the theory of true and spiritual reasons, those which are found in the divine Scriptures, as well as in the creation, they can they resist and fight the passions and thoughts with a bitter reaction, that is, sometimes with sayings of the Holy Bible, the opposites of the passions that fight them and the thoughts, as with this opposition the Lord fought and defeated the three insults brought to him by the temptation, of avarice, ambition and avarice. And at other times with the right and natural speech, the one proving the falsehood and fraud of the sown calculations and the warring passions, for this reason they too are truly said to fight directly the enemies and defeat them and are crowned. However, those who are weak in calculation, it is better to fight the calculations and the passions obliquely; that is, as soon as the calculations or the passions fight them, they should run to God with prayer, until they cease with the prayer and the movements of the passions and the speeches of the calculations, as Abba Isaac teaches. (Even though this is not primarily called war, but an escape from war due to the weakness that exists). However, these patients too, sometimes, or when they are excessively bothered by passions and thoughts, or when they know themselves to have power at times, they must also fight directly against thoughts and passions, so that their own courage and the freedom of their choice can also be seen. half-evil, as we also see in the same Abba Isaac. "But if it happens, it's time to resist and fight against it (the passions, i.e.) and let's do this." Moreover, when we directly fight the passions and the calculations, an irresistible help is to keep as a weapon of war, either with the heart or with the lips, the name of the Lord Jesus, that is, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me", as we say before in half capital. Because in this way and enemies we fight and win and we do not take pride in this, by recording this victory in the victorious name of the Lord. He noted that contempt is the greatest and most powerful vehicle in the war of thoughts and passions. That is, for someone to despise, like the barking of dogs, the insults of the thoughts and the movements of the passions, and indeed the thoughts and passions of those who came to fight before and to persecute, but these again insolently disturb him, and becoming serious and silent to himself, let him not he wants, neither to turn to see them, nor to hear them, fulfilling the psalm that says "But I have acted like a deaf man who does not want to hear and a dumb man who does not open his mouth" (Ps. 37,14). But let him run on the path of his virtue and self-righteousness, without being hindered by the empty fears of calculations, and whoever loves it, let him use this weapon and he will benefit greatly. Habit will say, a great facility, which one receives in virtue or in vice or in some other work and art, which is easily acquired and made, from long-term and continuous actions and actions of virtue or vice or work and art; for this reason also this habit, second nature it is called because, as nature, so it also easily projects its actions. This is excellently taught here according to Abba Isaac who says that it is better to deceive and defeat the passions by remembering the opposite virtues than by resistance. "Creisson in the memory of the virtues that hide the passions, or resist them." Therefore, because all three are the parts of the soul, calculating, desiring and emotional, he knew that from these three the three kinds of calculations are also born. And from accounting are born the calculations of unbelief, ingratitude to God and gloating, indiscretion, ignorance and simply, all the so-called universally blasphemous calculations, and from desire are born the calculations of lust, ambition, avarice and simply, all the called ugly calculations; but from the emotional are born the calculations of murders, revenge, envy, hatred, turmoil and simply, all the so-called wicked calculations. So you must overcome these with the opposite virtues: that is, unbelief, with unscrupulous faith in God, ingratitude and backbiting to God, with gratitude, indiscretion, with the distinction of good and evil; ignorance, with the true knowledge of those who there are true blasphemies and praises. Likewise avarice with temperance and fasting, ambition with humility and avarice with austerity. Similarly, envy and hatred with love, revenge with gentleness and patience, turmoil with peace of heart. And to say in general with Saint Maximus: The unaccountability of your soul, adorn it with the virtue of prayer and divine knowledge. The volitional, with the virtue of temperance; and the emotional, with the virtue of love; and of course the light of your mind will never be dimmed, and the previous calculations can easily be born from them. Uncle Chrysostomos (homil. i.e., Chapter 6 of Matthew) says that the Lord in this Chapter teaches nine degrees, to which he elevates all Christians with his holy commandment a., that Christians should not wrong anyone; b., that if if someone wrongs them, they must not avenge him with the same injustice; c, that they should not do to others, those evils that they did to them, but should bear it and keep quiet d, not only keep quiet, but also willingly give themselves to they suffer evils; e, that they give themselves to passions more and more willingly than the one who abuses them wants; e, that they do not hate the one who abuses them; e, that they also love him from their hearts; that they should also benefit him, that they should also beseech God for him. But Saint Simeon, the new theologian, in the discourse about apathy and its gifts, adds next to the nine degrees and three other greater ones, that is, a men, the, not only to pray for those who have abused us, but also to mentally print their faces in our imagination and to we kiss with apathy, with tears of love, like true friends. Secondly, to guard against them even at the same time that they are abusing us, the same and without changing the disposition of our heart. And thirdly, that one should completely forget all that he has suffered and not remember them, both when those who abused him are present, as well as when they are absent, but to treat them without any thought, as he treats his friends, conversing and socializing with them. As God did not exterminate all the nations from the land of promise, but left in it the five regions of the Gentiles and the Sidonians and Jews, one men, to test the Jews, if they keep his commandments and firm their faith in she. And another, to always teach them war, as it was written. "And the Lord left these Nations, so that you might tempt Israel among them.... They know that the Lord's commands are obeyed. He teaches them war" (Judges 3:13, 14). In this way he does not eradicate all the passions from us, but leaves some to fight us until our death, not from weakness, or his own cause, but from our own cause, as Theodoritos interprets: Oh, so that we do not fall into negligence, but we are alert, diligent and careful; b., so that we do not forget the war and suddenly our passions and enemies attack us and defeat us; c., so that we always turn to God and ask more fervently for his help; d., so that we do not become proud, but we are humble in mind; yes, that we may hate from our hearts the passions and the enemies, who so tirelessly fight against us, so that we may be tested, whether we will guard the honor of God and love and faith to the end; yes, that we may be motivated more closely to keep all the commandments and not to transgress even the smallest one; h, so that we may learn by trial how much virtue is worth and then not to abandon it and fall into sin, h, so that the eternal war may also become a matter of greater crowns for us; h, so that we may glorify God and shame the devil and sin more, with our patience to the end, etc., so that we may be trained by habit in war so that we do not fear the day of death, when the strongest war will be fought for us. Basil the Great, in his speech about Virginity, mentions a beautiful example and says. "Like the royal soldiers in time of war, they do not put their chariots inside closed houses, but inside those they find open, and after putting them in once, they leave them inside and they go out and walk, without fearing that someone will throw their chariots out, in this way and the wicked demons, when they find the door of our heart open, put their chariots inside it, which are the bad thoughts and passions and leave them, if we do not struggle to throw them out. A stadium is the place in which sports competitions and war take place. We learn this very wisely and truly here, that forethought and preparation is the greatest weapon and the most active protection against the sudden movements of the passions, because like the siphon and what are called anchors, when they fall suddenly into the sea, they capsize the ships, and make them very experienced sailors, to lose them for the unexpected, in this way and these sudden meetings and the movements of the passions, cause even those who are perfect in virtue to lose their distinction. That is, the passion and the turmoil of the anger did not come out; but, like the wild wave of the sea, it does not go outside the borders of the sea, but by crashing into the coastal beaches it becomes calm, in this way also the anger; this is how the Great One