Whenever the malign demon he sees that we walk directly towards virtue, he attacks us with the fourth deception proposed above. This consists in various good desires that he excites in us, that we might fall from the practice of virtue into vice.

Consider a person who finds herself in poor health, but bears her infirmity with a patient will all the same. The clever adversary, knowing she can thus acquire the habit of patience, places before her many good works that she could accomplish in a different state of health. He makes an effort to convince her that, were she healthy, she could serve God better by being useful to herself and even to others. Having set this desire into motion within her, he gradually increases it little by little. She finds herself troubled by the fact that she cannot effect her will; as her desires grow greater and stronger within her, so grows her disquiet. The enemy uses this to lead her, slowly and ably, to impatience with her infirmity, until she no longer considers it an infirmity but an obstacle to those works that she anxiously longs to effect for the greater good.

Having goaded her to this point, the demon just as readily strips from her mind the goal of divine service and of good works, leaving her with the bare desire to free herself from infirmity. As it does not go according to her will, she becomes so upset as to lose her patience completely. In this manner, she falls unawares from the virtue that she formerly exercised into the opposite vice.

How does one guard against this deception and oppose it? When you find yourself in some tormented state, be careful to leave no room for the desire of some good work that unsettles you because you cannot now perform it. In this, you must accept with complete humility, patience, and resignation the fact that your desires would not have the effect you imagine, for you are viler and more unstable than you fancy. Or consider how God, in his hidden judgment, or due to your unworthiness, wishes not to receive that good from you, but rather that you lower yourself and humble yourself patiently beneath his sweet and powerful hand (see 1 Peter 5.6).

In the same way, if your spiritual father or some other cause impedes you from carrying out your devotions when you want, especially from receiving holy communion, do not allow your desire for these things to trouble or upset you. Rather, stripped of your every possession, clothe yourself in your Lord’s approval. Say to yourself, “If the eye of divine providence did not see ingratitude and defects within me, I would not now be unable to receive the most holy sacrament. However, I see that my Lord reveals my unworthiness to me in this manner. May he be praised and blessed for ever! In truth, my Lord, I trust in your supreme goodness. Grant that I open my heart to your every will, obeying and taking pleasure in all things. See to it that I agree with you and please you in everything. Open my heart to you, disposing it to your every will, so that you enter it spiritually and console and strengthen it against those enemies who seek to distance it from you. In this way, may everything that is good to your eyes be done. My Creator and Redeemer, let your will be my food and my sustenance, now and for ever. Dear Love, I ask only this grace: that my soul, purified and freed from anything unpleasing to you, might always remain arrayed in holy virtues, and thus be prepared for your coming, and for whatever it may please you to do with me.”

If you trust these teachings, know with certainty that, whatever the good desire that you cannot realize, whether because of your nature or the demon who seeks to trouble you and lead you off the path of virtue, or even due to God who tests your resignation to his will, you will always have the occasion to please your Lord in the manner most pleasing to him. Indeed,this is the true devotion and service that God desires from us.

I caution you again, lest you lose patience with travails of any origin, use these lawful methods — typically used by God’s servants — not with the desire and goal of liberation, but because God desires that you use them. Were you to do otherwise, you would fall into greater evils: you would fall easily into impatience, since things are not going according to your desire and intention; or, your patience would be defective, not completely acceptable to God, and of little merit. We do not know whether it pleases the divine Majesty to liberate us in this fashion.

Finally, I warn you here of a hidden deception of our self-love. In certain circumstances, it tries to conceal and defend our defects. Consider, for instance, a sick man who has little patience with his infirmity. He hides this impatience under the veil of zeal for an apparent good. He claims that his anxiety is not so much impatience for the illness’ travails, but a reasonable discomfort that he has caused inconvenience or injury to those who serve him, or for other reasons.

In the same way the ambitious man does not attribute his concern with an unrealized honor to his own pride and vanity, but to other motives which he very well knows do not usually annoy him or even give him pause. In the same way, the sick man who claimed to pity those who suffered for him thinks nothing of it when they suffer the same travail and the same injury for the infirmity of another.

This is a clear sign that the root of their lament is not to be found in other people or in a different cause, but in the repugnance that they have to things contrary to their desires. To avoid falling into these and other errors, bear every travail and suffering you encounter, regardless of its origin, in the manner I have advised: with patience.

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little by little: The Italian is a common phrase, pian piano, which means “slowly slowly”, “softly softly”, or — most literally — “flatly flatly”. (Piano has a multitude of meanings in Italian, including the one you’re probably thinking of, which comes from abbreviating pianoforte, or “softloud”.)

the true devotion and service: Recall Chapter 1.