However, God does not always use this means, although very effective, but not safe, but when all other means, easier and freer, which we have mentioned, do not lead a person to self-knowledge. Then He finally allows a person to fall into sins, great or small, judging by the greatness or smallness of his pride, self-conceit and presumption, so that where there is no such self-conceit and presumption, there are no intelligible falls. Why, when it happens to you to fall, hasten with your thoughts to humble self-knowledge and a humiliated opinion and feeling about yourself, and with tiresome prayer seek from God the gift of true light for you to know your insignificance and to strengthen your heart in distrust in yourself, so that you do not fall again into the same or even more grievous and ruinous sin.

I will add to this that not only when someone falls into any sin, but also when he falls into some misfortune, calamity and sorrow, especially a bodily illness, which is not easy and long-lasting, he must understand that this is what he suffers so that he may come to self-knowledge, namely to the consciousness of his weakness, and humble himself. In this case and for this purpose, God permits that all kinds of temptations come upon us from the devil, from people, and from our damaged nature. And St. Paul, seeing this goal in the temptations to which he was subjected in Asia, said: "We have in ourselves the condemnation of death, that we may not trust in ourselves, but in God, Who raises up the dead" (2 Corinthians 1:9).

And I will add more: whoever wants to know his weakness from his very real life, let him, I do not say many days, but at least one day observe his thoughts, words and deeds – what he thought, what he said and did. Undoubtedly, he will find that most of his thoughts, words, and deeds were sinful, wrong, unreasonable, and bad. Such an experience will make him realise how disordered and feeble he is; and from such a notion, if he sincerely wishes himself well, he will lead to the feeling of how absurd it is to expect any good from oneself alone and to rely on oneself.

CHAPTER THREE.

On Hope in the One God and Confidence in HimAlthough in our invisible battle it is so necessary, as we have said, not to rely on ourselves, for all this, if we only lay aside all hope in ourselves and despair in ourselves, finding no other support, then we will either immediately flee from the battlefield, or we will be completely defeated and taken captive by our enemies. Why, along with the complete renunciation of ourselves, it is necessary for us to plant in our hearts complete hope in God and complete confidence in Him, i.e. it is necessary to feel with a full heart that we have absolutely no one to rely on but in Him alone, and from no one else but Him alone can we expect every good, every help and victory. For as of ourselves, who are nothing, we expect nothing but stumbling and falling, because of which we lay aside all hope in ourselves; so, on the contrary, we will receive every victory from God, as soon as we arm our hearts with living hope in Him and full confidence in receiving help from Him, according to the following Psalm testimony: "In Him my heart trusted, and He helped me" (Psalm 27:7).

The following thoughts will help us to be confirmed in such a hope and to receive all help for it:

a) That we seek help from God, Who, as the Almighty, can do whatever He wills, and therefore can help us.

b) That we seek it from God, Who, as the Omniscient and All-Wise, knows everything in the most perfect way, and consequently fully knows what is more suitable for the salvation of each of us.

c) That we seek such help from God, Who, as the Infinitely Good, with ineffable love, stands before us, always preferably ready from hour to hour and from minute to minute to give us all the help we need to gain complete victory in the spiritual battle that is active in us, as soon as we flow into His arms with firm hope.

And how is it possible that this good Shepherd of ours, Who walked three years seeking the lost sheep, with such a strong voice that His throat was parched, and walked paths so difficult and thorny that He shed His whole blood and gave His life, how, I say, is it possible that now, when this sheep follows Him, He turns to Him with love, and calls upon Him with hope, did He not turn His eyes upon him, did not take him to His divine shoulders, and, having brought him into the assembly of the angels of heaven, did not arrange with them a festive celebration on this occasion? If our God does not cease to seek with great diligence and love in order to find, like the drachma of the Gospel, a blind and deaf sinner, how is it possible to allow Him to abandon him now, when he, like a lost sheep, cries out and calls for his Shepherd? And who will ever believe that God, Who constantly pushes into the heart of man, desiring to enter within and sup with him, according to the word of the Apocalypse (cf. Rev. 3:20), communicating His gifts to him, who will believe that this same God, when man opens his heart to Him and calls upon Him, remains deaf and does not wish to enter into it?

d) The fourth, and finally, way to revive firm hope in God and to attract His prompt help is to review in memory all the experiences of quick help from God depicted in the Divine Scriptures. These experiments, so numerous, most clearly show us that no one who trusted in God has ever been left ashamed and helpless. Behold the ancient generations, cries the all-wise Sirach, and see who believes in the Lord and is ashamed (Sir. 2:10).

Having put on such four weapons, my brother, bravely go forth to the work of battle and conduct it cheerfully, in full confidence that you will be given the victory. For by them you will certainly gain complete hope in God, and such hope will unceasingly attract God's help to you and endow you with all-conquering power. The same and the other will finally deeply root in you a complete lack of confidence in yourself. I do not miss the opportunity to remind you of this lack of self-reliance in this chapter, because I do not know to whom it would not ever be necessary to remind you of it. This self-esteem is so deeply rooted in us and so firmly attached to us, as if we were something, and something not small, that it always lives secretly in our hearts, as a kind of subtle and imperceptible movement, even when we are sure that we have no hope in ourselves, but, on the contrary, are filled with complete hope in the one God. In order to avoid such heartfelt conceit as much as you can, and to act without any self-conceit, but with a single hope in God, each time tune in such a way that your consciousness and sense of your weakness precedes the contemplation of God's omnipotence, and both precede each of your actions.

How can you find out if you are not relying on yourself and

It often happens that some presumptuous people think that they have no hope in themselves, but put all their hope in God and rest in Him alone with their confidence. In fact, it doesn't happen like that. They can see this for themselves, judging by what happens to them and to them after they happen to fall somehow. If they, grieving over the fall, reproaching and reproaching themselves for it, at the same time plot: I will do this and that, the consequences of the fall will be erased, and everything will go well for me again, then this is a sure sign that even before their fall they trusted in themselves, and not in God. And the darker and more joyless their sorrow, the more accusatory it is that they have put too much trust in themselves and very little in God: for this reason their sorrow of fall is not dissolved by any consolation. Whoever does not rely on himself, but trusts in God, when he falls, is not too much amazed at this, and is not overwhelmed by excessive sorrow, for he knows that this has happened to him, of course, because of his weakness, but even more so because of the weakness of his hope in God. Why, as a result of his fall, he increases his lack of confidence in himself, and even more strives to increase and deepen his humble hope in God, and then, hating the obscene passions that were the cause of his fall, calmly and peacefully bears his penitential labors for offending God, and, armed with strong hope in God, with the greatest courage and determination, he persecutes his enemies even unto death.