The Temptations: Not Just Your Imagination Running Away



The Temptations

 This week, we look at part 1 of Resisting Temptations.  Click here to take a listen while you read through.  I like this song for many reasons, but The Temptations seem to capture some of the essence of the idea which our good friend Thomas a' Kempis is talking about in this first part of the meditation on Temptation.  The song tells us to pray!

First, Thomas sets the stage in that we are faced with temptation all our life. He tells us to pay attention to our tendencies.  Then he tells us that even the best of saints, like St. Francis of Assisi, were heavily tempted. Legend has it that St. Francis would roll in the snow when tempted toward fleshly urges, or throw himself into a thorn bush!

Finally, Thomas begins to give us a strategy to fighting temptation.  Getting to the root of the temptation is the key, he says, to conquering whatever is grabbing our attention.

Chapter 13 (part 1)  Resisting Temptations

As long as we live in this world we cannot be without tribulation and temptation. Hence it is written in the Book of Job: “the life of a man upon earth is a temptation and a drudgery (Job 7:1)."


Everyone, therefore, ought to be anxious about his temptations, and to watch in prayer, for fear that the devil, who never sleeps, but “goes about seeking whom he may devour” find room to deceive him (1 Peter 5:8).


No man is so perfect and holy as not to have some temptations; and we never can be wholly free from them.


2. Yet temptations are often very profitable to a man although troublesome and grievous; for in them a man is humbled, purified, and instructed.


St Francis of Assisi

All the saints have passed through many tribulations and temptations and have profited by the same; and they who could not support temptations have become reprobates and fallen away.

There is no order so holy, nor place so retired, where there are not temptations and adversities.


3. A man is never entirely secure from temptations as long as he lives; because we have within us the source of temptation, having been born in concupiscence.


When one temptation or tribulation is over, another comes on; and we shall have always something to suffer, because we have lost the good of our original happiness.


Many seek to fly temptations and fall more painfully into them.


We cannot overcome temptations by flight alone; but by patience and true humility we are made stronger than our enemies.

He who only fights off temptations outwardly and does not pluck out the root will profit little; indeed, temptations will soon return to him and he will find himself in a worse condition than before.


By degree, and by patience, with forbearance, you shall by God’s grace better overcome temptation than by harshness and your own demands.


In temptation, often take counsel, and do not deal harshly with one that is tempted; but comfort him as you would wish to be comforted.

More next week on this strategy:  Thomas will advise us that we can deal with our temptation rationally and methodically, and in overcoming these in the long-run is like working out to become physically fit.
 
Until next time,
Thanks for reading and praying along with me.
tim