Episode 64 -- Spiritual Combat c39 -- Proper Responses to Daily Vexations

How can I respond virtuously to the seven command vexations that life often brings?

Fr. Scupoli lists seven vexations that we commonly face in this episode, chapter 39:

1. Being reprimanded severely for a good action.
2. Being spoken badly about by others
3. Refused a small favour in a harsh manner
4. Unjustly suspected
5. Engaged in a disagreeable/annoying activity
6. Having a meal ruined
7. Overwhelmed with illness or some greater evil

These evils can be combined. There can be greater ones. But the crucial question is our response. What Fr. Scupoli explains tonight is how we can respond differently depending on which VIRTUE (patience or humility or obedience or poverty or charity) that we are trying to work on.

Previously, in chapter 38, Fr. Scupoli gave us the background reasons for why such vexations or trials should be welcomed and patiently accepted with perfect compliance.

• Our wills have a great chance to choose the good!
• God’s Providence permitted this in his Fatherly love for us.
• They help us undermine our innate pride.
• They give us a chance to conform our will to God’s will.