Catholic Candle note: The article below is Part XXIV of the study of the temperaments, starting with the Choleric temperament. Here are links to the first twenty-three parts:

1. Part I: Beginning our study of the choleric temperament: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/08/27/lesson-35-about-the-temperaments-the-choleric-temperament/
   

2. Part II: A general overview of the weaknesses of the Choleric Temperament: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/09/26/lesson-37-about-the-temperaments-continuation-of-the-choleric-temperament/
   

3. Part III: A consideration of the pride of the Choleric Temperament: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/10/24/lesson-38-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat/
   

4. Part IV: A general discussion of anger as a passion – in order to establish a foundation for studying anger in the Choleric Temperament: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/11/26/lesson-39-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-iv/
   

5. Part V: Concerning the motivations for anger: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/12/30/lesson-40-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-v/
   

6. Part VI: Concerning what anger does to the body: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/01/27/lesson-41-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vi/
   

7. Part VII: Explaining when anger is sinful: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/02/21/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vii/
   

8. Part VIII: Explaining how being slighted provokes anger: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/03/27/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-viii/
   

9. Part IX: Explaining how anger turns into the sin of holding a grudge: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/04/23/lesson-44-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-ix/
   

10. Part X: Recommendations to help cholerics to overcome pride: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/05/20/lesson-45-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-x/
    

11. Part XI: Explaining how a person sins by not using his reason: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/06/28/lesson-46-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xi/
    

12. Part XII: Explaining some reasons why a choleric does not use his reason properly: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/07/24/lesson-47-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xii/
    

13. Part XIII: Explaining why the choleric fears to use his reason well: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/08/29/lesson-48-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xiii/
    

14. Part XIV: Explaining generally how Satan targets our fallen and weakened intellects: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/09/24/lesson-49-temperaments-choleric-temperament-the-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xiv/

15. Part XV: Explaining the passions in general, to lay the foundation for our consideration of the passion of fear: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/10/26/3050/

16. Part XVI: Explaining fear as a passion: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/11/25/lesson-51-temperaments-choleric-temperament-the-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xvi/

17. Part XVII: Explaining how fear works in the soul and influences all of the temperaments: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/12/29/lesson-52-temperaments-choleric-temperament-the-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xvii/

18. Part XVIII: Explaining how pain and death are objects of fear for persons of any temperament: https://catholiccandle.org/2026/01/26/lesson-53-temperaments-choleric-temperament-pain-and-death-are-objects-of-fearf-any-temperament/

19. Part XIX: Explaining in what way sin is an object of fear for all temperaments: https://catholiccandle.org/2026/02/26/lesson-54-temperaments-choleric-temperament-whether-sin-is-an-object-of-fear-for-all-temperaments/
    

20. Part XX: Explaining the causes of fear – applying to all temperaments: https://catholiccandle.org/2026/03/31/marys-school-of-sanctity-3/
    

21. Part XXI: Explaining the effects of fear in all temperaments: https://catholiccandle.org/2026/04/26/about-the-temperaments-part-xxi-explaining-the-effects-of-fear-in-all-temperaments/
    

22. Part XXII: Explaining how to order our loves so we can use the passion of fear properly, and how the devil attempts to prevent this ordering: https://catholiccandle.org/2026/05/28/about-the-temperaments-part-xxii-how-to-order-our-loves-so-we-can-use-the-passion-of-fear-properly/
    

23. Part XXIII: Explanation of sloth in order to analyze this snare of Satan and to combat him: https://catholiccandle.org/2026/06/26/about-the-temperaments-part-xxiii-explanation-of-sloth-in-order-to-analyze-this-snare-of-satan/

    
    

24. Part XXIV: Explaining more about how the devil tries to draw us away from reasoning and from the things of God: https://catholiccandle.org/2026/07/29/about-the-temperaments-part-xiv-how-the-devil-draws-us-away-from-reasoning-and-the-things-of-god/
    

Mary’s School of Sanctity

Lesson #60 About the Temperaments – Part XXV –
The Devil Attempts to Destroy Our Prayer-Life.
How Should We Counterattack?

The Importance of Fostering a Strong Prayer Life

On many occasions, Our Lord emphasizes of the importance of prayer. He tells us to (1) persevere in prayer;¹ (2) be humble in prayer;² and to (3) trust in God saying, “And all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.”³

He assures us that His heavenly Father cares about us. He taught His Apostles The Lord’s Prayer, viz. The Our Father, which includes all of these aspects. In fact, The Lord’s Prayer is the perfect prayer⁴ and is meant to be said with humble submission to God’s will and a desire to receive our intellectual and spiritual daily bread.

