The temptation of St Anthony the Abbot
Are you not foolish in wishing to be free from these attacks of impatience, etc.? I know how violent they can be, since they sweep down on me at all hours without any provocation. You forget the many victories they furnish you with, the hours perhaps of hard fighting, and only fix your eyes on the little tiny word of anger, or the small fault, which is gone with one “Jesus forgive me.”
COMMENT: We cannot totally avoid temptation. It is true that we should seek to avoid occasions of sin and not place ourselves in the path of temptation. But temptation will come to us nonetheless. Today’s quote is somewhat consoling for us, for it reveals that Fr Doyle, just like the rest of us, suffered from temptations. But temptations, despite the distress the may cause, are an occasion for demonstrating our love of God by the efforts we make to overcome them. Fr Doyle himself struggled with impatience, but he brought the same methodological efficiency to bear in eradicting it that he brought to all aspects of his spiritual life.
Today is the feast of St Anthony the Abbot. St Athanasius, Doctor of the Church, was one of his disciples and tells us that Anthony was sorely tempted on numerous occasions throughout his time of solitude as a hermit in the desert. We may turn with confidence to him in our trials and temptations.
Many great spiritual writers have outlined ways in which temptation should be faced and how we can profit from them. The following is from the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis:
So long as we live in this world we cannot escape suffering and temptation. Whence it is written in Job: “The life of man upon earth is a warfare.” Everyone, therefore, must guard against temptation and must watch in prayer lest the devil, who never sleeps but goes about seeking whom he may devour, find occasion to deceive him. No one is so perfect or so holy but he is sometimes tempted; man cannot be altogether free from temptation.
Yet temptations, though troublesome and severe, are often useful to a man, for in them he is humbled, purified, and instructed. The saints all passed through many temptations and trials to profit by them, while those who could not resist became reprobate and fell away. There is no state so holy, no place so secret that temptations and trials will not come. Man is never safe from them as long as he lives, for they come from within us — in sin we were born. When one temptation or trial passes, another comes; we shall always have something to suffer because we have lost the state of original blessedness…
When a man is not troubled it is not hard for him to be fervent and devout, but if he bears up patiently in time of adversity, there is hope for great progress.