Letter 1504: The spiritual life is a journey with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
They stood against the passions over which they had previously confessed defeat. If therefore you yourself have stumbled many times, acknowledge your weakness and fight. Know that the conflict requires perseverance, for the enemies of the soul do not retire after a single defeat but return again and again, probing for weakness. The person who falls and rises again is not defeated — only the one who falls and refuses to rise. And the person who has fallen many times and risen many times is often stronger than the one who has never fallen, for he has learned humility through his failures and vigilance through his experience. Do not therefore despair if you have stumbled, but rise and press forward. For the path of the spiritual life is not a single ascent but a constant alternation of falls and recoveries, and the final victory belongs not to the one who never fell but to the one who never stopped rising.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
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