"Because you were pleasing to God, it was needful that you should be tried by temptation." - the angel Raphael to Tobias"Because you were pleasing to God, it was needful that you should be tried by temptation." - the angel Raphael to Tobias
Those who have given themselves up to the spiritual life have no difficulty in persuading themselves that they are pleasing to God, when He makes them feel the sweetness of His presence, and when He overwhelms them with His caresses, when they enjoy a peace which nothing seems to trouble, and when they experience nothing painful either from the attacks of the devil or from the malice of man. But when God withdraws His consolations, when He allows the devil to tempt them and men to put their virtue to the proof, then, if they are told that all this is a certain sign that they are pleasing to God, it would not be so easy to persuade them of it; on the contrary, they then think that God has forsaken them, that they please Him no longer as they once did, and they seek uneasily to discover what there can have been in their conduct to induce God to treat them with so much severity.
Nevertheless, here is an angel revealing to Tobias that it was just because he was pleasing to God that it was necessary for him to be tried by temptation. Mark the connection: God, and the devil, and men all try you. What is the necessary cause of this treatment? It is because you are pleasing to God. Temptations are therefore the reward of your previous fidelity; and God allows them on purpose to make you still more agreeable in His eyes, and consequently more holy and perfect. Every page of the Old and the New Testament contains proofs and examples of this truth. And it is undoubtedly the most powerful motive for consolation which the servants of God can have in all their trials.
Thus, when they begin to give themselves to God, the first thing they must most certainly expect is this: that if they serve Him with their whole heart, if they are faithful to His graces, if they neglect nothing to make themselves pleasing in His sight, He will try them with every sort of affliction; He will allow the devil to tempt them, He will send them humiliations and persecutions, and they must prepare themselves for all this by an entire resignation to the will of God.
But if, after several years passed in the service of God, their interior peace is uncrossed by any kind of trouble, if the devil and men leave them in tranquillity, then it is that they ought to mistrust their virtue, and believe that they are not really as pleasing to God as they thought they were.
It is, therefore, very necessary that temptation should try the true servants of God. What do we mean by the word try? We mean, first of all, that temptation makes clear and obvious the truth and genuineness of their virtue. For what is a virtue worth that has never been exercised? It is a feeble virtue, a doubtful virtue of which we can make no account, and which we cannot rely upon. Is it at all difficult to walk when God is helping us on? Or to pray when we are inundated with spiritual consolations? Or to overcome ourselves when the attractions of grace are so triumphant that they leave scarcely any room for the smallest resistance on the part of nature? Is it a painful thing to rest peacefully in the bosom of God, sheltered from all winds and tempests; to be feared by the devil, who keeps himself at a distance; and respected by men who pay homage to piety in our person? Certainly holiness would be neither difficult, nor rare, nor terrible to corrupt nature, if it could be acquired without any effort, without any combats, without any contradictions; and it would have been most unreasonable of Saint Paul to compare Christians to the athletes who, after long and painful training, came to struggle in the arena, and who gained the victory at the cost of so much sweat and often of so much blood. A virtue that has never been tried does not deserve the name of virtue.
Next, what does to try mean? It means to purify. Just as metals are tried and purified from all alloy by placing them in the crucible, so is virtue purified in the crucible of temptation. And from what is it purified? From the alloy of that spirit of self-interest which debases it, from the self-love which corrupts it, from the pride which poisons it. It is impossible for virtue to be what it should be that is to say, disinterested, unappropriating, expecting no reward, free from all vain complacency unless it has passed through the crucible of many temptations. The effect of every temptation against purity, for example, or against faith, or against hope, is to strengthen these virtues in our soul and carry them to the highest degree. The effect of anxieties, of weariness in doing good, of disgust at everything, of evident repugnance to duty, of extreme desolation, so that all sensible grace is withdrawn from us, and God seems to have forsaken us the effect of all this is to purify our love, to increase our courage, our fidelity, and our perseverance. The effect of calumnies, vexations, and persecutions is to raise us above all human respect, and at the same time to take away from us a certain good opinion of ourselves which the praise of men nourishes in us without our perceiving it. Finally, the general effect of all temptations is to detach us from the things of this world, to humble us in our own eyes, to inspire us with more trust in God, and to draw us into closer union with Him.
