The Spiritual Combat

Chapter 58:

Regarding “spiritual feelings” and dryness
Spiritual feelings are caused at times by nature, at times by the demon, and at times by grace. You can discern its origin by observing its fruit. If in fact you an improvement in your life does not follow, you should suspect that it proceeds from a demon or from nature, and suspect this all the more when it is accompanied by greater taste, sweetness, attachment, or esteem for yourself. Hence, when you feel your mind sweetened by spiritual feelings, do not wait to reason on its source. Do not rely on them, nor let them lessen your awareness of your nothingness. With greater diligence and self-hatred, focus on keeping your heart free from any attachment, even if it be spiritual, and desire God alone and his approval. By doing this, it will not matter whether the feeling come from nature or from a demon: it will always become a grace to you.

Dryness similarly comes from one of the three aforementioned causes. It can come from a demon who desires to soften your mind and turn it away from the spiritual enterprise to the world’s affairs and delights. It can come from our own nature through our faults, through our bondage to the world, and through our negligence. It can come from grace: Thus, if you feel yourself spiritually dry, enter into yourself to see which of your defects has caused you to lose your spiritual feelings, and begin to battle against it — not to receive a feeling of grace, but to remove from within your that which displeases God. If you do not find a defect, consider that your true spiritual feeling is true devotion that is consistent with God’s will. Hence, do not abandon your spiritual exercises no matter what, but continue them with all your strength, even if they seem fruitless and insipid. Drink willingly from the bitter chalice that God’s loving will has offered you in this dryness.

If the dryness should at times be accompanied by many thick shadows in your mind, so that you know neither where to turn nor what action to take, be not afraid. Rather, remain alone and firm on your cross, far from every earthly delight, although the world or a creature should offer some. Hide your suffering from everyone except your spiritual father, before whom you should reveal it — not to lessen your anguish, but to learn how you can bear it as God wills.

Do not employ communion, prayer, or other exercises as a means to come down from this cross, but rather as a means to receive the strength to exalt it, to the greater glory of the Crucified One. If your mental confusion prevents you from meditating or praying in your usual fashion, then meditate as best you can. Whatever your intellect is unable to perform, do violence to yourself so that your will will perform it. In your words, speak with yourself and with the Lord, so that you might see marvel effects, and so that your heart will recover its breath and its strength.

You will thus be able to say in this situation: “Why are you cast down, my soul; why groan within me? Hope in God; I will praise him still, my savior and my God.” (Psalm 42⋅6) “Why, Lord, do you stand afar off, and hide yourself in the time of anguish? Never abandon me.” (Psalm 10⋅1) Remember the holy teaching that God infused in his beloved Sara, wife of Tobias, at the time of tribulation. Make use of it yourself, saying with a strong voice: “Whoever serves you knows for certain that his life will receive the crown of trials sustained and liberation from tribulation. Even if he is castigated, he can count on your mercy. Indeed, you take no pleasure in our condemnation, as after the storm you grant us peace, and after tears and lamentation you give us joy. O God of Israel, blessed be your name for ever.” (Tobit 3⋅20 (Vulgate))

Remember also your Christ, who in the garden and on the cross felt abandoned by his heavenly Father on account of his great suffering. Bearing the cross with him, say with all your heart, “Your will be done.” (Matthew 26⋅42) If you do this, your patience and your prayer will raise your heart’s sacrifice to God’s presence. Your devotion will remain true, for as I have said, true devotion consists in a lively and firm readiness of will to follow Christ with the cross on your shoulder (Luke 9⋅23) regardless of the path by which he invites and calls us to himself, and to desire God because for God’s sake, and at the same time to lose God because for God’s sake.

If those many people who wait for the spirit, and especially if women would measure their profit by this standard, rather than by spiritual feelings, they would not be deceived, either by themselves or by the demon, nor would they lament uselessly, indeed ungratefully, of such a great thing done to them by the Lord. Rather, they would wait with greater fervor to serve his Majesty, who arranges or permits [all things] for his glory and for our good.

Women also deceive themselves when they guard themselves from occasions of sin with fear and prudence. Being at times molested by horrible, ugly, and frightening thoughts, and sometimes by visions even more terrifying, they grow confused and they lose heart, convinced that God has abandoned them and that they are far from him, unable to persuade themselves that, in a mind full of these sorts of thoughts, his divine spirit can reside.

Battered thus to and fro, these women come to the point of despair, thinking of returning to Egypt after abandoning every good [spiritual] exercise. They do not grasp well the grace the Lord has given them in letting them be assaulted by these spirits of temptation, so as to lead them to an awareness of themselves, and so that they might draw near to the one whose help they so need. Ungratefully do they sorrow for that which they really ought to recognize as infinite goodness.

When these things happen to you, what you ought to do is deepend your consideration of your perverse inclination. God, for your good, desires that you know that this is ready for any very grave evil, and that without his help you would fall from a cliff into extreme ruin. From this you should take hope and confidence that he will help you, for he shows you danger and he wants to attract you closer to himself with prayer and with reliance on him, to whom you should therefore give most humble thanks.

Be certain that similar spirits of temptation and similar terrifying thoughts are better expelled with a patient tolerance of suffering and with a decisive turning of your shoulders, rather than with an excessively anxious resistance.

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“to soften”: Literally, “to cool off that which should be warm.”

“Vulgate”: Scupoli would have used the Latin Vulgate as his source, and this verse appears there, but not in the New American Bible (which also, rather disappointingly, offers no clear explanation as to why it’s missing — some other passages are discussed, but not the one where this one appears).

“women”: Similar to the note at the beginning of this translation, this text was based on notes used in advising women religious, so it sometimes identifies problems that, in Scupoli’s pastoral experience, are common to women religious.