Vatican, 14 December, 2022 / 1:45 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis encouraged Christians Wednesday to be vigilant against spiritual pride and the temptations of “well-mannered demons.”
“Many times we are given many graces and in the end we are not capable of persevering in this grace and we lose everything for a lack of vigilance. We don’t guard the doors [of our hearts],” he said Dec. 14 during his weekly public audience.
The pope addressed the public in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall as he continued his weekly talks on the theme of discernment.
Without vigilance, he said, there is a risk that one’s progress in the spiritual life and discernment will be lost.
“It is a danger not of a psychological, but of a spiritual order, a real snare of the evil spirit,” Francis said. “Indeed, he awaits precisely the moment in which we are too sure of ourselves, this is the danger: ‘I am sure of myself, I have won, now I am well’ is that moment that the evil spirit waits for, when everything is going well, when things are going ‘swimmingly’ and we ‘have the wind in our sails.’”