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39 pages

English

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We are proud to introduce The TAN Classics Made Simple - a brand-new companion series to our bestselling TAN Classics collection.TAN Classics Made Simple booklets are designed to give you an orientation course before you embark on an exploration of the great works of Catholic literature found in our best selling TAN Classics line.Each full-color booklet covers the highlights of TAN Classics in 32 easy-to-read pages. Designed to provide you with the vital facts and features about the life of the Saint, their work, their call to Holiness and the events of their time.Including: Introduction to the TAN Classic, Major Events Timeline, Author Biography, How to Read a TAN Classic section, Words to Know, And much more!Perfect for parishes, schools, or simply a personal introduction to the TAN Classics, these booklets will provide you with a map and compass for navigating the best of Catholic writing!

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Christianity

Catholic Church

Christian theology

Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	TAN Books
Date de parution	21 septembre 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781618901743
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0174€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Robert Gallagher
Publisher
Saint Benedict Press, LLC
TAN Books
Publisher’s Preface
Has God placed this booklet in your hands? Is He giving you an introduction to the weapons and strategies of spiritual warfare? This little guide will be a trusted field manual to help you navigate Dom Lorenzo Scupoli’s famous treatise on conquering sin through spiritual combat in order to obtain peace in your soul.
The Classics Made Simple series aims to introduce the great works of Catholic literature to a wide readership. The Classics of the Faith are not meant only for saints and scholars: they’re meant for everyone. They’re wise, human, practical, and they have something important to say to each of us.
The Classics are also timeless. Other books come and go, passing with the tastes and fads of each generation. But the Catholic Classics remain and God has used them to teach and sanctify men and women of every age.
We hope this TAN Guide will stir within you a desire to read The Spiritual Combat , or if you’ve already read it, to re-read it with a renewed interest. You’ll discover each TAN Guide is a perfect vehicle to introduce your newest favorite Classic to your friends and family. Give this little booklet a few minutes of your time and see what happens!

Introduction to— The Spiritual Combat
Imagine a book whose insights are so valuable that you carry a copy with you everywhere for years and read from it every day. To the sixteenth-century bishop and Church Doctor St. Francis de Sales, that book was The Spiritual Combat , which he carried in his pocket for eighteen years, reading from it daily and recommending it to all those in his spiritual care.
Written by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli of the Theatine Order, The Spiritual Combat is meant to guide us on the path to eternal life and happiness, which come through spiritual perfection. This perfection consists, not in outward practices, but in knowing and loving God and in mastering our vices, so that we may submit ourselves completely to God’s will out of a desire to please Him. We reach this perfection through a constant struggle against our fallen nature, which tends to lure us away from our goal. Dom Scupoli’s words are urgent:
“You must wage continual warfare against yourself and employ your entire strength in demolishing each vicious inclination, however trivial. Consequently, in preparing for the combat you must summon up all your resolution and courage. No one shall be rewarded with a crown who has not fought courageously.”
We cannot simply walk away from this struggle. “This war is unavoidable,” Dom Scupoli tells us, “and you must either fight or die.” But how are we to fight? The Spiritual Combat provides us with a battle plan for all we need to do so: the weapons we must use; what we can expect as we progress in the spiritual life; how we must prepare for and face battles; how we must bear defeats; and how we can face with confidence the ultimate battle at the moment of our death. Let’s look at the weapons we need for our spiritual combat and how we can acquire them.
First Weapon: Distrust of Ourselves
The first spiritual weapon is distrust of ourselves —that is, the realization that we are weak and that our fallen nature makes us liable to sin. Without this weapon, Dom Scupoli warns, we can’t hope to overcome even our weakest passions. We must convince ourselves of its necessity, because we have a tendency to overestimate our abilities and our importance.
Although distrust of our strength is a gift of God, we have to work to obtain it, and Dom Scupoli gives us four ways to do so:
1. We must consider our powerlessness to do any good without God’s help.
2. We must ask God, humbly and earnestly, to grant us the grace to distrust ourselves.
3. We must gradually accustom ourselves to distrust our strength and the illusions of our mind.
4. Whenever we do commit a fault, we must try to discover our vulnerabilities, knowing that God permits our failures so that we may develop greater knowledge of ourselves.
Second Weapon: Confidence in God
As we learn to distrust ourselves, we must place all our confidence in God , trusting that He who created us for eternal life with Him will provide us with all we need to attain that goal. Again Dom Scupoli recommends four ways to acquire this confidence:
1. We must humbly ask God to grant us confidence in Him.
2. We must think deeply about God’s immense power, His infinite wisdom, His unlimited goodness, and His readiness to give all that is needed to those who love Him. Contemplating these attributes will help to convince us that God knows our needs and is able and willing to fulfill them.
3. We must recall the numerous scriptural examples and assurances of God’s providing for those who trust in Him.
4. Finally, before performing a good action or considering a failure of ours, we should remind ourselves of our own weakness, on one hand, and God’s infinite power, wisdom, and goodness on the other.
Knowing how easily we fool ourselves, Dom Scupoli offers a test to prove whether we have truly developed distrust of ourselves and confidence in God. If we have developed these weapons, our faults and failures will neither surprise us nor cause us despair. We will be sorry for them, of course, but we won’t lose our peace of mind. We will simply attribute them to our own weakness and renew our hope and prayer for God’s help.
Third Weapon: The Proper Use of Our Mind and Body
The third weapon in our spiritual arsenal is the proper use of our mind (that is, our understanding and our will) and our body toward spiritual perfection.
The first step, Dom Scupoli counsels, is to free our minds of ignorance and curiosity. To overcome ignorance, we must distinguish between what is good and what is evil, and between truth and falsehood, by diligently examining everything, not by appearances or according to our senses or by what the world thinks, but by the light of the Holy Spirit, for which we must pray. To rid our mind of curiosity, we must not let it wander aimlessly or become consumed with worldly things, gossip, or an overwhelming desire for news. A disciplined mind will help us to focus on Christ and on what He asks of us.
As well as regulating our mind, we must conform our will entirely to the will of God and must act always with a desire to please Him. Dom Scupoli cautions us here that we must be on guard against performing even good acts out of self-love or for the pleasure they bring us, rather than out of love for God. Before acting, we must first consider God and whether the action coincides with His will and whether we desire it because it pleases only Him. When we develop a habit of doing this, our will becomes more aligned with God’s will.

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Classics Made Simple , livre ebook

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