Seducer
San Bonaventura
There is another enemy, powerful and mischievous, with astonishing cunning, as Saint Leo Magno says, "subverts the costumes of all, foments passions, explores feelings, and always seeks a cause to harm where he has seen someone engaged with greater zeal.
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Soliloquy of the soul
In fact, this ancient enemy, from the beginning of the adversary of mankind, knows the people to insinuate the throbbing of the throat, infuse the poison of envy, whistle the attractions of lust, promise the ambitious vanities of pride; Knows who can dominate with fear, cheat with joy, seduce with wonder.
He also has some allies, whose genius and language is used to shake others. "Or soul, fragile to resist, easy to fall, difficult to get up, how to avoid the laces of such a cruel enemy that you know of So much scold?
The soul. "I see now that" it is not easy to realize sin for those who dominate it, only when he starts to leave, he finds out in what turmoil he lies. “So it happens that, beginning to free myself from sin and thus to know myself and my guilt, I can no longer hold the weeping. St. Anselm said: "Father, my God, you have impressed in me your lovable image and I have superimposed the detestable image of the devil! Oh, a miserable omnipotent, I could print the demonic image of God! Do not I abhor the imitation of him, whose name makes me horror? That fell spontaneously, I collapsed of my will.
But that, immune from any previous punishment, sinned by pride, I sinned despising the punishment imposed on the transgressor. That was in innocence once, in innocence I was reestablished many times. That rebelled against his Creator, I was born against Him Who created me and also redeemed. That abandoned God consensually; I fled from God who followed me. That persists in the evil rejected by God, I resort to you while merciful God recalls me. Although we are both against God, he is without God searching for him, I am as God dies for me. Here, in many respects, I find myself more detestable than that being, whose image abhorrent!"
Man. - "Come to me, or a horrible substance, flee from yourself, terrified by your own self, not with painful labor of the heart, in fact, you would overwhelm your horror, if you tolerate it, it is a sign that you do not know it, and this would not really be Fortitude, but deadly torpor, not health, but stubborn iniquity".
The soul. - "If I look at it, horror is unbearable, if I do not see it, death is inevitable, or how unhappy is he who is abominable to himself, but much more unhappy for those who foretell their eternal damnation." They are words of St. Anselm. The same thing in the Orations writes: "O Father very patient, O Most High, hiding I cannot, excuse me and confess I am not very sorry. By now I discover the cause of so many troubles, now I recognize the evil that was hidden before me." St. Bernard in the Meditations declares: "My miserable heart, having no future joys or divine counsel, was moved away from himself and immersed in the love of earthly things, fallen from those and absorbed by them, enfolded vanity, He spotted lust, distracted him from curiosity, and was crucified by envy, shaken by anger, divided by scorn, afflicted with accusation; he was so foolish in all the vices, having abandoned the only Good that he could have done".