interprets this saying Vasilios (Word against the wrathful). And the beloved John says: "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer" (v. 3:15); and again "Whoever does not love his brother remains in death" (ibid. 14). When the great Neilos said "And if you think you are with God, beware of the demon of fornication, because he is very deceitful and envious and wants to be faster than the movement and attention of your mind" (Chap. 3, p. 61, Philokal.). The reason why carnal desire always tempts us is, because as a man naturally loves himself, so naturally he loves to multiply through this vice his own self and to make himself equal with it, just as vanity This is how carnal desire always deceives us, and it is difficult to guard against it. Many many times they were led astray by similar virtuous and pious persons, either women or men without genealogy and cohabited with them, or carelessly mingled with them, fell into shameful passions, led astray from the right, that is, from their virtue and piety and modesty; here, because, not only because of this one is caught in a strong desire and carnal love with these persons, but also if they, it can be assumed, are children of rich parents, noble or with good speech in the language or good in music or beautiful in sight or dexterous in mind, or dexterous in handicrafts and arts, or have other such natural and acquired gifts; for all these increase ardor and love, therefore we must beware and guard against the like. That is why Solomon calls wise the one who fears and avoids the causes of evil, and sober the one who trusts in himself and does not avoid them: "a wise man who fears, turns away from evil, but a fool, convinced of himself, mingles ἀνομῳ" (Para. i8´ 16). Wise was the man Joseph, and for this reason, since he left his garment and avoided the cause of the sin, he also avoided the sin, because if he did not avoid, he would certainly have sinned with his wife, as is the opinion of many teachers. That martyr of Christ was found to be insane, who, after many tortures that he suffered for Christ, being in prison and being served by a nun, because he believed in himself and did not avoid the person who scandalized him, went into prostitution with him, as he writes Abba Makarios. That is why the Apostle implied this avoidance when he said "avoid fornication" (1 Cor. 6:18). That is why John of Climacus says that, whoever fell into fornication or other fleshly sin, he had pride from before and that is why God allowed him to fall in order to be humbled: "where a dead body was taken, there he displayed pride". And again, "I am proud of you, dead body" (Logos, cv'). Because there are two hopes, according to Saint Isaac, one true and very wise and one false and foolish. And those who have dedicated themselves entirely to God, do not care about any worldly thing, being completely devoted to the care and work of virtues; they truly hope in God to save them from all evil both in the present life and in the life to come; But those who spend their lives negligently and do not cultivate virtues, even though they say that they hope in God, they hope falsely and their hope is foolish. "Foremost, he says, is the toil for God and the sweat in his field, the hope in him"; as if he is saying that, first of all, one must tire himself in order to sow good works and virtues and then hope that he will also reap and receive the salary of the salvation of his soul. That is why the great Augustine said that, "whatever buildings there are in the world, speaking to virtuous men with a tongue that is dumb, true and silent, but very active, which is easily heard and understood by them and the it motivates more to God's love and above all everything they find an occasion to receive good and reverent accounts". And the theologian Gregory says: "All glorify God with silent voices; for everything God is thanked through me; and thus their hymn becomes ours, from whom I take the hymn." (Speech on the New Sunday). So the three children took occasion from all the creations to glorify the Creator in their hymn. He noted that, according to Saint Maximus, the essence of the existent has the image of the Father, the power of the Son, the energy of the Holy Spirit, so in any way he quotes him as God the poet, not only that he is one, but also that he is three. See the first chapter of the physical and theological works of the great Gregory of Thessalonica in the Philokalia, where that divine mind says that the animating Spirit of the body is a mental love, which comes from the mind and the Word, and exists in the word and in the mind and in it there is the word and the mind; and that, according to this life-giving Spirit, the mental and rational soul is more than the Angels, according to the image of God, because they do not have such a kind of life-giving Spirit, because they do not have the body that gives life. That is why, on the one hand, Solomon said: "from the size and beauty of the creations, we get the corresponding idea of their creation" (Zoph. 13,5); and on the other hand, the blessed Paul: "Although they are invisible and the eternal power of God and his divine characteristic, they could see them in creation, since the world was made" (Rom. 1,20). We also add this here that for this purpose, on the one hand, all Creations were created, with reason and wisdom, and on the other hand, men were enriched with the power of reason, studying the reasons of creation, so that from this reason they ascend to the knowledge and study of the eternal and immanent. word, by Whom all things were made. "It has always been said that through him everything was made and without him not one thing was made that was made" (John 1:3). Because from the causes we know the results, and from the consequences, what came before; so that only one reaches to know how to think correctly and immediately, in the Creation he finds faith and from the Buildings and the studied reasons of the buildings, he perceives and believes without doubt that there is a God. For two reasons the hill of Golgotha ​​was called the place of the Skull, first and most important, because according to Vasilios, Chrysostom and Theofilaktos, the tradition is that Adam's body was buried there. That is why the monk Epiphanios in this book about Syria and Jerusalem says: "under Calvary there is a small church (that is, a house) of Adams and in it his chariot under the sample of Calvary" so from this it was called the place of the Skull; the second and more a rough reason is because according to Coressius and other historians, there were always skulls scattered from there by those criminals who decapitated, from which the place was called Kranios. The fiery heaven, having its essence of pure light, according to Saint Callisto, is, according to the theologians, the throne of God, according to "the heaven is my throne"; and again, "the heaven of heaven to the Lord" is also the abode of all the saints, as many Angels, as of men; this is also the much-desired kingdom of heaven, about which the blessed Augustine said, "even if for a single day I would enjoy the kingdom of heaven, I would despise all the things of the world and all physical pleasure". And Jerome appeared in a dream to Saint Augustine, first he asked him about the kingdom of heaven, he said: "Brother, heavenly bliss cannot be described with the mouth and cannot be understood by the human mind. The Angels enjoy it and the righteous enjoy it together, and he believed so." There are three excellent hymns and praises, with which the nine classes of Angels praise the Holy Trinity. And of the first Hierarchy of Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim, is the same hymn, Gel gel which comes out of the circles of the Cherubim according to Ezekiel (chap. 1,13), but it indicates an encirclement, according to Saint Dionysius the Areopagite (Uran. Hierarch. ch. iii'); and of the second hierarchy, of Dominions, Powers and Authorities, the same hymn is, Holy, holy, holy (Is. 6,3). And for the third of the Archangels and Angels, the same hymn is, Alleluia, according to Nikitas Stithatos (Philokal. ch. h' of the third chapter). When speaking, remember to pay attention to the commandment of Saint Thalassios, which says: "Of the five ways of conversation, choose three. Don't get used to the fourth one. And refrain from the fifth" (Philokal.). And the three ways, according to Nikolaos Kataskepinos, are the yes, the no and the clear. The fourth is the doubtful. And the fifth, the unknown, that is, to speak about things that you know to be true, or false, or concrete; and about the doubtful and unknown in your speech, do not speak; or because there are five kinds of speech, according to Blemides in logic. Invocation with which we call someone. Interrogative, with which we ask. Adjective, with which we wish. Definitive, with which we speak definitively and affirmatively and Imperative, with which we command authoritatively and authentically. You used only the three in your speech, but do not use the Definitive and Imperative. That is why Abba Isaac (Logos 3) says that silence is an accomplice of the good and greater than all the works of the solitary state (Logos ld') and a mystery of the future age (Epistle. 