Furthermore, Our Lord instructed His Apostles (and us) to pray always. Our Lord said, “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are to come, and to stand before the Son of man” ⁵, and “Pray, lest you enter into temptation”.⁶

Since prayer is the lifting of the heart and mind to God,⁷ we fulfill this precept of Our Lord when we live in the presence of God and keep Him in our minds as we try to please Him in all of our thoughts and actions.

The Four Temperaments and How They Typically Affect the Soul’s Spiritual Life

As we saw in our last lesson,⁸ it is important to know ourselves so we can better use our inclinations to make spiritual progress and to avoid spiritual harm. This is one of the many reasons why it is crucial to discover our own particular temperament. But a person might say, “I do not know what temperament I have.” It is a major goal of this present study of the four temperaments that we will all gain a deeper understanding of the temperaments and discover our own temperament (if we have not already identified it). However, for the present, we list below some general characteristics and spiritual tendencies of persons with a predominance of one of the four temperaments:

A Choleric Tends to:

• Be extremely high strung;
  

• Be very excitable and prone to become agitated;
  

• Have lots of nervous energy;
  

• Allow his thoughts to race “a mile per minute” and thus he has a tendency to be superficial in his thinking. He needs to force himself to slow down and to deliberate carefully, especially to consider what is most pleasing to God. He has to force himself to relax and be calm; and

• Be undaunted by anything and tends to be overconfident; this makes it difficult for him to cultivate a deep trust in God and also a healthy mistrust of himself.
  

A Sanguine Tends to:

• Predominantly use his imagination;

• Love beauty, especially in art and religious pictures;
  

• Be easily distracted and must strive to stay focused; and
  

• Be a shallower thinker and must make efforts to form the habit of probing deeper into a subject.
  

A Melancholic Tends to:

• Use lots of considerations to analyze truths and to draw many conclusions;
  

• Be a deeper thinker and be attracted to prayer;
  

• Be prone to scruples; and
  

• Be prone to worry and to a lack trust in God’s Providence; he has to make efforts to look for hope in difficulties.
  

A Phlegmatic Tends to:

• Lack energy;
  

• Have a hard time motivating himself, as well as feeling and showing enthusiasm;
  

• Be a slow and methodical thinker; and
  

• Have a difficult time observing the movements of his soul because impressions need to be repeated many times before they leave a mark.

We can see from this short list of the spiritual tendencies of each temperament that some temperaments are more prone to reflection and prayer, while others are more prone to spiritual laziness. But we must remember that no temperament is immune from the traps of the devil! WE MUST NOT FORGET that the devil’s pull to sloth can affect ALL souls although some souls fall into this trap more easily than others do. No one should disdain those souls who fall more easily into this snare. Instead, we should foster pity if we find that prayer is easier for us than for some souls who find it almost impossible to focus and pray!

We must all be on our guard. In this lesson we will look at the Life of St. Teresa of Avila and find some striking snares that Satan used on her. We will see Satan’s subtle temptations to lure her soul away from prayer. We will see how well she endured these temptations and see the ones for which she fell.

By looking at her experience we will be able to see how it is paramount for us to study ourselves and to be on high alert for anything that is detrimental to our prayer life.

Four Aspects Regarding the Spiritual Life of St. Teresa of Avila

In our present consideration of prayer and the devil’s tricks, we will consider four aspects of the life of St. Teresa of Avila:

1. Her need to read a book in order to try to pray;
   

2. Her need to see a picture in order to pray;
   

3. Her description of her sloth; and
   

4. Her temptation to give up mental prayer in her meditations because she was not humble and sinless enough to pray.

With the help of William Thomas Walsh, one of her biographers, and using the Rules for the Discernment of Spirits of St. Ignatius of Loyola,⁹ we will be able to make the necessary connections between these four aspects in St. Teresa’s prayer life. Indeed, we will see how Satan was pulling her soul one way into one form of pride and then in another direction to drag her into a different form of pride.

Mr. Walsh explains how St. Teresa was vain, was caught up in worldly friendships, and was not willing to abandon herself completely to God.¹⁰ Furthermore, although she was careful to not commit any mortal sins, she was not cautious about venial sin and did not give up occasions of sin. We will see how these things led to her downfall.

Since St. Teresa was trying to avoid mortal sin, Satan tempted her with false reasoning in a different way. As St. Ignatius explains in his Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, this is a typical tactic of the devil.¹¹ The devil certainly did not want her to succeed in having a prayer life, so he deceived her to be disappointed that she needed to use a book to occupy her mind and needed to use a picture to touch her heart in order to move herself to make acts of love for God. Her disappointment in herself and her discouragement about her problems praying were temptations to pride.

