Where God is at work, the devil is not idle. When you try over a period to correct yourself on a particular point, do not be surprised if you have to submit to violent temptations on that very point, even to repeated falls. The important thing is never to admit that you are beaten. Fight and never give in, like a good general. The effort, which is part of the battle, even when there is nothing to show for it, plays an enormous part in the formation of the will. We always emerge from the battle stronger.

—Dom Augustin Guillerano (a French Carthusian monk, d. 1945) (via Magnificat)

I liked this because it involves the only good thing I can say about my own religious life, which doesn't really amount to very much. I mean, I pray fairly often, but not very attentively, and I go to Mass every week, also not very attentively, and I go to confession at least every couple of months or so, but none of this is much more than the minimum. 

But I will never give up. I am very strongly tempted not to believe; there is always a voice at the back of my mind saying "This God business is all wishful thinking. The world has no meaning, people are just physical systems, and when the system breaks down the person doesn't exist anymore, and that's all there is to it." Etc.

But I will never give up. I will never renounce the Faith. I will never abandon my hope that it's the voice of despair that is lying, and that the meaning we all attach to our own lives is real. Never. And I hope that will be enough.

Moreover, I have this curious intuition, which I can't explain, that it is not only my own soul that is at stake. And that gives me even more reason to fight on.