Those Who Become Discouraged

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

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)