Regarding the Need to Use a Book

She thought it was impossible for her to practice mental prayer without a book, and so she says,

Reading is of great service towards procuring recollection in anyone who proceeds in this way [viz., the way of prayer]; and it is even necessary for him, however little it may be that he reads, if only as a substitute for the mental prayer which is beyond his reach.¹²

And again,

My soul was as much afraid to pray without one [viz., a book], as if it had to fight against a host [i.e., an army]. With a book to help me — it was like a companion, and a shield whereon to receive the blows of many thoughts – I found comfort; for it was not usual with me to be in aridity: but I always was so when I had no book; for my soul was disturbed, and my thoughts wandered at once. With one, [viz., a book] I began to collect my thoughts, and, using it as a decoy, kept my soul in peace, very frequently by merely opening a book – there was no necessity for more. Sometimes, I read but little; at other times, much – according as our Lord had pity on me.¹³

Regarding Her Need to See a Picture

She expresses her disappointment in her poor imagination as follows:

God never endowed me with the gift of making reflections with the understanding, or with that of using the imagination to any good purpose; my imagination is so sluggish, that even if I would think of our Lord’s Humanity, or picture It to myself, as I used to labor to picture It, I never could do it.¹⁴ …

My understanding was so dull, that I could never represent in the imagination either heavenly or high things in any form whatever until our Lord placed them before me in another way.¹⁵

And again,

I was so little able to put things before myself by the help of my understanding, that, unless I saw a thing with my eyes, my imagination was of no use whatever. I could not do as others do, who can put matters before themselves so as to become recollected thereby. I was able to think of Christ only as man. But so it was; and I never could form any image of Him to myself, though I read much of His beauty, and looked at pictures of Him. I was like one who is blind, or in the dark, who, though speaking to a person present, and feeling his presence, because he knows for certain that he is present – I mean, that he understands him to be present, and believes it – yet does not see him. It was thus with me when I used to think of our Lord. This is why I was so fond of images.¹⁶

During this period of her life, Satan deluded her to such an extent that she really thought that some people just could not engage in mental prayer. She thought that such people simply did not have the ability although they otherwise had normal abilities and use of their minds. She explained in her autobiography that she thought that she and some other people simply could not engage in mental prayer.

The problem was really with her will as she saw later on. We will treat mental prayer later in this lesson.

Regarding Her Dread of Prayer – Her Sloth

Satan deluded her, moving her to a great dread and fear of prayer. These quickly led her to sloth – i.e., a distaste for the things of God and the loss of charity in the soul.

St. Ignatius of Loyola teaches us that Satan studies the soul in order to detect its weaknesses and then he attacks at those weak spots.¹⁷ This includes Satan pushing someone further in a bad direction in which he is already leaning. St. Teresa wrote,

I failed in my duty to God, because I was not leaning on the strong pillar of prayer. I passed nearly twenty years on this stormy sea, falling and rising, but rising to no good purpose, seeing that I went and fell again. My life was one of perfection;¹⁸ but it was so mean, that I scarcely made any account whatever of venial sins; and though of mortal sins I was afraid, I was not so afraid of them as I ought to have been, because I did not avoid the perilous occasions of them. I may say that it was the most painful life that can be imagined, because I had no sweetness in God, and no pleasure in the world.¹⁹

And again,

When I was in the midst of the pleasures of the world, the remembrance of what I owed to God made me sad; and when I was praying to God, my worldly affections disturbed me. This is so painful a struggle, that I know not how I could have borne it for a month, let alone for so many years.²⁰

Later, speaking from the perspective of her better understanding of these matters after her conversion, she says,

I do not understand what there can be to make them afraid, who are afraid, to begin mental prayer, nor do I know what it is they dread. The devil does well to bring this fear upon us, that he may really hurt us. By putting me in fear, he can make me cease from thinking of my offences against God, of the great debt I owe Him, of the existence of heaven and hell, and of the great sorrows and trials He underwent for me …. I was more occupied with the wish to see the end of the time I had appointed for myself to spend in prayer, and in watching the hour-glass, than with other thoughts that were good. If a sharp penance had been laid upon me, I know of none that I would not very often have willingly undertaken, rather than prepare myself for prayer by self-recollection. And certainly the violence with which Satan assailed me was so irresistible, or my evil habits were so strong, that I did not betake myself to prayer; and the sadness I felt on entering the oratory was so great, that it required all the courage I had to force myself in.²¹

We can see by these quotes how the Father of lies attacks souls with great violence so he can dissuade them from practicing mental prayer. In these passages one must keep in mind that St. Teresa of Avila was primarily afflicted in her soul because she was not willing to give up worldly friendships. These are the occasions of sin to which she refers.

