From The Screwtape Letters—a fictional work written from a senior demon’s perspective, advising a junior tempter.
In the first place I have always found that the trough periods of the human undulation provide excellent opportunity for all sensual temptations, particularly those of sex. This may surprise you, because, of course, there is more physical energy, and therefore more potential appetite, at the peak periods;
The Screwtape Letters
C. S. Lewis
From The Screwtape Letters—a fictional work written from a senior demon’s perspective, advising a junior tempter.
The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather. You see, it is so hard for these creatures to persevere. The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes, the quiet despair (hardly felt as pain) of ever overcoming the chronic temptations with which we have again and again defeated them, the drabness which we create in their lives and the inarticulate resentment with which we teach them to respond to it—all this provides admirable opportunities of wearing out a soul by attrition. If, on the other hand, the middle years prove prosperous, our position is even stronger. Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that he is ‘finding his place in it’, while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of being really at home in earth, which is just what we want.
The Screwtape Letters
C. S. Lewis
Inasmuch then as our Master knew that if He carved out only one road for us, many must shrink from it, He carved out various roads. It may be you cannot enter the Kingdom by the way of virginity. Enter it then by the way of single marriage.
Can you not enter it by one marriage? Perchance you may by means of a second marriage. You cannot enter by the way of continence? Enter then by the way of almsgiving. Or you cannot enter by the way of almsgiving? Then try the way of fasting. If you cannot use this way, take that—or if not that, then take this. Therefore the prophet spoke not of a garment of gold, but of one woven with gold. It is of silk, or purple, or gold. You cannot be a golden part? Then be a silken one. I accept you, if only you are clothed in My raiment. Therefore also Paul says, “If any man builds upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones” (1 Cor. 3:12). You cannot be the precious stone? Then be the gold. You cannot be the gold? Then be the silver, if only you are resting upon the foundation. And again elsewhere, “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars” (1 Cor. 15:41). You cannot be a sun? Then be a moon. You cannot be a moon? Then be a star. You cannot be a large star? Be content to be a little one if only you are in the Heaven. You cannot be a virgin? Then live continently in the married state, only abiding in the Church. You cannot be without possessions? Then give alms, only abiding in the Church, only wearing the proper raiment, only submitting to the queen. The raiment is woven with gold; it is manifold in texture.
I do not bar the way against you, for the abundance of virtues has rendered the dispensation of the King easy in operation. Clothed in a vesture woven with gold, manifold in texture. Her vesture is manifold: unfold, if you please, the deep meaning of the expression here used, and fix your eyes upon this garment woven with gold. For here indeed some live celibate, others live in an honorable estate of matrimony being not much inferior to them; some have married once, others are widows in the flower of their age. For what purpose is a paradise? And wherefore its variety? Having various flowers and trees and many pearls. There are many stars, but only one sun; there are many ways of living, but only one Paradise; there are many temples, but only one mother of them all.
There is the body, the eye, the finger, but all these make but one man. There is the same distinction between the small, the great, and the less. The virgin has need of the married woman; for the virgin also is the product of marriage, that marriage may not be despised by her. The virgin is the root of marriage. Thus all things have been linked together, the small with the great, and the great with the small. The queen stood on your right hand clothed in a vesture wrought with gold, manifold in texture.
Saint John Chrysostom
HOMILY TWO, After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive
On the Vanity of Riches
And what was it that I delighted in, but to love, and be loved? but I kept not the measure of love, of mind to mind, friendship’s bright boundary: but out of the muddy concupiscence of the flesh, and the bubblings of youth, mists fumed up which beclouded and overcast my heart, that I could not discern the clear brightness of love from the fog of lustfulness. Both did confusedly boil in me, and hurried my unstayed youth over the precipice of unholy desires, and sunk me in a gulf of flagitiousnesses. Thy wrath had gathered over me, and I knew it not. I was grown deaf by the clanking of the chain of my mortality, the punishment of the pride of my soul, and I strayed further from Thee, and Thou lettest me alone, and I was tossed about, and wasted, and dissipated, and I boiled over in my fornications, and Thou heldest Thy peace, O Thou my tardy joy! Thou then heldest Thy peace, and I wandered further and further from Thee, into more and more fruitless seed-plots of sorrows, with a proud dejectedness, and a restless weariness.
Confessions
St. Augustine
Divert them [sensual desires] with some laudable employment, and take off their edge by inadvertency, or a not-attending to them. For since the faculties of a man cannot, at the same time, with any sharpness, attend to two objects, if you employ your spirit upon a book or a bodily labor, or any innocent and indifferent employment, you have no room left for the present trouble of a sensual temptation.
—Rev. Jeremy Taylor, On Christian Sobriety – Rules for suppressing Voluptuousness., The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 3. THE RULE AND EXERCISES OF HOLY LIVING AND DYING….: The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying
If remembrance, however, brings sin back to us, we should refrain from it. Remember what we say in the Divine Liturgy, “The remembrance of evil entailing death.” According to the teachings of the fathers, it is better for us to avoid the remembrance of lustful and provocative sins, because this remembrance brings back the wars of sin.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Life of Repentance and Purity
Each of us, then, should be cautious. If you have repented, then listen to this advice: It is not enough to come out of Sodom, if you do not continue to Zoar. Lot’s wife came out of Sodom, with her hand in the hand of the angel. She was not burned with the burning city. She did not, however, continue walking with God, but looked back (Genesis 19.16). She perished by one look. How terrifying!
Be cautious, then, about looking behind you. Think no longer about the world you left for the sake of the Lord. Do not try to remember the pleasures of sin from which you repented. Do not in any way look back, but rather “stretch forward.” Try to grow in your repentance without returning to sin.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Life of Repentance and Purity
But if you love God, then you will be unable to sin, and the wicked one cannot touch you (1 John 3.9, 5.18).
Then the commandments will not be burdensome. Instead, the sin will be burdensome. The sin will be difficult, for no matter how the enemy tries to pressure your will, you resist and refuse to sin, and you say with all your heart: “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39.9). You will find the Lord’s commandments joyful and luminous, enlightening the eyes (Psalm 18.9). Repentance becomes easy for you, and from it you obtain purity of heart.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Life of Repentance and Purity
SO GOOD QUOTES 