THE SPIRITUAL COMBAT AND A TREATISE ON PEACE

By Dom Lorenzo Scupoli · Published by TAN Books

The Spiritual Combat was first published in 1589.  It provides timeless guidance in spiritual discipline.  St. Francis de Sales (1576 - 1622) read from it himself everyday and recommended it to everyone under his direction.

This book is vigorous, realistic and full of keen insight into human nature.  It consists of short chapters based on the maxim that in the spiritual life one must either "fight or die." Salvation and spiritual perfection should not be sought haphazardly; a strategy is needed to win the battle for our souls.  Fr. Lorenzo Scupoli shows the Christian how to combat his passions and vices, especially impurity and sloth, in order to be victorious.

You feel the pull of the world every day—the sudden flash of anger, the weight of sloth, or the nagging anxiety that steals your focus from God. The Spiritual Combat is the field manual you need to stop losing those daily battles and start reclaiming your soul for Christ. This timeless classic shows you exactly how to identify your weakest points and apply a winning strategy to overcome them. Combined with the Treatise on Peace of Soul, Dom Lorenzo Scupoli provides the concrete, step-by-step tactics required to root out vice while maintaining the deep, interior stillness of a soul at peace.

“The spiritual life consists in nothing else than the knowledge of the goodness and greatness of God, and of our own nothingness and inclination to all evil; in the love of God and the hatred of ourselves.” — Dom Lorenzo Scupoli