3). But the great Varsanoufios says that the silence that is kept with our will is superior even to this theology. But Abba Isaac says that a person is silent for three things: either for the glory of men or for the warm desire and zeal of virtue or because he has a hidden divine conversation within himself and for this reason his mind goes to it (log. ks'). This is also obvious from the examples of the Holy Bible. Because the sons of God, i.e. Seth and Enos, when they saw the daughters of men, i.e. the descendants of Cain because they were beautiful, took these women and corrupted them and from that followed the global cataclysm (Gen. ch. s'). Shechem the son of Emmor in Shikim, in order to see Dinah the daughter of Jacob, he loved her and thus corrupted her and from this corruption, that disastrous annihilation of the Shikim happened from people to animals. (Gen. ld´). Samson met women, both in Thamnathas and in Gaza, and he loved them and slept with them (Judges 8 and 8). King David saw Bathsheba when she was bathing and he loved her and thus had intercourse with her (2 Kings 10). Those two elders and judges of the people saw Susanna and desired her (Sosan. Hist. 9). And many others like that. In the letters that do not have writing. The monk Iovius, in the Myriobiblos of Photius, says that the devil is called an anteater, because first he casts a man into small sins; and then he casts him into great ones; and at first he appears weak and small, like an ant, but later he appears as of the sinner, like a mighty and great lion So the Sinaitic theophore Gregory also says this about the Demons. "Being once also these mental beings, after they fell from the immateriality and the subtlety of it, each one acquired some material thickness, having a body proportional to the class and the energy which it has made of the six passions" (Chap. rcg Philokal.). And continuing below he says: "from the six passions, they became somewhat material" (that is, the demons). See the Xth chapter of Callisto and Ignatius of the Xanthopoulos. Philocall. Therefore, the new Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, although he had the philosophy and knowledge of the nature of beings (concerning which you see in the ninth chapter), he did not have this passive and harmonious mind, i.e. the imagination of the senses, but the energy and apathy, that which is imposed immediately on the incorporeal reasons of existence, as is the opinion of the theologians. So that theologian, George of Coressius, in one of his theological questions and solutions regarding the incarnate economy, said the following: "The Lord was worthy of a wage... because of the increased science (that is, the difficult knowledge of beings) that exists immediately to Christ and was not hindered by anything (or by sleep), i.e. by the fantasies of sleep or by some other cause, as happens with the minds of people because the mind of Christ did not depend on fantasies, a thing that becomes an obstacle to the transmission of the mental to the immaterial reasons)". In proof of this, what the Bulgarian Theophilaktos says (interpretation of the second of Luke) that the Lord did not imagine the kingdoms of the world that the enemy showed him, is not even a little supported. See at the end of this same chapter. See earlier in this same chapter. For even if luck and fortune attract one from his eyes and he sees with passion no beautiful face, yet he fights and does not print in his imagination the image of that face, plunging his mind into his heart, he escapes from the hedonistic combination of calculations, escapes from struggle, escapes from consent and finally he is saved and does not fall into the commission of sin. That is why the theologian Gregory said the following: "I was seized by the office, but it did not arrest me. You did not set up an idol of sin. Pira is an idol, we avoided committing it. These are the stages of the enemy's delusion". However, if someone allows the image and memory of that person to be imprinted on his imagination, he can easily fall into the greatest degrees of sin up to the commission of this sin, so that the dagger remains in the imagination. That is why Basil the Great says, when the mind is not scattered in external things, nor is it extended to the world by the senses, it turns to itself and from within itself ascends to the concept of God; pervading, he ascends towards himself, through himself, towards God's meaning" (letter a). For there are three movements of the soul, according to Dionysius the Areopagite; a) the circular one, which occurs when the soul turns from many and external things, first gathers itself into itself, then unites with the single and angelic powers and thus unites with the good without beginning and end, i.e. God, b) the spiral, which becomes, when the soul moves and receives the divine knowledge, not completely mentally and single and immutable, but transitory and with thought, from one meaning to another behavior, with actions, in some way mixed with the circular movement and the straightness, c) straightness of movement is when the soul comes out in the theory of the sensible things around it and from the outside and sensible, as if from some various and many images, it ascends to the simple and unified theories. (On divine names, ch. d´). It is called circular, the superior and first master movement of the soul, because, as, for example, when the two ends of a rod are united, it becomes a circle and a circle, so also when the mental and cognitive powers and energy of the soul, which is located exclusively in the brain, as a physical organ, unites with the mental essence of the soul which is in the center of the heart and the most purified vital spirit there, as in a physical organ, according to the Gospel and the Neptic Fathers (Philokalia); from the union and return of these two, a certain circle is also made with this circle the mind is united with the divine grace, which is in the middle of the heart. To cite a better example; just as the rays of the sun, as they move away from the center and the middle of the glass, which lights the candle, the weaker, rarer and darker they become, and the more they gather in the center, the stronger, denser and brighter they become, in the same way the mind and the cognitive powers of the soul, the more they gather in the center of the heart, the stronger and brighter they become. If with these divine meanings and studies you draw, brother, the map of your imagination, you will not only be saved from evil memories and evil calculations, but you will also be praised with pride on that day of Judgment; for Basil the Great says in the discourse about Virginity, because every person who is in his body is likened to a painter, who paints some image in a secret place. Just as that painter, when he brings out his image in the theater, is praised by the spectators if he has painted on it characters of saints and other beautiful and beautiful things, but he is blamed if he has painted on it vulgar, indecent and unworthy things, in this way every man, when after death he finds himself at the Judgment Seat of God, will be praised and blessed by God and Angels and Saints, if he has adorned his mind and his imagination with brilliant, divine and spiritual meanings. Again, he will be ashamed and condemned, if he fills his imagination with passions, with obscene and beautiful idols and images. And Gregory of Thessalonica admires how from the senses it is created in the soul with the imagination or imaginary light, which provides eternal life or an imaginary and dark hell (Philokalia). And that even the passions and calculations are hidden in the heart and from there they come out and fight us, the Lord testifies, saying: "Out of the heart come wicked thoughts, murders, adulteries, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things that defile man" (Matthew 15:18-19). However, even the enemy demons around the heart hide and are found (in action, however, and not in essence, as the great Gregory of Thessalonica says, Kyriak. D' Nistiaen); and the same is testified by the Holy Successor, saying that before Holy Baptism, the divine grace motivates a person to do good from within, but Satan lurks in the depths of the soul and heart; after a person is baptized, the demon goes outside the heart, while grace is inside (chapter 8). Before and after Baptism (says the saint himself ch. pv'), they are allowed to be in the depths of the body (and one can say on the surface of the heart), for a test of self-authority and from there they stimulate the mind with the wetness of carnal pleasures. That is why the Fathers say that demons do not like people to know that they are inside them, so that they do not drive them out from there and fight them with the name of Jesus Christ, which is said in the heart, as we have said. The theologian Gregory also agrees that the demons are within us, saying that what the Lord said, that the unclean spirit, when it goes out of a person, again takes seven other spirits and they enter and dwell in that person (Mat. 12,43); this, I say, the saint testifies, that it is done after Baptism, God granting that the demons enter the baptized person, because of the wicked thoughts and words and bad deeds that he will do after Baptism (Speech to the Lights; see also chapter 2 of part two). See that I gave you an example of the imagination that is born from vision. Because he knew that no other sense fights us as much as sight. And as this is the most royal, the most delicate, the purest of all the others and the one related to the mind in comparison to the splendor and the incorporeal, as