Temptation
How can we face serious temptations?
First of all by learning what it is to live on trust: when a temptation comes, to recognise it honestly and to evaluate it—see what sort of response is needed—then, even if it makes me frightened or even terrified, to remember that it doesn’t have the last word. Also, that this particular temptation, even if it may haunt me, doesn’t define me, and that I’m called and enabled by nature and grace to pass beyond it. Because temptations only become really mortiferous when I fall for the illusion to think that, «Gosh, this is it; this is reality now—this temptation.» That’s where despair raises its ugly head. One of the things the Fathers do is to help us recognise temptations, and they do that forensically with great specificity. At the same time, they help us to despise them, and sometimes they will laugh at temptations. They will say, «Ha ha, you think I’m going to fall into that trap again?» And often enough, at that, the devilish plot just dissolves into thin air or the demons take flight.
From the Desert Fathers Q&A session of 7 July, now available as a transcript here.
