Jesus

DAY BY DAY

Rebuking the Devils Within

But always we persevere, and must persevere, with the same desire for obedience with which we [began]…on that first day.

With that same holy fear, we must exercise our spirit in continual humble prayer right up to the last day of our life so that our hearts will never become lazy.

We should always be occupied with praying the Psalms or meditating or raising our minds to God, pondering within ourselves the blazing charity we discover and see in the blood of the Word, God’s Son.

For he has bathed his blood to wash away our sins.

When we see and consider that God loves us so much, we cannot keep ourselves from loving.

And when we love, our mind thinks about the object of our love.

Now we cannot live without love.

And since two opposing passions cannot exist together, we must, of necessity, be stripped of perverse love and clothed in God’s.

Because our hearts cannot but be sensitive to the one we love, we use holy thoughts to drive out the evil thoughts the devil would like to put into our hearts.

And the devil, finding that our heart is ablaze in the fire of divine charity, doesn’t come around much, any more than a fly comes around a boiling cauldron.

But if the devil were to find our hearts fearful and lukewarm, he would come in immediately with all his ugly thoughts and imaginings.

So we must keep active so that we will be found not lukewarm or empty but filled with God in holy desire, remembering and meditating on the wonderful blessings we have received from him.

SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA