What Temptation Gains Us

And so, through the struggle with temptation, the kind grace of the Savior gives us greater rewards of praise than if it had taken from us all need of conflict. For it is the mark of a loftier and grander virtue to remain always unmoved when hemmed in by persecutions and trials; to stand faithfully and bravely on the ramparts of God; and, under the attacks of men, armed as it were with unconquered virtue, to triumph gloriously over impatience and somehow to draw strength out of weakness. For “strength is made perfect in weakness.” “For see,” says the Lord, “I have made you a pillar of iron and a wall of bronze over all the land, to the kings of Judah, and its princes and its priests, and all the people of the land. And they will fight against you and will not prevail, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” [a]

So, by the plain teaching of the Lord, the king’s highway is easy and smooth, though it may be felt to be hard and rough. For those who serve him devoutly and faithfully, once they have taken the Lord’s yoke upon them and have learned from him that he is gentle and humble of heart, at once somehow lay down the burden of earthly passions and find no labor, but rest for their souls, by the Lord’s gift. He himself bears witness to this through the prophet Jeremiah, saying: “Stand on the roads and look, and ask for the old paths, which is the good way, and walk in it, and you will find refreshment for your souls.” For to them at once “the crooked will become straight, and the rough ways plain,” and they will “taste and see that the Lord is gracious.” And when they hear Christ proclaiming in the gospel, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you,” they will lay down the burden of their sins and come to know what follows: “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

The way of the Lord, then, brings refreshment if it is kept according to his law. But it is we who bring sorrows and troubles on ourselves by our troublesome distractions, while we try, even with the utmost effort and difficulty, to follow the crooked and twisted ways of this world. And when we have made the Lord’s yoke heavy and hard for ourselves in this way, we at once complain in a blasphemous spirit about the hardness and roughness of the yoke itself, or of Christ who lays it on us, as this passage says: “The folly of a man corrupts his ways, but he blames God in his heart.” And, as the prophet Haggai says, when we say that “the way of the Lord is not right,” the Lord gives us the fitting reply: “Is not my way right? Are not your ways rather crooked?” Indeed, compare the sweet-scented flower of virginity and the tender purity of chastity with the foul and stinking swamps of lust; the calm and security of monks with the dangers and losses in which the men of this world are entangled; the peace of our poverty with the gnawing worries and anxious cares of riches, by which they are consumed night and day, not without the greatest danger to life. If you do, you will find by experience that the yoke of Christ is most easy and his burden most light.