Even when the devotion of good people wishes that the evil be corrected and obtains the conversion of many by the grace of our merciful God, the plots of evil spirits against the saints are not diminished. Whether by secret schemes or in open battle, they trouble the resolution of good will among all the faithful. Everything honorable, everything holy, they find repugnant. Although nothing would be allowed beyond what divine justice permits, what serves the good of correcting God's people through discipline or the teaching of patience, these spirits treat with the craft art of deceit, that they might seem to harm or to spare through their own free will. Sad to say, they make such a mockery of many with the wickedness of pretense that some people both are afraid to deal with these spirits when enraged and want to keep them placated. Yet the benefits of demons are more harmful than all wounds, because it is safer for mankind to deserve the hatred of the devil than his peace. Wise souls, who have learned to fear only one, to love only one, and hope in only one, when their desires have been regulated and their bodily sense crucified, are not moved to any fear of or awe before the enemy.
Saint Leo the Great
-Saint Leo the Great (461) reigned as pope from 440 to 461. He is a Doctor of the Church.
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