the theologians say, so also the imaginations that are made of it are very difficult to extinguish. In the second way, the imaginations of those foul and wicked words that we have heard fight us; and this he knew, that just as, when the other senses are active, the eyes are not pleased, unless they also see what the other senses feel, so also the imagination does not he gives thanks, if perhaps he does not make visible, all that is heard and tasted and smelled and grasped according to Gregory of Thessaloniki (Philokalia). That is why Abba Isaac calls confusion a vehicle and chariot of the devil, on which the person sitting enters the suffering soul and overwhelms it (Logos lg'). and Peter the Damascene says: "No evil is so easy to sin as confusion (Philokalia). Therefore, it is worth remembering what Uncle John Chrysostom used to always say, in every situation that happened to him, good and bad, unhappy and happy, and it is this quote: "Glory be to God in all things; for I do not stop choosing this all things happen to me" (from the letters to the deacon Olympiadas); which the uncle Gregory of Thessalonica, imitating, used to say the same thing, as we see in his life. Chapters 1 and 2 of the second part of this book teach us more clearly that the sins mentioned in this chapter do not mean that they are mortal, but not mortal and forgivable, and those who sin in them do not mean that they are those who live simply and indifferently and they commit deadly sins every now and then; (for they must also be disturbed and cry with pain of heart and have great thought to always examine their conscience and to confess; and always have proportionate sorrow, but not from excessive sorrow that they fall into despair); but those who live a spiritual life, those striving for virtue. For those who commit these forgivable sins (and what they are, see at the beginning of the second chapter) or heavier than this and greater ones (into which they also sometimes fall, by the grace of God), do according to the order of the present chapter; except this order, every person simply benefits, who commits any sin. The story we recount in Gerontikos fits this; it appears there that a monk fell into prostitution out of passion. And because the calculations of discernment from within troubled him, that he had lost his soul and now there is no salvation, he, as wise and experienced in the invisible war against the enemy, said to his calculations: "no sin, no sin" until he entered his cell and shut himself up. after he had pacified his heart, then he showed the due repentance for his sin; therefore, it was revealed to another insightful Elder, that that monk fell, yes, but rose and conquered. Know, therefore, my beloved, that the demons fight us from six sides, as the Fathers say, and even Saint Meletius the Confessor: from above and below, from the right and the left and from the front and the back. And above are the excesses that are beyond our power that we do for virtue; below are the deficiencies that we have in virtue itself from our negligence; (for this reason the Fathers said that the extremities are of the demons); and they are called right, when the demons with right the cause and prelude of good, they cast us into evil; on the left, when from the manifest cause of evil, they make us sin. And from the front, when the demons fight us with the calculations and memories of the things that are going to come from behind, when they fight us with the memories and prejudices of the past things. And in general, all wicked calculations offend the soul inwardly or outwardly; and inwardly they offend it either with an idea and an image that is theoretically printed in the imagination, or with the inner speech of the heart that is essentially printed in the imagination itself. Externally, they offend it through the sensual objects of the five senses, that is, with the visible, the audible, the olfactory, the tactile and the gustatory; (regarding this see in the second chapter: How we must correct our senses). The causes of internal and external moving calculus are threefold: firstly, the demons, secondly, the passions, that is, the wounds that we have received in our hearts with the six voluntarily, either hating a thing, or loving it passionately; and lastly, the corrupt state of human nature. In the same way, he who works under the authority of an Elder, desiring to achieve greater virtues, deceives himself and abandons obedience and goes to solitude and asceticism; and there, falling into negligence, he loses even a little of the work he did in obedience, as John says of Scale: the same thing happens to the hermit and recluse, when he leaves the wilderness and goes to obedience, in order to acquire more virtues and benefits; because in submission he also loses the little peace he enjoyed in solitude. In other words, let us ask not to enter into temptation, because he says: "And lead us not into temptation" (Matthew 6:13). Again: "Pray that you may not enter into temptation" (Lk. 22,40); interpreting this, the Guardian of Bulgaria says that it is a demonic thing and proud, for someone to throw himself into temptation alone. "For it is demonic that they throw themselves into temptations and arrogant". Therefore, even before temptation, we must pray so that we do not fall into it, and after we fall into temptation we must again pray so that we will not be overcome by it (because this is how "let us not enter into temptation", according to the Guardian of God) is interpreted; however, we must not we fall so much, to grumble, to worry and to be sad, when various temptations and sorrows befall us, but to give thanks and rejoice, as the Brother God commands us: "All rejoice, my brothers, when temptations fall diversely" (1,2); being informed that the temptation we suffer, by name, tempts, that is, it tests and shines the faith and love we have towards God, just as the fire shines the gold in the furnace. How very beneficial it is for one to consider himself worse and inferior to all men, the saints testify to this; St. Chrysostom says: "There is nothing so dear to God as to consider oneself the worst of all." The great among the Fathers Varsanoufios said: "if you really want to be saved, listen to what to do in practice; lift your feet from the ground and raise your mind to God. And let your study be there day and night; and with all the strength you have, despise yourself; believing that you see yourself below all men; this is the true way; besides this there is no other for him who wants to be saved by power of Christ; let him run who wants to catch up; I conjure him in the name of the living God who wants to grant eternal life to whomever He wishes". Uncle Gregory the Sinaite adds that we must consider ourselves worse than all the buildings and more merciful than the demons themselves, because he says. "There are two kinds of humiliation, as the Fathers say. One is to consider oneself below all and to report one's achievements to God; the first is the beginning, the second the end". And this humiliation is achieved by those who seek it when they consciously consider these three things about themselves: that they are the most sinful of all; and that they are the most beautiful of all buildings, because they are in a state beyond nature; and that it is more Merciful and from the demons, because they serve the demons." (Philokalia, chap. ri´). According to this teaching, the great recluse and most prophetic Varsanoufios also says the following: "Being careless about everything makes you approach the city, and not being counted by people makes you live in the city; and to die for every man, he makes you inherit the city and its treasures. If you want to be saved, keep the indisputable, i.e. not to be counted by people, and run towards your goal". What is undeniable, according to St. John, the disciple of Varsanoufius, is not to equate yourself with someone else and not to compare him with someone else. Don't even say about any good deed that I did it too. (again here the saint means either the heart, or apathy or divine knowledge). And then contemplate this true and certain contemplation, that is, the more virtues you accomplish and the more gifts you receive, the more you are benefited by God; and the more you are benefited, the more and more debt you owe to God and the more obligated you become; thus from this reflection not only you will be proud of your virtues and gifts, but you will also struggle to descend to the depths of humiliation, not having something worthy to thank God for his divine gifts. Apart from this, all the virtues, being natural actions of God and gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, are therefore anarchic and infinite according to Saint Maximus, but infinite in size and innumerable in number, as Basil the Great says. How, then, can one boast that he has acquired virtues, after he has learned that even virtues have neither beginning, nor end, nor number? and that he will not descend to the depths of humiliation, thinking that no matter how many virtues he has achieved, he has not even reached the beginning of virtues? but he received from them only so much as is a drop from an infinite ocean; or that he too will not always be motivated to say that wish of the great Arsenius, who says: "My God, do not forsake me; I have done no good before you, but because of your mercy, help me to make a beginning". That is why the