Those Who Become Discouraged

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The ones who become discouraged are not those who undergo difficulties and feel pain.  It is those, rather, who do not aspire to sanctity and eternal life, those who despair of ever reaching them, who buckle and give up.  The attitude of the former is shaped by a lack of faith, by comfort-seeking, lukewarmness and an excessive attachment to earthly goods, which they consider to be the only good things worth having. Discouragement, if it is not remedied, paralyzes any effort to do good and overcome difficulties. 

(Father Francis Fernandez from In Conversation With God(1:21.1)

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Timeless But Often Unheeded Advice

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In our combating of temptation there are six main things to be done: forestall temptation by watchfulness and prayer; resist it manfully; avoid the presumption that you can dally with evil and conquer it at will; avoid the occasions of sin – persons, places and things; acquire a healthy distrust of self and confidence in God's help; and resist temptation promptly and perseveringly.

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Father Charles Hugo Doyle

A Foretaste Of Hell

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There is no sin nor wrong that gives man such a foretaste of Hell in this life as anger and impatience.

 

St. Catherine of Siena