St. Syncletica: We should laud remiss and indolent souls who are easily exhausted in the struggle for good...

We should laud remiss and indolent souls who are easily exhausted in the struggle for good, as well as those souls who are easily discouraged and fall to despair. 

Indeed if such souls display even the smallest good deed, we must praise it and marvel at it, giving them encouragement in their struggle for the good. Contrarily, the most serious and greatest of their faults we must characterize, in front of them, as the least and unworthy of note. 

For the Devil, who wishes to destroy all things, or rather to succeed at our spiritual destruction, resorts to the following ruse. On the one hand, with accomplished and ascetic monks, he tries to cover their sins and to make them forget them, so as to create pride in these men. On the other hand, he constantly exposes the sins of neophytes whose souls have not yet been strengthened in the ascetic life, before them and exaggerates these sins, so as to drive such neophytes to despair, until they abandon their ascetic efforts.

For this reason, then, these still irresolute souls we must care for with tenderness and remind them continually of the boundless compassion and kindness of God. Among other things, we must emphasize that our Lord is merciful and long-enduring and that he annuls his righteous judgments against wrong-doers, as long as they surely repent.

St. Syncletica