Lenten Campaign 2025
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Living in the world can be very difficult at times — with reason the beautiful prayer to Our Lady calls our earth a “valley of tears.” Especially with modern technology, the world is literally at our fingertips, and this is not always a good thing.
This reality can make the Christian life extremely challenging, as the world typically does not share the same values.
Jesus invites us to follow him, but to do that, we need to strengthen our heart against the persistent temptations that come from “the world.”
Strengthening your heart
St. Francis de Sales provides excellent advice for combatting temptations in his Introduction to the Devout Life.
In it he explains the first step in strengthening your heart against temptations:
Examine from time to time what are the dominant passions of your soul, and having ascertained this, mould your life, so that in thought, word and deed you may as far as possible counteract them.
He then gives an example to illustrate what he is trying to explain:
For instance, if you know that you are disposed to be vain, reflect often upon the emptiness of this earthly life, call to mind how burdensome all mere earthly vanities will be to the conscience at the hour of death, how unworthy of a generous heart, how puerile and childish, and the like. See that your words have no tendency to foster your vanity, and even though you may seem to be doing so but reluctantly, strive to despise it heartily, and to rank yourself in every way among its enemies. Indeed, by dint of steady opposition to anything, we teach ourselves to hate even that which we began by liking.
Essentially St. Francis de Sales is encouraging us to oppose the temptation with the full force of our will.
This will entail a concrete strategy that will push against whatever temptation is assailing us. Often this will include performing the opposite virtue.
He goes on to write, “Do as many lowly, humble deeds as lie in your power, even if you perform them unwillingly at first.”
It’s important to note that when we are struggling with a temptation, we may not want to depart from a particular sin, but that we need to do so even unwillingly.
We may not enjoy performing certain acts of virtue, but the more we do them, the more our heart will be conformed to the Heart of Jesus.
Above all, don’t wait until tomorrow to begin your journey to virtue. Begin today and find one concrete thing you can do to prevent temptations from entering into your life.
And today we celebrate...