Okay, you’ve all poured over the chart of the seven mansions from Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle that I posted last week and now you’re ready to study each in depth, right? Let’s dig right in. Many people, unfortunately, live completely outside the castle of their souls. These include the unbaptized, atheists and agnostics, and …
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been considering the sources of temptations and how to overcome them. We complete the series today by pondering how to flee temptations coming to us from the world. As we saw earlier, when we speak of “the world” in the context of temptations, we don’t mean the created …
We’ve been delving into temptations coming from the world, the flesh, and the Devil. Last week we discussed demonic temptations in detail. Today, we’ll examine temptations of the flesh and how to combat them. We saw that people with melancholic or choleric temperaments tend to be more prone to the temptations that come directly …
Last week I wrote about the three sources of temptation. Now let’s look at temptation by the Devil in more detail. Two Scripture passages show us how the Devil tempts us. Genesis 3 tells how Adam and Eve gave in to temptation and sinned. Matthew 4 tells how Jesus resisted the Devil’s temptation. The …
Why are we tempted to sin? How can we know when a thought is simply a temptation and when we actually consent to sin? How should we avoid and resist temptation? I’d like to explore these questions over several blog posts, starting with the sources of temptation. Traditionally, the three sources are called the world, …
The world, the flesh, and the Devil–sources of temptation Read More »
Sometimes life is a war zone. So many things disturb our peace. The kids act defiantly. An important contract falls through at work. Our finances are in trouble. The phone rings during a serious conversation. These are all surface battles. The real war we fight is the war against ourselves. God created man in love …
Our greatest spiritual battle is against ourselves Read More »