Once I read a story that went like this: “I remember one winter my father needed firewood, so he looked for a dead tree and cut it down. But then, in the spring, he was sad when he saw that the withered trunk of that tree sprouted new shoots. My father said: ‘I was sure that tree was dead. It had lost all its leaves, and the branches broke and fell like a dead tree, but now I realize that it was the cold that made the branches break.’ Turning to me, he gave me this important advice: “Never forget this important lesson. Never cut down a tree in winter.”
The moral of the story is this: “Never cut off your good resolutions during the winter of your spirit.” We should never make an important decision when our spirit is cold or without fervor; we must wait until spring comes back, meaning when our spirit is encouraged again and it is able to hear God’s voice.
When our spirit is cold it is more difficult to hear God’s voice and it is easier to hear the voice of our passions and the voice of the world. Our spirit is always in tension, pulled down by the low desires and up by the high desires, like the game “tug of war”. Those desires are sometimes stronger, and sometimes weaker. This means that our spirit will be more inclined to worldly things when the high desires are weaker (this time I called winter) and the low desires are stronger and vice versa.
The low desires will never make us grow in holiness, but rather will make us focus on things of this world and be natural or fleshly people who do not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14). High desires make us focus on the things above and be supernatural or spiritual people who have the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16). This is why in order to grow in holiness we need to be spiritual people who are focused on the things above rather than on the things of this world.
It is also important to understand that when a soul who is working on his spiritual life enters this “winter” time and feels strong temptations, he does not see clearly the goal of his life, he does not long for the things above, he does not have spiritual desires, etc.; the soul could be disoriented, and changes in that time could be just a way to flee from that situation, a self-deception. It is easy to lie to oneself saying ‘if you stop this (a supernatural proposal) things will go better,’ etc. In those moments it is better to quiet our passions first rather than quieting them by making the decision our passions want us to make. Prayer, interior silence, and good advice are ways to warm up the spirit during winter, rather than changes that could ultimately freeze it.