Lord, wanting to build the wonderful edifice of beatitudes, laid the first foundation of poverty of spirit, that is, humility, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3) The uncle and Saint Augustine, not only himself very much loved to compose and recite the similar unsparing prayers and supplications, but also advised his spiritual daughter, the venerable Prova, to recite and study the similar prayers; some also want the erotic wishes of his saint to be called saiteutika. That is why the Apostle James orders us, that our patience is not imperfect and incomplete, sometimes enduring and sometimes not, but perfect and complete in everything, small and great, enduring: "Let patience produce perfect the fruit of your perfection, that you may be perfect and whole and that you lack nothing" (James 1,4). And Abba Isaac (reason 15) wants us to place signs on every step we take to know our progress or the error of the enemy; he even says the following points: when you see that your mind does not run with some violence, but freely in good thoughts, this it is a sign that you are progressing. Similarly, when standing in prayer, your mind does not turn here and there, but also the verse of the psalm, is cut off from your tongue and silence and admiration come to you without you wanting it. And again when you see that in your every memory and every calculation, and every study and theory, your eyes fill with tears, without violence. Similarly, when you see in some time intervals that your whole mind sinks into your heart, and that it stays there for a while and after that you see all your limbs weakened and peace reigns in your thoughts, all this, says the saint, is a sign of our progress. But even then we must not be discouraged, if we are not disturbed, when the causes of suffering suddenly befall us. For, supposing we have not been troubled once or twice a day, being in a good state, it is probable that on the fourth or fifth time we shall be troubled by the passions. And to speak more simply, because man has the flexibility as something natural and can change from hour to hour, and one moment be in heaven and the next in hell, therefore he must always have fear in his heart, as the Paul: "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12) and he will never be able to be discouraged in his entire life. That is why the Fathers, and in fact St. John of Climacus, called this perfection of the perfect imperfect and lacking: "the infinite perfection of the perfect". And Paul defines perfection in this, in always running forward and not turning back, and in thinking that we have accomplished nothing; that is why he also calls himself imperfect, and says that he was not able to receive anything: "I do not say that I have now received the prize and I have achieved my spiritual perfection... Brothers, I still do not think that I have achieved the purpose for which I was sent by the Lord. No matter how much I have worked and no matter how much I have succeeded, I do not think that I have fully responded to my mission. But I do one thing and I take care of one thing: to forget what happened in the past and to continue to relax and hasten to what is in front of me and I have to perform". And wanting to show that perfection is found in this, he says: "Let us, then, who strive to be perfect, take care of this" (Phil. 3:12-15). That is, this is perfection, to think that we have never reached perfection. And this is the attitude of virtue, not to stand still, but to always run towards it, a thing that seems somewhat strange when it is said. How do we understand that they are quiet in our hearts? From the following sign: because when we encounter a cause, and even a sudden one, that motivates the passions, then we also understand that the passions disturb us and we wonder where they were hidden and sprouted. That is why the simile that Abba Isaac makes about it is also beautiful. He says that just as the grasses and herbs disappear from the surface of the earth in winter, their roots are hidden in the depths of the earth, and as soon as they smell the spring rains, they spring up and fill the face of the earth, so it is with passions. And to put it more clearly, just as this earth was cursed to sprout thorns and thistles, so is our human nature, since it is corruptible and is sown and conceived by sin, it naturally gives birth to passions and never has trust. Book A´ of the Orthodox Faith ch. m´. According to theologians there are two wills of God: previous and next. And according to the previous will, which is also called good will and is foreseen by God, according to St. Damascene, God desires not only all good things and the salvation of people, but also the rewards of good things, both temporal and eternal. But according to the next will, which is also called forgiveness, and comes from our own cause, God wills the punishments of all evils, both temporal and eternal. And this eternal hell, according to Saint Mark of Ephesus, benefits the hell-bound and is beneficial, because it is the cutting off of evil and the fulfillment of divine justice. But the true evils, i.e. sins, are not willed by God either according to the previous will, or according to the next, because they are born only of the bad predilection of the logical structures. This saint says that as much as copper and iron are different and stronger than wood and wood, so is one body and one wine different and stronger than another. For this reason, what is for some a hardship beyond measure, for the strongest it is a comfortable rest; thus he dogmatizes the following: "Excellent indulgence of the stomach is that which is calculated according to the strength of each one" (Order Ascetic d'.). Active prayer, according to Saint Maximus, is that which is accompanied by the necessary works in prayer, both of the one who prays and of the other for whom one prays. According to this, Saint Chrysostom also says (word to the Andrians): "Prayer is a great good, when it is done with a pleasing mind. We must train ourselves to thank our God, not only when we receive but also when we do not receive, because sometimes he gives and sometimes he doesn't, but always for the benefit. Even if you receive, or if you don't receive, without receiving, you have received. And if you succeed, even if you don't succeed, you succeeded, without having success, because sometimes it is more beneficial not to receive. Because if it were not an interest, many times not to receive, he would have given it to us; so that if one fails, according to his interest, this is success". Many and great are the gifts caused by this holy and mental prayer, which are enumerated by the holy and god-bearing Fathers, the so-called Nipticians, and see in Philokalia. However, I mention here the most general and most important of all the others. Man is and is said to be in the image of God, having mind, speech and the animating spirit of the body, i.e. natural will and love. But because God is three and one, and the man who is in the image of God must become three and one, so that he resembles his prototype and then unites with it. This union and likeness with God cannot be achieved in any other way than through this prayer. So when the mind has all its attention focused on the internal word, which is in the heart and the internal word says "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me", while the Spirit and the physical will with all its power loves and dedicates itself in these words of prayer, then these three powers, remaining three, become one; And one man becomes three, remaining one; And this means what the great Gregory of Thessaloniki, that great worker and teacher of the Noera Prayer, says dimly: "When the unity of the mind it becomes three, remaining one, then it unites with the Theoretic Trinitarian Unit, excluding every entrance of error, and it is above every ruler of the flesh of the world and cosmocrator". And then the saint says that, even if this union of the three, with this prayer, is more laborious than any other labor of virtue, it still gives the hidden mysteries and revelations of God, when one endures a lot of time in this work and union. And why should I enumerate? In no other way can man keep the first commandment, that is, "to love the Lord your God with all your soul...", as the Lord commands (Luke 10:27), than by means of this Morning Prayer. I also note the following to those who are opposed to the way of this prayer, the decision of the Synodical Volume, according to Barlaam and Akindynos, on King Andronikos Palaiologos, before the Senate and the Roman judges. And it is as follows: "It was seen from this and Barlaam was checked that he blasphemes and speaks maliciously about the Taborian Light, and about those Monks and about the holy prayer that they pronounce. The Monks proved to be superior to his category, as living in the explanations and traditions of the Holy Fathers... That is why... Barlaam himself... but also any other invisible person to speak blasphemously and maliciously based on those blasphemies that he said and are directed against the Monks, rather, against the Church, or anyone who appears to be dealing with similar things in general, subject to the same condemnation by our own Moderation, he will also be excommunicated and cut off from the Catholic Eastern Church of Christ and the Orthodox system of Christians". Where is this evident from? Because both the grace that God