DISCIPLE: Lord, I will acknowledge my sin before You and confess my instability. Often some trivial thing depresses me, leaving me dull and slow to do good works. I resolve to stand firm; but at the slightest temptation, I am set back.
Therefore, dear Lord, see my wretchedness and my frailty, which are best known to You above all others…Strengthen me, O Lord, with heavenly fortitude, so that the old enemy, the devil and my wretched flesh – not yet fully subject to the spirit – may not prevail over me; for it is against them that I must fight continually during this wretched life.
…But those who utterly despise the world and strive to live under holy discipline experience the heavenly sweetness promised to spiritual persons; they also see the errors of the world and how it is deceived in so many ways.
Chapter 20 – The Imitation of Christ
