Whenever you become aware that your reasonable will is battered by the sensual will on one side, and by the divine will on the other, with each seeking to carry the day, you need several techniques to prepare yourself so that the divine will may prevail within you.

First: When assailed and battered by the impulses of the senses, you must oppose them with an obstinate resistance so that the superior will may not consent to these impulses.

Second: Once they have ceased, excite them anew within yourself, so that you may beat them down with greater impetus and force. Then, summon them to a third battle, in which you accustom yourself to driving them away from you with disdain and repugnance. These two incitements to battle must be done in each of our disordered appetites with one exception: the carnal impulses; we will deal with those in due course.

In the end you must perform acts contrary to your every passion that leads to vice. The following should make things clearer for you.

Perhaps you are battered by the impulses of impatience. If you remain attentive, you will observe, upon entering within yourself, that these impulses batter constantly against the gate of the superior will, trying to to make it bow and consent to them. As your first exercise, oppose yourself to each impulse, repeatedly doing as much as you can to prevent the consent of your will. Never cease from this battle until you see that the enemy, exhausted and near, acknowledges defeat.

But daughter, observe here the demon’s malice. When he realizes that we strongly oppose the impulses of some passion, not only does he cease to excite them within us, but, once they are excited, he tries to quiet them for the time being. He does this lest our exercise help us acquire the habit of the virtue contrary to that passion. He further aims to make us fall into the traps of vainglory and of pride. Astutely, he convinces us that, being excellent soldiers, we have defeated our enemies quickly.

This is why you proceed to the second battle, calling the impulse to mind and exciting within yourself those thoughts that produced your impatience. By doing this you will feel your sensitive nature moved by them, allowing you to repress their impulses repeatedly and with a greater effort than before. And while we are aware that we do well to repress our enemies and thereby please God, unless we have an utter hatred of them we run the risk that they conquer us anew. This is why you must set yourself against them with a third assault, driving them far from you with acts not merely of repugnance but also of indignation, until these impulses become odious and abominable to you.

In the end, to decorate and perfect your spirit with habits of virtue, you must produce interior acts directly contrary to your disordered passions. Suppose, for example, that you desire to completely acquire a habit of patience, and someone treats you with contempt. This tempts you to impatience. It is not enough to perform the three military exercises I already described. Rather, you must additionally want and love the contempt you have received! You must desire to be insulted anew, in the same way and by the same person, awaiting and proposing even harsher ones to yourself. The reason these contrary acts are necessary to perfect yourself in virtue is that the other acts, even if you repeat them many times and with great effort, are by themselves insufficient to uproot those roots that produce the vice.

Let us continue with our example. When we receive contempt, we should not consent to the movements of impatience, but must battle against them with the three methods indicated above. If we do not accustom ourselves with many frequent acts to love and rejoice in contempt, the inclination to our own will will never allow us to liberate ourselves from the vice of impatience, which is founded on the abhorrence of contempt. And as long as it remains active, the root of vice continues to sprout in such a way as to make our virtue languish. Indeed it will suffocate it completely, keeping us in constant danger of falling back into it on whenever it appears. From this it follows that without the aforesaid contrary acts, we will never acquire a true habit of virtue.

I warn you that these acts must be so frequent, and in such number, that they completely destroy the habit of vice. Inasmuch as vice has taken possession of our heart through many acts, likewise, by many contrary acts, one must eradicate it to introduce the virtue. I further assert that to acquire a virtuous habit requires good deeds more than acquiring a habit of vice requires wicked ones. After all, our nature corrupted by sin, does not help with good deeds, while it does with wicked ones.

Beyond my observations thus far, let me add that if the virtue you wish to develop requires it, you must also perform exterior deeds that conform to the interior ones, as (remaining in the given example) using gentle and loving words and serving, if you can, the one who has been annoying and contrary to you in whatever way possible. While great weakness of spirit may seem to accompany both the interior and exterior deeds, making you feel as if your entire will opposes it, do not for this reason abandon them in any way. As weak as they may seem, these deeds keep you firm and safe in the battle and they make the road to victory easy for you.

Pay attentive and remain recollected within yourself, to fight not only the great and forceful wills, but also the small and weak ones of every passion. Weak passions clear the way for greater ones, so generating every vice within us. From the little care that some have taken to eradicate these weak wills from their hearts — having first conquered the same passion’s strong wills — they have found themselves assailed and conquered when they least expected it, and by the same enemies, more vigorously and ruinously than earlier.

I also remind you to pay attention to mortifying and breaking even your desire for legitimate things that you do not need. Many good things will follow from this; you will better dispose yourself to a readiness to conquer your other desires. You will strengthen yourself and become an expert in the battle against temptation; you will escape the demon’s many snares, and you will do a thing that is very pleasing to God.

Daughter, I tell you clearly: if you continue to reform and conquer yourself according to the manner of the faithful sincere and holy exercises that I have described, I assure you that you will advance quickly and greatly. You will become spiritual in truth, rather than in name alone. Never persuade yourself to have acquired virtue and true spirituality in another way or with some other exercises, even if you believe them excellent and appealing to your taste, so that you seem from them to stand completely united to the Lord and in sweet conversation with Him. As I told you in the first chapter, the true spiritual life neither consists in, nor is born from, exercises that are pleasant and conformable to our nature, but from those that crucify it with all its acts: from them, renewed by habitual exercise of the evangelical virtues, they join it to its Crucified One and its Creator.

You must not doubt that since the habits of vice are formed from the superior will giving in frequently to the appetites of sense, likewise the evangelical virtues are acquired through frequent acts that conform to the divine will. This sometimes calls us to one virtue, and sometimes to another. Even though our will be battered by the inferior part, and by vice, it can never grow earthly and accustomed to vice unless it gives in and surrenders to it. Likewise, our will cannot ever become virtuous and united with God, even though it be called in lively manner and struck by the inspirations and divine grace, until it conforms itself to this grace as necessary with both interior and exterior deeds.