gives in this life, as well as the glory that he is going to give in the next, about which David said "grace and glory he will give" (Ps. 83,12), and both are called mercy; the one without grace, because Those who were graced by God, simply according to the apostle Peter, they are called merciful "You who once were not a people, now you have become the people of God; you who once had no mercy, now you have found mercy" (1 Pet. 2,10). And Saint Paul, the one who was forgiven so much, calls himself forgiven: "I express my opinion as a man who has been forgiven" (1 Cor. 7:25); and elsewhere he says: "But I was forgiven because I did it out of ignorance" (1 Tim. 1:13). Similarly, the glory of the saints in the heavens and the crown is called mercy and it is given from mercy, as the psalmist says: "He who crowns you with mercy and compassion" (Ps. 102,4). Interpreting this, Saint Chrysostom says: "So the crown is the result of grace and charity." Saint Isaac says: "You must also know the following, brothers; that every conversation that takes place in secret and every care of a good intellect in God and every spiritual study is determined by the name of the wish (that is, it is called a prayer) and is hidden within this name; either you mention various readings, or voices of the mouth or glorification of God, or care of the sorrowful in the Lord, or kneeling, or chanting of the psalter, or the rest, of which the teaching of the true wish consists" (Logos). This was bound to happen next. For as Cornelius the Italian recounts, the instruments of our Lord's scourging were chains, vuneuras, barbed rods and ropes with hooks tied to the ends. The executioners who scourged him were sixty in number. So they did not leave him unscathed. The veins opened and the blood flowed like a river, to the point that his flesh disappeared from the many wounds and they could count his bones one by one, as the prophet David prophesied about it saying "They numbered all my bones" (Psalms 21:18), this narration seems to agree with the Gospels. For both Matthew and Mark state that those who served at the scourging and the other mockings of the Lord were the whole spiral, i.e. the entire military order of Pilate, as interpreted by the Guardian, which means that it is possible that it is next to exceed the number of sixty. With all justice, the Holy Trinity rejoiced and rejoiced even more before the creation of the world, knowing in advance, according to its theoretic idea, the eternal Mary. For it is the opinion of some theologians, that if we suppose that all the nine orders of Angels fell from heaven and became demons, if all men, from the time the world was created, became bad and went to hell without anyone being saved; if all the buildings, the sky, lights, stars, elements, plants and animals, turned away from God and went out of their order and went into non-existence, despite all this, all these evils of the buildings compared to the fullness of the holiness of the Theotokos, could not grieve God; because only the Lady Theotokos could thank him for everything and for everything, and not let him grieve so much for the loss and the loss of so many of his buildings, as she would make him rejoice excessively for her own; because she alone has no one in comparison, he loved him more than anyone else because she obeyed his will more than anyone else; because only she could and became capable of receiving all those natural, supernatural and optional gifts that God distributed to the whole creation. And with one reason, because it became another Second World, incomparably better than the entire sensible and conceivable world and enough and alone to eternally glorify the Poet for the beauty and variety of his gifts more than all the creation of the universe. From this the conclusion is drawn that, because God also predestined the Theotokos, according to his eternal good will, which is not the next and subsequent will of God, but his previous and main will, as interpreted by the great Gregory of Thessaloniki (log. A's Lights and speech in the Nativity of Christ). From this it follows, I say the conclusion, that, just as the orchard is made in order to plant the tree and again the tree is planted for the fruit, so also the whole sensible and intellectual world was made for this purpose, that is, for the Lady Theotokos; and again the Lady Theotokos was made for the Lord our Jesus Christ; and thus was fulfilled the ancient purpose and the first purpose of God; in that all things were recapitulated in Christ and the creation was united with the Creator, not naturally, not voluntarily and by grace, but by hypostasis; this is the highest degree of union, after whom another superior has not been found, nor will be found. The words of Vassiliou the Great are as follows: "During his early age, submitting to his parents, he performed all physical labor with meekness and obedience. Because being righteous and pious people, yet poor and without the necessities (and the manger proves this as the place of the divine birth), they naturally worked continuously saving for themselves the necessities. And Jesus submitting to them, as the Scripture says, showed that in labors he showed the necessary obedience. All the saints, when they were on earth, claimed to see God dimly and as in a mirror and enigmatically, as Paul also says (1 Cor. 13), however, ascending to the heavens and becoming blessed, they see God face to face, i.e. immediately and clearly, as he says. and this is Paul. However, the soul of Christ, being united as a hypostasis with God the Word and having the Divinity from this end of his conception, as the holy theologians teach, had subsequently also this absolute view from this first union. And while Christ was still on the earth, he saw with his mind clearly and directly God, at the blessed sight of which he always reveled and felt joy, even when he was in these painful passions of the cross, which he felt only according to his human senses. This blessed sight of Christ is also concluded from many other things, but especially from the saying: "No one has ascended to heaven, except the Son of Man who is in heaven" (John 3:12), which means that Christ was in heaven with this blessed sight, which is given to heaven. For the theologians say that the soul of Christ had three knowledges: this blessed one, as we said, God-breathed, which the Prophets also had, with which Christ also knew the secret thoughts of men, as it is mentioned: "And it was not necessary for anyone to inform him about one man, because he knew well what each one had in him" (Jn. 2,25); and the acquired, that is, the natural philosophy of beings, which was certainly conceived in the soul of Christ, as it was in Solomon, but as to its nature and its existence it is also called acquired, because it is acquired through pain and learning. The payment of our sins from the Lord became so abundant and so rich, so that it resembled an endless ocean and all the sins of people, past, present and future, resembled a single drop of water. This is how Saint Chrysostom theologizes about it: "Christ paid more than what we owed. And so much more, as the countless ocean is compared to a small drop of water". That is why Paul said: "The grace that Christ brought is not compared to the transgression" (Rom. 5,15); and again, Where sin was seen in its true terrifying magnitude, there the grace of God covered it with the above" (Rom. 5,20). And the theologian Gregory: "And if the taste of the fruit condemned people, how much more did the passion of Christ justify them" (Log. Eis tto Genethl.). And some theologians say that the son of God was enough to pay for the sins of all people, even if he felt such a small pain, as one feels when a hair is removed from his head. However, because he suffered so many pains and shed all his blood, to the last drop, and died such a dishonorable death, think for yourself how rich and infinite is the payment and satisfaction that was made for our sake. The size of the Holy Cross was in the length of fifteen feet, in its width, i.e. in the lateral wood, eight feet, as are old traditions. The next thing was that, because of the great weight of the Cross, Jesus could no longer lift it, as if exhausted from the previous tortures. That is why he often knelt down on the road, which the soldiers, seeing, grabbed Simon to lift him up, not because they pitied him, but because they were afraid that he would die on the road, before accepting the dishonorable death of the Cross. The crucifixion with nails was customary among the Romans, not for every person, but for the most submissive and criminals, as can be seen from the decision of Pilate against Christ. That is why many are of the opinion that the two robbers were not crucified with nails, like Jesus, but were tightly tied with ropes. The title was written in three languages, so that everyone, Romans, Greeks and Jews, would understand that Jesus was an apostate of the kingdom and wanted to make himself king. For the sake of philologists, we also add the words of the three languages. The Hebrew words were the following: "Jesus of Nazareth melech Yehudim", the Greek "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews", and the Roman "Jesus of Nazareth rex Judeaum". As we know fire from smoke, so from some external signs we can humbly understand the internal fire of the immeasurable desire that the Lord had to suffer; this in brief is: to control Peter and to call him Satan, because he prevented him from going to the Jerusalem so that he would not suffer: "Get behind me, Satan, because you do not think about the things of God, but the things of men" (Mat. 16,23); the excessive distress of him before the passion, when the time came for him to suffer; because this reveals that "I have baptism to be baptized, and an impatience seizes me until it is finished" (Luke 12,50); to call passion and death a cup, a thing which, according to the holy Guardian, shows joy and pleasure and celebration, which those who drink the wine accept. "Shall I not drink the cup that the Father gave me?" (Joh. 18:11); to run at midnight, to cross the stream of Cedars and to make sure that he reached the Garden, which Judas knew, and to show that he willingly comes to passion, as St. Chrysostom interprets; "After he said this, Jesus went out with his disciples and they went to the opposite side of the stream of Cedars. There was a garden where Jesus and his disciples entered. Judas also knew this place" (Jn. 18:1-2); going out alone to tell the soldiers that he is there to catch him "I am" (Jn. 18:5), as Solomon also interprets in the Song of the Lord's voluntary passion and said from on his part: "I will go to the mountain of Smyrna" (4,6), i.e. of death and burial, because that is how the mountain of Golgotha became according to the interpretation of Nyssa, Maximus and Nile; to have happy eyes when he hung on the cross, according to that of Jacob; his eyes are made of wine" (Gen. 49:12) according to Cyril's interpretation. However, in a special way and with emphasis, they show us the infinite love and desire that Christ had to suffer and to always suffer for us these two things: a) the tradition of the divine mysteries, in which Christ always dies mystically and spiritually and suffers but is also resurrected; b) the a story that Dionysius the Areopagite mentions in his letter to Demophilus, because he says that the apostle Karpos, being in Crete, was sorry and begged God to put an ungodly man to hell, that a Christian had led him into error and impiety. So there, when he was praying, the Lord came down with a multitude of angels and, after extending his right hand to him, told him to strike him, because even though people are crucifying him and going to hell for that, he is ready to die for the salvation of people many times: "Strike me so because again I am ready to die for people who again want to be saved, and this is dear to me, since there will be no other people to sin". Basil the Great notes another debt that those who partake have. Because those who partake denounce the Lord's death with the Communion, as Paul also says: "As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you denounce the Lord's death" (1 Cor. 26). And the Lord's death happened for all those who partake and for all people in general according to the apostle Paul who says: "If one died for all, then all died, and he died for all" (2 Cor. 5,15). Therefore, those who partake must show, for love and faith and for the commandments of God, obedience until death and to no longer live in the world and in sin and in themselves, but only in the God of whom they partake, in him who died for them and rose again, according to Paul, who says: "Let those who live live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again" (2 Cor. 5:15). And this is what the saint says because it is a doctrine handed down by Paul. (In the reason that "he who is born again through baptism is nourished and the following) Because all the other virtues with the likeness they have to God make the virtuous man capable of uniting with God, but they do not unite him. However, the Noera prayer has such a power to unite with God (see also in the chapter). And in a way, the other virtues are like the instruments that straighten and adjust two boards, while prayer is likened to the glue that joins these matched boards. This is why the great Gregory, bishop of Thessaloniki, said that "the power of prayer sanctifies the ascension and union of man with God, because it is the connection of logical buildings with the creator" (Philokalia). From this saying, Saint Maximus concludes that whoever does the Lord's commandments, not only accepts the Lord in his soul, but together with him, he also accepts the Father who is with him and the Holy Spirit, who is inseparable from him. Genie accepts the entire Holy Trinity within him and becomes its abode (chapter oa' of the second century). But also those who want very often and cannot receive the mysterious Holy Communion, i.e. to partake of Christ who is in the Mysteries, or because they are in a desert place where there are neither priests nor altar and church: or they are in the world but are hindered by the spiritual not because of any fault of theirs, but because of the perverted and wicked habit that prevails, I say, because they desire and want to receive Christ mysteriously within themselves, but because of what has been said and for other reasons they cannot, let them receive Christ within them mentally and spiritually, as he says Nicholas of Kavasilas in the interpretation of the Liturgy (chapter 2), because Christ who is in the mysteries mentally and without being seen and invisibly transmits the sanctification of the mysteries to them in the way that he himself knows. That is why Abba Isaac wrote: "The gratitude of the one who received provokes the one who gave to give greater gifts than before" (Log. L'). Some also interpreted that part of the psalter as spoken by God in this way: "What is there for me in heaven? (apart from thanksgiving, that is) and what on earth did I ask of you, man? (that is, for glory and thanksgiving)" (Psalm 72:24) Because, according to Basil the Great (an epithet term), this is sanctification, to dedicate oneself to the holy God completely and without interruption at all times and to take care to do what is pleasing to God. And he also says that whatever is once dedicated to God is impious and daring if someone takes it away and uses it for common and human use. He noted that every work and every type of our Lord's passion is called a mystery by some teachers, because every one of them also contains some mysterious meaning: for this reason and below in this chapter he says to pass from one mystery to the other mystery of his life and passion. So learning this, do not doubt. For example: as there are some who are pious and who are easily oppressed, such as women, and those who happen to have a mild temperament by nature. It is said that those who do this from vanity and philanthropy or from drunkenness or from various other similar passions are possessed by the devil. Study the words of Abba Isaac and see the change that the soul receives and the darkness and the despair and the hesitation about the faith and the blasphemies and how and why and who suffer these and how they are cured. And Saint Isaac says in the same reason that the person who suffers from this needs an enlightened person who has experience in similar matters in order to be enlightened by him and strengthened. Basil the Great in his preface to the broad terms very wisely and extensively proves that all Christians, young and old, are obliged to observe all the commandments that the Lord commands us in the Holy Gospel, without excluding any of them: A') Because the Lord, sending his disciples to preach, told them to teach all the nations to observe all the commandments he commanded them: "Go and make disciples of all the nations... teaching them to observe all the commandments that I have given you" (Matt. 28:19): that is, not some commandments to keep and others to neglect, but all of them, all of them without any exception. B) Because if all the commandments were not necessary and necessary for our salvation, they would not have been written in the Holy Bible at all, nor would the Lord have given a commandment that all of them must be kept. C) If the Lord commanded us to become perfect "Be perfect" (Matt. 5:48) and Paul orders that the man of God be qualified and correct and complete "so that the man of God may be qualified" (2 Tim. 3:17), it is obvious that this perfection and completeness will be given to us by keeping the commandments of of Christ. D) Because the commandments of Christ are connected one to the other as if by some chain, so that whoever breaks and breaks only one of the commandments, by breaking and breaking one commandment, he breaks and breaks all the other commandments at the same time and he does not receive so much a reward for the commandments he kept, as a punishment for those he did not keep. That is why brother James, on the one hand, says that "Whoever keeps all the commandments of the law and breaks one, is considered a transgressor of the whole law" (2:10) and Basil the Great himself says: What will the other commandments that I have done benefit me? if I kill my brother's baby and for that I be considered guilty of hellfire?'' From all this, the conclusion emerges that every Christian has a great obligation to keep all the commandments. And what do I say to just keep them? to observe them with all his strength, with all his will and with all his love, if he wants, according to the Apostle, to be crowned as a legitimate athlete. And not only that, but also himself to add something more to the commandments, doing in some way, an exaggeration. For even he who had the one talent did not