Episode 3 -- Spiritual Combat c1.3 -- Four Weapons in Spiritual Combat

What are the weapons I must use along this true path of perfection?

200 years ago, in 1821, the daughter of a loyalist doctor, a wife and mother of many children, the famous convert, the foundress of parochial Catholic schools in the United States, St Elizabeth Ann Seton died. After her husband’s death and her conversion to Catholicism, her educational work with the poor developed into a religious order of sisters.

At their meals, the sisters would have reading. One of the early books this new order read together in the refectory was The Spiritual Combat.

In our last episode, we read about God’s plan of goodness for making us holy, a plan that includes crosses and trials as the true path to holiness. Our Father wants us to be like His Son. But we, on our own, are so full of self-love, pride, and vanity. We prefer ourselves to others (bad self-love); we want more than we should for ourselves (pride); we love to make a display of self to win admiration (vanity). Come, Holy Spirit.

In this episode, we will aim to finish reading the famous chapter 1 and its conclusion about the four weapons in the spiritual battle against our fallen human nature, the world, and the devil. Courage!