One can say that, in this combat, two wills exist within us. One is of reason, and so called reasonable and superior. The other is of the senses, called inferior and sensual, and we can call it appetite, flesh, sense and passion. But reason makes us human. Even if we say that we want something only because of the senses, this doesn’t mean we truly want it, so long as the superior will declines to desire it. This is why our entire spiritual battle consists principally in the fact that this rational will feels itself continually battered by the divine will that stands above it and the inferior will of the senses. Each of these tries to pull the rational will towards itself, to subject it in obedience. But those imprisoned by bad habits experience great pain and exhaustion, especially true when they first decide to improve their corrupt life and, freeing themselves from the world and from the flesh, give themselves to the love and service of Jesus Christ.

What causes this? The blows that the superior will sustains from the divine will and the and sensual wills, which always battling in its vicinity. These blows are powerful and strong; they make themselves well-felt, and not without great suffering. This does not happen to those already accustomed to vice or to virtue and intend to continue along that path. The virtuous consent easily to the divine will, while those given to vice bow surrender to the sensual will without resistance.

But no one presumes the ability to follow true Christian virtue, nor to serve God as one ought, unless one desires to do violence to oneself and to bear the sorrow that one experiences in leaving not only the greater pleasures but even the small ones to which one had attached one’s earthly affections. As a consequence, very few reach the scope of perfection: having worn themselves out on leaving the greater vices behind, they no longer wish to do themselves violence by continuing to suffer the wounds and travails one endures while resisting an almost infinite number of one’s own little-wills and little-passions of minor value. Prevailing on them in every hour, these latter vices eventually acquire dominion and lordship over their hearts.

Among the victims are those who, while they may not rob others, become excessively enamored of what they legitimately possess. They may not acquire honors by illicit means, but neither do they abhor them as they should, nor cease to desire them and sometimes to seek them by various paths. They may observe the required fasts, but do not in this fashion mortify their belly, but rather eat what they do not need and desire and long for delicate foods. They observe chastity, but do not withdraw from certain enjoyable friendships which greatly impede the spiritual life and their union with God. These friendships are risky for anyone, even a holy woman, and more so in those who fear them less; we ought to fly from them as much as possible. Such vices explain why these people perform their other good works with a lukewarm spirit, while hidden advantages and imperfections accompany these, along with a certain self-esteem and desire for praise and worldly appreciation.

Such people not only fail to progress in the way of salvation, but they go backwards! They run the risk of falling back into their former evil, a state in which they do not love true virtue. They show little gratitude to the Lord who rescued them from the demon’s tyranny. In addition, they are ignorant and blinded from seeing the danger in which they find themselves, while they convince themselves that they are safe.

Here we discover a deception that far more damaging and equally less avoided: many who tend to the spiritual life love themselves more than they ought, though in reality they are ignorant of how they should love themselves. For the most part, they practice exercises more conformant to their tastes; they do not take up those that truly irritate their natural inclinations and sensual appetites against which every rational being would want them to turn every effort.

For this reason, my beloved daughter, I advise and exhort you: fall in love with the difficulty and the pain that consist in conquering oneself: everything depends this! The victory will be as equally certain and prompt as your love of this difficulty, which shows both the virtue and the war. If you will love the difficulty and the painful combat more than the victories and the virtues, you will acquire everything all the more quickly.

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exotic: The Italian word is “delicato”, which has a broader meaning than the English “delicate”.