Although the true solder of Christ, who aspires to the height of perfection, ought never consider his progress complete, all the same he must use discretion and restrain his spiritual enthusiasms. Embracing us overwhelmingly at first with an excess of excitement, they then grow weaker and finally abandon us along the way. So, beyond what I have said regarding the moderation of exterior practices, know as well that you must acquire even the interior virtues a little at a time and according to their degrees. In this way, a small quantity grows quickly and endures.

For instance, ordinarily we ought not work at desiring adversity and rejoicing in it until we first climb the lower rungs of the virtue of patience. Nor do I advise you to work principally at acquiring all the virtues together, nor even many of them, but rather one at a time and only then the others, so that the virtuous habit takes root more firmly and easily. Indeed, the constant practice of just one virtue causes:

• the memory to run to it in every occasion;
• the intellect to make itself ever keener to find new ways and reasons to grow in it;
• the will to incline itself to it more easily and with greater affection.

Were these faculties occupied in the acquisition of many virtues, they would do this less.

This uniform practice also makes the exercises for each virtue less exhausting, thanks to their resemblance to each other: each both calls upon and assists its similar virtue. Through this similarity, they impress themselves upon us all the more, finding the heart’s center already prepared and disposed to receive the ones newly brought forth, as first it made room for the ones that resemble these.

This argument acquires a greater force the more we come to know with certainty that whoever practices one virtue well also learns how to practice another. Thus, with the increase of one virtue, all grow together through the inseparable bonds they have among themselves, being as they are rays proceeding from one and the same divine light.

spiritual enthusiams: The Italian phrase, fervori di spirito, I understand perfectly well, yet find difficult to translate better than this. Literally, it says “fervors / passions / heat of [the] spirit.”

they then grow weaker… The present translation of this text would be an excellent example: about 1/3 to 1/2 of it I translated a quarter century ago, enthusiastically at first, then with waning joy, until it languished for the better part of two decades… and even now I lack confidence that it will reach its conclusion.

resemblance: The Italian word is conformità, and while the dictionary tells me that “conformity” is the correct translation, the sentence clearly prefers something akin to “resemblance”: things that have a similar form (the meaning of the Latin roots con + form), as opposed — if nothing else — to the negative connotations of conformity in contemporary English.