There were two occasions in which the Lord brought her to tears of compunction as she was beginning to convert and to change her life. Unfortunately, she viewed those tears as womanly weakness and tried to disregard them. She was choleric-sanguine in temperament and did not appreciate those precious tears as she ought to have done. In a future lesson we will come back to the dangers choleric women face when dealing with their feminine nature.

Regarding Her Temptation to Give Up Mental Prayer Because She Was Not Humble and Sinless Enough

The next form of pride Satan tempted her with was to have her believe that she would overcome her sinful tendencies without Divine aid.

She tells us,

I do not think I ever escaped so great a danger as this device of Satan, which he would have imposed upon me in the disguise of humility. He filled me with such thoughts as these: How could I make my prayer, who was so wicked, and yet had received so many mercies? It was enough for me to recite the [Divine] Office, as all others did; but as I did not do that much well, how could I desire to do more? I was not reverential enough, and made too little of the mercies of God. There was no harm in these thoughts and feelings in themselves; but to act upon them, that was an exceedingly great wickedness. Blessed be Thou, O Lord; for Thou camest to my help. This seems to me to be in principle the temptation of Judas, only that Satan did not dare to tempt me so openly. But he might have led me, little by little, as he led Judas to the same pit of destruction.²²

A little later in her recounting of this horrific temptation, St. Teresa adds:

I do not think I ever gave up my purpose of resuming my prayer; but I was waiting to be very free from sin first.

Oh, how deluded I was in this expectation! The devil would have held it out before me till the Day of Judgment, that he might then take me with him to hell. Then, when I applied myself to prayer and to spiritual reading, – whereby I might perceive these truths, and the evil nature of the way I was walking, and was often importunate with our Lord in tears, – I was so wicked, that it availed me nothing; when I gave that up, and wasted my time in amusing myself, in great danger of falling into sin, and with scanty helps, – and I may venture to say no help at all, unless it was a help to my ruin, –what could I expect but that of which I have spoken?

I believe that a certain Dominican friar, a most learned man, has greatly merited in the eyes of God; for it was he who roused me from this slumber. He made me – I think I said so before – go to Communion once a fortnight, and be less given to evil; I began to be converted, though I did not cease to offend our Lord all at once; however, as I had not lost my way, I walked on in it, though slowly, falling and rising again; and he who does not cease to walk and press onwards, arrives at last, even if late. To lose one’s way is – so it seems to me – nothing else but the giving up of prayer. God, of His mercy, keeps us from this!²³

We can see how insidiously clever Satan is when we consider St. Teresa’s temptations. We see how the devil had earlier lured St. Teresa into the worldly vanities into which she fell. Then because her conscience was pricking her, the devil “took her in the opposite direction” by preying upon her sensitive conscience and trying to drive her into scruples (which is another form of pride). The devil’s motive was to do anything he could to have her give up prayer because that would surely be her downfall.

The devil’s attacks on St. Teresa are interesting and instructive for us concerning the devil’s use of this same tactic especially targeting Catholics – because the damnation of a Catholic is a much greater victory for Satan (as compared to the damnation of a person outside of the Church) and such damnation mocks God’s greater goodness toward Catholics.

An Important Note about Mental Prayer. What is Mental Prayer?

Mental prayer, like all prayer, is lifting the heart and mind to God.²⁴ This speaking to God is making an act of our will. It can be telling Him that we love Him. Our words to God do not have to be elaborate. We simply can tell Him what we are thinking. It is not that He doesn’t already know this, but He wants us to desire to tell Him. He wants us to cooperate with Him in the work of our salvation.

Thus, mental prayer is dependent upon our actions. It is important to keep in mind that St. Teresa really had the human ability to collect her thoughts and say something to God. She explains how she was fooled by the fear (with which Satan deluded her) of trying to gather her thoughts and simply to open her heart to speak to God. She was simply resisting God’s call to give Him her whole heart. Once she was willing to abandon her heart to God, her friendship with Him grew to a beautiful mystical marriage.²⁵

St. Teresa herself has this to say as a lesson we should learn from her experience:

One must humbly ask himself to consider (1) what the world is; (2) what he owes to God; (3) the great sufferings of God for him; (4) his own scanty service in return; and (5) the reward God reserves for those who love Him.

If one considers these things then, he learns how to defend himself against his own thoughts and against the occasions and perils of sin.²⁶

We should be grateful to God for allowing us to have knowledge of the wonderful lives of the saints in order to learn how they cooperated with God in their salvation. God is marvelous in His Providence and His sculpting of souls. What a great inspiration for us all!

A Preview…

We want to learn, as did St. Teresa of Avila and the other saints, the fruits of avoiding worldliness. In our next lesson we will look further into how we can know ourselves better in order to help us to avoid worldliness, so that we can foster and preserve a solid prayer life and to grow in friendship with God.