What to Do When Temptation Seems Overwhelming?

Lent is almost here. The Church asks us to make this season one of particular effort to learn holiness’s two aspects: living fully the new life in Christ that began in our baptism and putting away those things preventing us from experiencing that new life. We fast from good things to remember that all good things come from God and can only be enjoyed when used according to God’s will. We also give them up to strengthen our will so that, when tempted toward things we know are truly wrong, we will be able to resist. ...That we are not yet perfect—at least as perfect as we think we ought to be—frustrates us. Even more, it reveals that the sin of pride isn’t dead either. We are offended that we aren’t better. Maybe even angry at God that he hasn’t delivered us from evil after all those Our Fathers. Why is temptation still so apparently overwhelming? What do we do? A good answer is found in the book Spiritual Combat by the Theatine priest Lorenzo Scupoli. First published in 1589, it is a classic spiritual work beloved by, among others, St. Francis de Sales, who most likely met Scupoli, and the seventeenth-century Eastern Orthodox monk Nicholas the Hagiorite, who translated it into Greek.