Anxiety after sinning comes from pride
1 min • Digitized on September 7, 2025
From The Spiritual Combat, in file "The Spiritual Combat (Dornin edition)", page 22
By Dom Lorenzo Scupoli
CHAPTER V.
Of the mistakes of many who esteem pusillanimity a virtue.
There is another illusion too common in devotion which gives the name of virtue to that fear and anxiety arising from sin.—For, though this vexation be accompanied with some sorrow, yet it is founded on pride, and a secret presumption a person entertains of his own strength. Thus he, who fancying himself far advanced in virtue, looks with too much indifference on temptations, yet finds by woful experience, that like other men he is subject to weakness; he is astonished at his fall, and finding himself deceived in his expectation, gives a loose to anguish and despair.
This never befalls the humble soul, who presumes not on her own strength, but places her trust in God alone. For if she commits a fault, it occasions no surprise or vexation, because she discovers by that light of truth which is her guide, that her fall is owing to her natural unsteadiness and frailty.