If the soul is vigilant and withdraws from all distraction and abandons its own will, then the spirit of God invades it and it can conceive because it is free to do so.
God seeks nothing else from us men except that we do not sin; this alone. But this is not a work of law; it is rather a careful guarding of the image and dignity from above. In these things, affirmed in our nature and bearing the radiant garment of the Spirit, we shall abide in God and He in us. We shall be called good, and sons of God by adoption, marked in the light of our knowledge of God.
If the base of a felled tree that has grown old in the earth and rock ‘will bud at the scent of water . . . like a young plant’ (Job 14:9), it is also possible for us to be awakened by the power of the Holy Spirit and to flower with the incorruptibility that is ours by nature, bearing fruit like a young plant, even though we have fallen into sin.
Peter was first given the keys, but then he was allowed to fall into the sin of denying Christ; and so his pride was humbled by his fall. Do not be surprised, then, if after receiving the keys of spiritual knowledge you fall into various evil thoughts. Glorify our Lord, for He alone is wise: through setbacks of this kind He restrains the presumption that we tend to feel because of our advance in the knowledge of God. Trials and temptations are the reins whereby God in His providence restrains our human arrogance.
The humility which in due time and by God's grace, after many struggles and tears, is given by heaven to those who seek it is something incompararably stronger and higher than the sense of abasement felt by those who have lapsed from holiness. This higher humility is granted only to those who have attained true perfection and are no longer under the sway of sin.
'Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom' (Prov. 1:7). For where there is fear, there the commandments are kept, and where the commandments are kept the flesh is purified, together with the cloud that envelops the soul and prevents it from clearly seeing the divine radiance.
A house roof is held up by the foundations and the rest of the building, and the foundations with the rest of the building are laid to hold the roof - since both are necessary and useful - and neither is the roof built without the foundations and the rest of the house, nor can foundations and walls without a roof make a building fit to live in. So it is with the soul: the grace of the Holy Spirit is preserved by keeping the commandments, and the keeping of commandments is the foundation laid for receiving the gift of God's grace. Neither does the grace of the Holy Spirit remain in us without our obeying the commandments, nor can obeying the commandments be useful and salutary without Divine grace.
'Then the devil left Him, and angels came and ministered to Him' (Matthew 4:11). It does not say that the angels were with our Lord during the actual time when He was being tempted. In the same way, when we are being tempted, God's angels for a time withdraw a little. Then, after the departure of those tempting us, they come and minister to us with divine intellections, giving us support, illumination, compunction, encouragement, patient endurance, joyfulness, and everything that saves and strengthens and renews our exhausted soul. As Nathaniel was told, 'You will see the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man' (John 1:51); in other words, the ministry and assistance of the angels will be given generously to mankind.
It seems to me that few people understand the extent of the cunning wickedness of these demons and the way in which they assist one another. I have known the demon of cowardice to fight and work together with that of listlessness. One comes to the aid of the other and reinforces him. The first brings fear and obduracy into the soul, the second produces darkness, negligence, blindness of heart and mind, and finally despair. Listlessness is a real trial for all those engaged in the spiritual struggle, but it becomes for them the ambassador of humility.
Those who fervently desire to remain amid (in the world) as well as those who live a worthy life in communities, in mountains and in caves are saved; and God bestows on them great blessings solely because they rest their faith in Him.