receive praise from his Lord, because he returned the talent, but was criticized because he did not increase it. I finish the footnote and say to you: Brother, if you belong to the class of slaves and fear God so that he does not put you in hell, keep all the commandments. "Happy is he who fears the Lord, finds pleasure in the commandments" (Ps. 111,1). If you climb into the class of hired workers and expect to receive a salary for your virtue in the kingdom of heaven, keep all the commandments: "Incline my heart to do your rights for a reward" (Ps. 118,111). If you ascend to the rank of sons and serve God only out of love for him, keep all the commandments: "I lift up my hands to your commandments, which I have loved" (Ps. 118,49). And again: "If I am a Father, where is my glory?" says God. The glory of the father is the son's obedience to the spiritual commandments. Because he also knew the following: if you break a single commandment, when you can avoid breaking it, you will not have pride, but you will be ashamed on the day of judgment. That is why David said: "Then I will not be ashamed when I look again at your commandments" (Ps. 118,6). I also remind you that all the commandments, both of the Old and the New Testament, as they are mostly said with an imperative verb, such as: "love your enemies, bless those who curse you...", are rarely pronounced in the final tense, such as "love the Lord Your God, you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery...", and they are very rarely pronounced with other verbs. Basil the Great also says in the interpretation of the seventh psalm, explaining "do not seize my soul like a lion, not a redeemed being nor a rescuer", that even these brave athletes, who fought with demons all their lives and escaped from the traps and their attacks, but at the end of their lives they are examined by the lord of the age, and if they are found to have some wounds or contaminations or stains of sin, they are kept by him; however, if they are found without wounds and contaminations, they rest as free from Christ. Some, again, what God said to the serpent, "you keep his (man's) heel", understood it allegorically as follows: That the Devil always observes the end of a person's life and tries to find some sin to get him. In other words, the heel means the end of life, because it is also the end and end of the body. And indeed humility and peace and meekness of heart are so united, that where the one is, the other is also, and whoever is meek in heart, he is also humble: and conversely, whoever is humble in heart, he he is gentle and peaceful. That is why the Lord uttered these together saying: "Learn from me that I am meek and humble and peaceful in heart" (Mat. 11,29) This is what the saint says in his words to the nun Xeni. For example: as there are some who are pious and who are easily oppressed, such as women, and those who happen to have a mild temperament by nature. Mourning is one thing and tears are another. Mourning is a sad reckoning and an ache of the heart, with which we grieve and ache: a) because we have grieved and offended God with our desires and violated his commandments, b) because in this life we were deprived of his grace and after death we may be deprived of his kingdom and c) because with our sins we made ourselves responsible for eternal hell. This pain and the thought become like a burden and flatten the heart or like a center that embroiders it and from this the deep sighs follow: when this flattening and irritation increases a lot, then the heart sinks and tears jump from the eyes, but through synergy of the grace of God, who gives us this to wash away our sins and to regain his grace. Because as it is mentioned, God with the deprivation of his grace hardens hearts: "You hardened our hearts so that we would not fear you" (Is. 63,17). Thus it is mentioned that with the energy and grant of his grace he fills the hearts (Rom. 11,8 and Psalm. 59,3; Is. 29,10). So we must always deal with mourning, because it depends on us and resembles the return and repentance of the Prodigal. Tears, however, must be asked of God as a gift of his, and they are likened to the embraces and embraces of God the father towards the Prodigal, as Gregory of Thessaloniki says. That is why Saint Augustine in his love wishes, after he asked the fostering stars, the abyss and the other buildings if they have his God, and when he learned that he does not dwell in them, in the end, after turning to himself, he found God to dwell within him. And so he pitied himself who sought God in external things, while he was within himself. He noted that God is within the soul and participates, not according to his true essence, far from such a thought, but according to his own grace and energy, as the holy theologians say: he is in fact, not only in the energy of the soul, but much more in its essence. For since only God is the creator of essences, consequently he is the only one who unites both through essences and with essences, both of bodies and of spirits, as that exalted Gregory of Thessalonica mentions in detail in his letter to Barlaam. Rather, to speak more specifically, this is the entire center in which all the essences of beings are found and fixed, according to the scriptural passage "in him we live and move and remain" (Acts 7:28). See also the so-called chapter of the first part. I said that only God unites with essences, because no creature, whether it be spirit or body, does not unite with the essence of another creature, but only with energy: so even Satan cannot unite with the essence of the soul, but communicates only with the her action by marriage, as the superior Saint Gregory says. Abba Isaac says the same, ordering us to leave the quantity and the knowledge of the measures and the verses and the memory, and that only our thought should be in the study of what is said, until our soul is raised either to the praise of God, or to beneficial sorrow and bereavement: and from then on the confusion departs, which takes away the sweetness of the meanings and like a leech suffocates the meanings of those who are being studied (discourse c): see also his previous speech, where he himself says that we must do our following with absolute freedom, without disturbance. And if our calculation says that we have to shorten, we have to leave a stop or as much as we want... Many and various are the reasons for which God allows, according to the abyss of his incomprehensible punishments, for temptations to occur both to sinners, as well as to the holy and virtuous. Saint Chrysostomos, in the speech he gives on the apostolic saying "I need a little wine for your stomach and your thick diseases", lists eleven reasons for which God allows the saints to be tempted. And Saint Isaac the Syrian mentions many other reasons, for which people are tempted both in his speech and in his speech. However, he himself mentions the non-word in general, that "temptation benefits every person... the fighters are tempted to add wealth to wealth. The lazy to protect themselves from what harms them, those who sleep to wake up and those who are far away to get closer to God; and his friends to have greater courage". That is why Saint John of Damascus, in his chapter on the Orthodox Faith, after he said that temptations come to the righteous and the sinners through forgiveness or concession or through financial and spiritual abandonment, adds at the end: "We must know that all unpleasant things to those who accept them with gratitude, they certainly bring benefits". This is very well taught here. That is to say, the servant of God sometimes falls into the light and ordinary or the gravest of these errors, which are commonly called forgivable and non-fatal. For it is one thing to have a forgivable sin, and it is another thing for one to have some inclination and will in general towards it and to repeat it many times; for from these forgivable sins even these saints are not completely free according to the verse, Again and again the rule of the holy Synod in Carthage, but many times they fall either out of ignorance or knowingly or by their own choice because of human illness. Such people, however, should not generally have an inclination towards them, not even very often, and persistently cut them off, but always fight to cleanse their souls of this evil inclination, so as not to lose the pleasure towards God. Because even if God does not punish forgiven sins with eternal hell, they always seem unpleasant and hateful to him, as do all those who commit them. And in addition to these, the known sins weaken the powers of the soul, destroy piety, hinder the grace that comes from God, open the door to temptations, and if they do not kill the soul, they make it sick, especially when one remains in it for a long time. with the inclination he has and with his will. Because it is one thing to tell a light lie once or twice, and another thing to tell a lie about every case and to have some inclination and joy in such a flaw. When the flies pass quickly through any aromatic, they do not destroy it all, but when they stop and rot in it, they destroy the whole and pollute it, as Solomon says: "The flies when they fly pollute the package of aromatic oil" (Eccl. 10,1). This is also the case with known sins, when they remain for a long time in the soul, they destroy all its piety and its good state. 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