Discouragement
Discouragement is a sadness that precedes despair. Satan takes advantage of what overwhelms man to trouble him and slow him down in his race toward the Good and toward God.
In "The Gospel as it was revealed to me"
- Judas: "as a disciple, I achieve nothing." Jesus: "And do you think I achieve much? Do not be discouraged, Judas. These are the struggles of the apostolate. More defeats than victories. But defeats here. Up there, they are always victories."[1]
- "What’s the use?" wonders the Soul overwhelmed by all that floods the world, that is, the waves sent by Satan and in which the world drowns. But the Soul, nailed with her God on the cross, does not drown. She loses the light for a moment and sinks beneath the nauseating waters of spiritual weariness, and then emerges, fresher and more beautiful.[2]
- Jesus comforts Elise who is deeply affected morally by the death of her Family (her husband and two sons).[3]
- Teaching on the example of Ruth, who does not get discouraged by being a widow, but assists her discouraged mother-in-law.[4]
- God’s work never disgusts.[5]
- Discouragement of Margziam because no one plays with him. Jesus teaches: "I tell you that it is out of love to care for the games of a child."[6]
- To the Discouragement of the Apostles who have not always been good, Jesus replies: "Friends, few, too few would be those who could possess wisdom because they have been pure from the beginning. But repentance and good will make a man, first guilty and imperfect, become just, and then the Conscience is purified in the bath of humility, contrition, and love and, thus purified, it can compete with those who are pure."[7]
- The Confessed one: "Go quickly to Shiloh and wash yourself and speak to no one" and I did. But I was discouraged because I hoped to see right away and I almost believed it was a joke of young people without Heart and I almost refused to go, but I heard a kind of voice telling me: "Hope and obey" and so I went to the fountain and washed and I saw."[8]
- Jesus to a disciple who discourages easily: "I tell you how this happens: it is a trap of the demon to prevent you from coming. He frightens you with ghosts, embraces you, makes you question people who like you need Light..."[9]
- Jesus: "However, at this moment, I also speak to all those who come from outside, to the sheep who until now have been wild and who feel the desire to enter the single flock of the Unique Shepherd. And I say: let nothing discourage them, let nothing abase them. There is no paganism, there is no idolatry, there is no life different from the one I teach, which cannot be denied and repelled to allow the spirit to rebuild itself anew, freed from every evil plant to be able to receive new seeds and to wear a new garment."[10]
- Teaching on Discouragement to Samuel whom Judas brought to Doubt and fear. "For the sadness of The Spirit, the fear of tomorrow, worries are always weapons that man puts into the hand of his adversary."[11]
In the other works of Maria Valtorta
In the Notebooks
- Catechesis of June 15, 1943: Jesus says: “That the demon tries to trouble you is natural. He can no longer act on your flesh, so he tries to trouble your spirit. That is his work to do. That is to say, he tries to discourage Souls, to frighten them, to make them stagger. Generally, he tries to make them sin to detach them from me. When he fails because the Soul is Good and vigilant and the deception does not enter, he tries to frighten it and inspire thoughts good in appearance, but which are actually harmful. You see, Maria, of the two thoughts: ‘I will become holy’ and ‘it is impossible for me to become holy,’ the most dangerous and the one most opposed to me is the second one."[12]