INDICE I. INTRODUCCION

The strategy of our Adversary can be compared to the tactics of a commander intent upon seizing and plundering a position he desires. The leader of an army will encamp, explore the fortifications and defenses of the fortress, and attack at the weakest point. In the same way, the Adversary of our human nature examines from every side all our virtues: theological, cardinal, and moral. Wherever he discovers the defenses of eternal salvation to be the weakest and most lacking, there he attacks and tries to take us by storm.

St. Ignatius of Loyola

Our Lord said to St. Catherine of Siena: I have told you that the Devil invites men to the

water of death—that is, to the things he has. Then, blinding them with the pleasures and circumstances of the world, he catches them with the hook of pleasure through the lure of something good. He could catch them in no other way; they would not allow themselves to be caught if they saw that no good or pleasure for themselves could be obtained in this manner.

For the soul, by her very nature, always relishes good. Yet it is true that the soul, blinded by self-love, does not know and discern what is truly good and profitable to the soul and to

the body. So the Devil, seeing them blinded by self-love, wickedly places before these souls diverse and various delights, colored so as to have the appearance of some benefit or good. He tempts each one, according to his condition, to those principal vices to which that soul seems to be most disposed.

St. Catherine of Siena

It is a mark of the Evil Spirit to take on the appearance of an angel of light. He begins by whispering thoughts that are suited to a devout soul, and ends by suggesting his own.

St. Ignatius of Loyola

Remember that the Devil never sleeps, but seeks our ruin in a thousand ways.

St. Angela Merici

The Devil never runs upon a man to seize him with his claws until he sees him on the ground, already having fallen by his own will.

St. Thomas More

There are two main deceits with which the Devil usually distances young people from virtue. The first is to make come to their mind that to serve the Lord consists in a melancholic life far from any amusement and pleasure. It’s not so, dear youths. I want to teach you a Christian method of life, which is at the same time joyful and happy, pointing you to what are the true amusements and the true pleasures so you may serve the Lord and be always joyful.

St. John Bosco

Be sure that the precious oil of mildness and humility is within your heart. For one of the great deceits of the Enemy is to lead men to rest content with the external signs of these virtues without searching their inward affections. They think that because their words and looks are gentle, they themselves must be humble and mild, while in truth they are quite otherwise.

St. Francis de Sales

from God, consult your spiritual director so he can judge whether your inspiration is true or false. For when the Enemy sees a soul ready to consent to inspirations, he often seeks to deceive it—an evil that will never happen as long as you are obedient to your director in all humility.

St. Francis de Sales

In anything that is for the service of Our Lord, the Devil tries his arts, working under the guise of holiness.

St. Teresa of Ávila

Satan has a hold both on the slanderer and on the one who listens to slander, because he has the tongue of one and the ear of the other.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Anxiety is the soul’s greatest enemy except for sin. Internal disturbance and seditions ruin a nation and make it unfit for resisting external aggression. In the same way, when the heart is anxious and disquieted within itself, it loses the power to preserve those virtues that are already acquired, as well as the means of resisting the temptations of Satan—who never fails (as the saying goes) to fish in such troubled waters.

St. Francis de Sales

It is only towards what is good that the Enemy employs sorrow as a temptation. For inasmuch as he seeks to make sinners take delight in their sin, so he seeks to make good works onerous to those who are righteous. And as he can lead the one to evil only by making it seem agreeable, so can he deter the other from what is good only by making it seem disagreeable. Satan delights in sadness and melancholy, since he himself is sad and melancholy, and will be so for all eternity—a condition he wants everyone else to share with him. . . .

Vigorously check the inclination to sadness. Even though you may seem to do everything coldly, sadly, and without fervor, go on all the same. For the Enemy would gladly enfeeble our good works by sadness; and when he finds that we will not discontinue them, and that they are all the more meritorious through resistance, he will cease to annoy us.

When the sly demon, after using many devices, fails to hinder the prayer of the diligent, he desists for a little while. But when the man has finished his prayers, the demon takes his revenge. He either fires the man’s anger and thus destroys the good condition produced by prayer, or he excites an impulse toward some animal pleasure and thus mocks the man’s mind.

St. Nilus of Sinai

Our infernal Enemy observes, with malicious intention, the stamp of our conscience— whether it is too sensitive or too relaxed. If too sensitive, he tries to make it even more susceptible to scruples. He endeavors to reduce it to the last degree of trouble and anguish, so as to stop its progress in the spiritual life.

To this timid Christian, who never consents to any sin either mortal or venial, and who dreads even the appearance of a voluntary fault, the Enemy cannot dangle the bait of a real sin. So instead he presents an imaginary fault as a frightful phantom. Sin will appear to him in a trifling word, a thought that only crossed his mind, and so on.

On the other hand, if the Enemy finds in someone a relaxed conscience, he studies to make it even more so. Because this soul is not afraid of venial sin, he familiarizes it, little by little, with mortal sin. And day by day he weakens the horror of such sin in the eyes of that soul.

St. Ignatius of Loyola