Often the work of the Lord itself may be a temptation to keep us from that communion with Him which is so essential to the benefit of our own souls.
This is my endlessly recurrent temptation: to go down to that Sea, and there neither dive nor swim nor float, but only dabble and splash, careful not to get out of my depth and holding on to the lifeline which connects me with my things temporal.
God is a spirit. Jesus was led up of the Spirit to be tempted of the Devil; and it is also true that spirits are very likely to lead men to the Devil. Too intimate acquaintance with whisky toddy overnight is often followed by the delirium tremens and blue-devils on the morrow. We advise our readers to eschew alike spirituous and spiritual mixtures. They interfere sadly with sober thinking, and play the Devil with your brains.
Satan does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things- he tempts us to make us lose what God has put into us through regeneration, namely, the possibility of being of value to God.
A priest encounters temptation every day, and some of that desire is very natural.
In short, all things that please the natural man in this world, are, to a true Christian, only so many crosses and temptations, allurements of sin and snares of death, that continually exercise his virtue.
Indifference to our neighbour and to God also represents a real temptation for us Christians. Each year during Lent we need to hear once more the voice of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience.
Has there not been, sometimes, this temptation to do a great deal for Christ, but not to live a great deal with Christ?
