"If we only knew how to make a good use of temptations," said our Blessed
Father, "instead of dreading, we should welcome them--I had almost said
desire them. But because our weakness and our cowardice are only too well
known to us, from our long experience, and from many sorrowful falls, we
have good reason to say, _Lead us not into temptation_.
"If to this just mistrust of ourselves we united confidence in God, who is
stronger to deliver us from temptation than we are weak in falling into it,
our hopes would rise in proportion to the lessening of our fears. _For by
Thee I shall be delivered from temptation, and through my God I shall go
over a wall._"[1]
With such a support can we not boldly tread upon the asp and the basilisk,
and trample under foot the lion and the dragon?[2] As it is in temptation
that we learn to know the greatness of our courage and of our fidelity to
God, so it is by suffering temptation that we make progress in strength of
heart, and that we learn to wield the weapons of our warfare, which are
spiritual against the spiritual malice of our invisible enemies. Then it is
that our soul, clothed in the panoply of grace, appears terrible to them as
an army in battle array, and as the hosts of the Lord.
Some think that all is lost when they are tormented by thoughts of
blasphemy and impiety, and fancy that their faith is gone. Yet as long as
these thoughts merely distress them and they are resisted, they cannot harm
them, and such stormy winds only serve to make souls become more deeply
rooted in faith. As much has to be said of temptations against purity and
other virtues, for the maxim is quite a general one.
There is no good Christian who is not tempted. The angel said to Tobias:
_Because thou wast acceptable to God it was necessary that temptation,
should prove thee._[3]
[Footnote 1: Psalm xxvi. 30.]
[Footnote 2: Psalm xc. 13.]
[Footnote 3: Job xii. 13.]