Peace and Spiritual Combat

For May, we're diving into Searching for and Maintaining Peace by Fr. Jacques Phillipe.  It is that the Christian lif eis a combat, a ware without mercy.  It must be viewed as the scene of constant and sometimes painful battle, which will not end until death - a struggle against evil, temptation and the sin that is in him.  It is the combat of one who struglges with the absolute certitude that the victory is already won, because the Lord is ressurected. The believer, throughout the entire battle, whatever the degree of violence, will strive to maintain peace of heart in order to allow the God of Armies to fight for him. Additionally, he must realize that this interior peace is not only a condition for spiritual combat, but is quite often the goal itself. Very frequently, spirtual combat consists pecisely in this: defenidng one's peace of heart against the enemy who attempts to steal it from us. The devil does his utmost to banish peace from one's heart, because he knwos that God abides in peace and it si in peace that He accmoplishes great things.  It is well to keep this in mind, because, quite often in the daily unfolding of our Christian life it happens that we fight the wrong battle.  We fight on terrain where the devil subtly drag us and can vanquish us, instead of fighting on the real battlefield, where, onthe contrary, by the grace of God, we are always certain of victory.