Without Grace We Cannot Even Strive

And so it can be shown in many things, indeed in everything, that men always need God’s help, and that human weakness cannot accomplish anything that has to do with salvation by itself alone, that is, without God’s aid. Yet nowhere is this shown more clearly than in gaining and keeping chastity. Since the discussion of how hard its perfection is to reach is being put off for so long, let us meanwhile speak briefly about the means to it. [a]

Who, I ask, however fervent in spirit he might be, could rely on his own strength and, with no praise from men, endure the squalor of the desert, and endure, I will not say the daily lack of dry bread, but even the daily supply of it? Who, without the Lord’s comfort, could put up with continual thirst for water, or deprive his human eyes of that sweet and delicious morning sleep, and regularly squeeze his whole time of rest and repose into the space of four hours? Who, without God’s grace, would be equal to giving continual attention to reading and constant earnestness in work, while receiving no present gain from it? Just as we cannot desire all these things continually without God’s inspiration, so we cannot perform them in any respect at all without his help.

We want these things not only to be proved to us by what experience teaches but to be made still clearer by sure proofs and arguments. Consider, then: does not some weakness get in the way of many things we wish to do to good purpose? Even when the full keenness of our desire and the perfection of our will are not lacking, it still interferes with the wish we have formed, so that our purpose is not carried out unless the power to carry it out has been granted by the Lord’s mercy. That is why, although there are countless crowds of people eager to hold faithfully to the pursuit of virtue, you can hardly find any who are able to carry it out and endure it.

And that is to say nothing of the fact that, even when no weakness at all hinders us, the opportunity of doing everything we wish does not lie in our own power. For it is not in our power to secure the silence of solitude, strict fasts and undisturbed study, even when we could make use of such opportunities. By a run of mishaps we are often kept, very much against our will, from these practices that do us good, so that we have to pray to the Lord for the right place or time in which to practice them.

And clearly the ability to do these things is not enough for us unless the Lord also grants us an opportunity of doing what we are able to do, as the apostle too says: “For we wanted to come to you once and again, but Satan hindered us.” So sometimes we find that we are called away from these spiritual exercises for our own good, so that, while the regularity of our routine is broken without our consent and we give way somewhat to the weakness of the flesh, we may be brought, even against our will, to a patience that does us good.

Of this providential arrangement of God the blessed apostle says something similar: “For this I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” And again: “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought.”