Virtues Must Be Practiced With Full Zeal and Without Ceasing

In the work of acquiring virtues, it is necessary always to act in such a way as to ”press on toward what lies ahead” (Phil. 3:13), if we wish to reach the goal we have set for ourselves quickly and successfully.

For the moment we stop, even for a short time, we immediately fall back, because following that interruption of good works—due to negligence and self-indulgence—the passions, which had been suppressed by diligent labor in doing good, will immediately lift their heads through our inclination toward sensuality and self-satisfaction, revive, and stir up disorderly movements and impulses, especially when our outward circumstances assist them. Such movements always disturb and weaken good habits and—what is especially ruinous—deprive us of the beneficial shelter of grace, without which nothing truly good and spiritually beneficial can be accomplished.

Know that traveling the path of the spiritual life differs greatly from ordinary earthly journeys. In an earthly journey, when a traveler stops, he loses nothing of the road he has already covered; in the spiritual journey, if one who is traveling the path of virtue stops, he loses much of the virtues previously acquired, as I have said. In an ordinary journey, the farther the traveler goes, the greater his weariness grows; but in traveling the path of the spiritual life, the longer one extends the journey, ”pressing on toward what lies ahead,” the greater strength and capacity he acquires for further progress.

The reason for this is that through the labors on the path of virtue, the lower part of our being—that is, the flesh, whose resistance against the spirit makes the path of virtue harsh and burdensome—grows continually weaker in its opposition to the spirit, while the higher part, where virtue dwells—that is, the spirit—grows continually stronger and becomes more powerful. Therefore, the more we advance in virtue and goodness, the more that painful difficulty which we encounter at the beginning of entering this path is diminished.

Moreover, a certain hidden sweetness, given by God, mingles with our heart and increases hour by hour. As a result of this, pressing on toward what lies ahead with ever greater willingness and strength, we ascend easily from virtue to virtue and finally reach the very summit of spiritual perfection, where the soul begins to do every good, no longer as if driven by force and without any savoring of it, but with eager striving and joy. For, having subdued and conquered the passions and detached itself from everything created, it now lives in God and in him, amid the pleasant labors of the spirit, tastes unceasingly a sweet repose.