Temptations are entirely, therefore, in the designs of God, the recompense, the proof, and the consummation of virtue. How, after that, can we fear them? If humility does not allow us to desire them, because that would be to presume on our own strength, the zeal for our perfection also does not allow us to dread them, still less to be unhappy when they do come, and to think that all is lost. But you may say, " I am so afraid of sinning, I am so afraid of forfeiting grace, I am so afraid of being lost, and I see myself exposed by temptation to the danger of all this." You may as well say that you are afraid of fighting, of gaining the victory, and of being crowned; for the apostle says that the crown of glory is only destined for those who have fought according to the rules. Do you not see that this very fear of sinning, which makes you so weak and cowardly, comes from your only considering your own strength, and not thinking enough of the help of God, which can render you invincible? I grant you, that if you only look at your own weakness the least temptation may be strong enough to overcome you. Therefore you ought never to look at yourself, except to acknowledge and distrust your own weakness; you ought to throw yourself into the arms of God, that He may be your support and your protection. Can you be afraid of sinning when the arm of the All-powerful sustains you? What can the strength of all men and all devils do against Him? Can they tear you from His arms without your consent? Is not His help assured to you in all those temptations which He permits, which you have not sought of yourself, in which you mistrust your own strength, and to which you have only exposed yourself at His command?
Listen to the words of Saint Paul it is to you he speaks: "God is faithful" he says; "He will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able to bear; but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear." (1 Corinthians 10:13)
Weigh well these words, for they will fill you with consolation and confidence in the midst of the hardest trial. "God is faithful:" He owes it to Himself, He owes it to His own promises, He owes it to His love for you, to succour you in any danger that threatens your soul. His glory is interested in helping you, because sin is an offence against Himself. He knows that you can do nothing without Him, and that you will most certainly fall if He abandons you. If He failed you in these critical moments He would not be Himself.
"He will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able to bear" The faithfulness of God towards us does not consist in delivering us from all temptation for that would be to deprive Himself of His own glory, and to deprive us of the merit attached to the victory but His faithfulness consists in never allowing the temptation to go beyond our strength for resisting. God knows perfectly, and infinitely better than we do, what our strength really is, for we derive our strength solely from Him and His grace. He moderates the action of the tempter, for He always remains the supreme Master of that action; and He will never suffer the tempter to have more strength to attack than we have to resist.
This is not all: He will increase the power of His assistance in proportion to the strength of the temptation, so that we may be able to bear it and to come forth as conquerors. Thus He gives us more strength to resist than He allows the devil to have to attack us. The greatness of the help increases in proportion to the violence of the temptation.
We fight, under the very eyes of God, and for Him, with the arms which He supplies to us, and it is of faith that it is never for want of His Divine assistance, but always through our own fault, if we do not gain the victory. He wishes to punish us either for our past infidelities, or for our presumption, or for our want of confidence in Him. But supposing we give no occasion for our defeat, we are certain of victory through the help of God.
"But," you may say, "I do not feel this help." What does it matter, whether you feel it or not, provided you really have it? God is only exercising your faith. Is it anything to be astonished at, that while the devil is stirring up tempests in your imagination, rousing all your passions, obscuring your understanding, shaking your will, and filling you with trouble, is it astonishing that you should not feel a help that is purely spiritual, and that is acting only in the very depths of your soul?
"But I think I have consented: I am sure of it." Never judge that of yourself: God does not wish it; you will deceive yourself, and you will by this give the devil power over you, and he will drive you to despair. Rely in this entirely on the decision of your spiritual father, and humbly submit your own judgment to his. "What!" you will say, "in such a matter as this, upon what passes in my innermost soul, upon what has to do with my conscience and the salvation of my soul?" Yes: your spiritual father has a light from God, and sure rules to judge whether you have consented or not, and you have neither these rules nor this light to guide yourself. God wishes you to be guided by faith and obedience, to die to your own judgment; He does not allow you to see clearly what is passing in the interior of your soul, above all in those terrible moments of trouble and darkness.
- taken from Manual for Interior Souls, by Father Jean Nicolas Grou