Episode 68 -- Spiritual Combat c42.2 -- How to Imitate the Saints

If we are not necessarily meant to imitate the saints in all their austerities, what are we supposed to imitate in them?

In this episode from the Spiritual Combat, Fr. Scupoli gives us a list of ways we can imitate the saints. Not everyone can practice great fasting or physical penances.

We saw last episode that the devil likes to lead true servants of God astray by pretending to be an “angel of light.” The devil is a fallen angel, deprived of the light of sanctifying grace. “But he sometimes urges spiritual persons,” St. Philip Neri liked to say, “to immoderate fasts and mortifications of the body.” The devil gets people to ruin their health. They become discouraged. And then they give up all their spiritual exercises. Let us practice a moderate amount of bodily self-denial under obedience to a spiritual guide. And then follow the saints in humility, charity, patience, distrust of self, etc.