One of the most interesting facets of our Catholic faith is how many "mysteries" we have. Sometimes trying to figure out what God is up to is certainty enough to make one feel truly ignorant. The old adage, "The more you know, the more you realize you don't know!" rears its honest head and has us dumbfounded just when we thought we finally "Got it". I honestly believe one single lifetime is still not enough to learn the entire Catholic faith and rightfully so. It's not possible for our finite minds to wrap themselves around nearly 2000 years of rich Catholic history. Nevertheless, our Father has provided a way for us to understand just enough in order for us to live the life He has called each of us to. Since, therefore, every one of us is unique in our own way God works within each of us differently. The same Holy Spirit is at work and guiding us toward the same goal but the means are different for each of us. (1 Corinthians 12:7-11) Once we have freely chosen to, "be transformed by the renewing of our minds" (Romans 12:2) and willfully allow God to form us as to reflect of His Son, Jesus Christ, we will be ready to distinguish the now illumined narrow path that leads to life.Along this beaten path many obstacles present themselves in an effort to buffet our progress. Sadly, many souls who encounter such adversity get discouraged and relapse into their old ways. (Matthew 13:19) If not deeply rooted in the Faith and in love with Jesus Christ one doesn't stand a chance once the seed is sown within their hearts. Satan knows this all too well so he goes to extreme lengths (so far as God permits him to) to thwart the initial sincerity of the newborn child of God. His methods are unique in themselves and take on many forms. We will discuss each form at length in blogs to comes but we will begin with his most used (at least in my own experience) tactic and make our way to the more lesser known.
Satan will most often use a false pretense of normality to quickly deceive the vulnerable soul. In his craftiness he will convince us that the thought, inspiration or idea we are having is of our own origin. It is disguised, oftentimes, as a "good idea" or something that appears to be normal and harmless. Case in point, after Jesus hands the keys of the kingdom to Peter in Matthew 16 Peter approaches Jesus to rebuke Him for when He had told them that "He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things...and be killed" (Matthew 16:21) Peter exclaims, "God forbid! Lord! This shall never happen to you!" (Matthew 16:22) To this Jesus hastily responds, "Get behind me Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not on the side of God but of men." (Matthew 16:23)
At face value Peter's rebuke seemed reasonable. Peter, perhaps, probably thought he was showing his loyalty to our Lord. Satan, desiring to deter Christ and His mission, uses Peter as an unsuspecting host to cleverly (more appropriately foolishly) infiltrate the will of God the Father. He will do the same thing with us. Had not Christ known His mission He may have heeded Peter's rebuke. Satan knew Peters simplicity and took advantage of it.
Also, it's important to underscore that Jesus said, "You are not on the side of God but of man". This seems obvious to us but some Bibles translate this passage to read, "You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." (see New American Bible) This clearly shows us that man's will by itself is contrary to the Divine will. As a result, by ourselves we cannot see the end in which God has for us until we see things from His perspective first. Then the things that happen to us begin to make sense. Once we know what God has planned for us personally and as a whole together as His Church, we will, as Christ demonstrated, be able to discern how God thinks and be able to recognize the sly deceits of the devil as he has shown us here in the Holy Gospel. Thinking "as humans do" is rooted in pride and must be countered by humility which can only be achieved through shouldering ones cross as Christ has.
Another means Satan employs to orchestrate his wretched will is by the justification of selfishness. Namely, the Seven Capital (or deadly) Sins. He will utilize pride, greed, envy, wrath, sloth, gluttony and lust in order to insinuate the need to satisfy an otherwise insatiable disorder urge. The occult of Satanism holds to vices much like Catholics hold to virtues. Since, therefore, the fallen human condition (our flesh) desires these vices by nature, Satan utilizes them to his advantage and an unsuspecting heart can turn black by no fault of it's own. We will be having a series on each Capital Sin individually in the future but for now let it suffice to mention the very thing they all hold in common which the evil one uses to drive souls away from God.
Take, for example, the account in the book of the Acts of the Apostles where the early church is growing rapidly and all the new followers of "The Way" were selling their property and giving the proceeds to the poor. (Acts 4:34-35) A man named Annanias and his wife Sapphira sold a portion of their land in order to help the poor. However, Scripture tells us that they contrived together and kept back a portion of the proceeds. St. Peter, full of the Holy Spirit, knew immediately what they had done when they arrived to hand him the money. He exclaimed, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land?" (Acts 5:3) Upon hearing these words Annanias and his wife Sapphira dropped dead instantly! Satan used what he knew to be the selfish nature of man and exploited the Capital Sin of greed in order to separate Annanias and his wife from God. This account not only shows us how Satan works but it also is a great reminder of how serious sin is. This is why self discipline is vital in the spiritual life. Had Annanias and his wife recognized their own weaknesses in the sin of covetousness they would have quickly been able to see that it was Satan trying to fill their hearts. Perhaps, Annanias and his wife even had good intentions with the money they kept for themselves but the deed was already done. One cannot use evil in order to bring about a good from it.
A sad reality is that Satan (and demons) know us all to well. They know our evil tendencies and latch onto them and use them against us. This is why we stress the absolute importance of knowing ones self and our own tendencies before attempting to thwart Satan's schemes. Otherwise, the powerful force of "self" will overwhelm reason and truth and plunge your soul further into darkness. We need to acquire the ability to see clearly our own hearts in light of the Divine will before we can even think about conquering the evil one. He is a mastermind of how human nature operates and manipulates in such a way that can have uis questioning what we know with absolute certainty to be true. He feeds off our wants and desires that do not parallel the law of God and crushes us if we don't know what we're doing.
We will be discussing the three temptations of Christ in the desert in our next blog and picking apart how the devil's tactics affected Jesus and what we can learn from them in our own lives. While this topic may be scary, the good news is God has already won! However, the battle still exists in temporal form and as we have discussed proceeds from the fall of man and fall of the angels. One thing is for certain, just know amongst all the confusion that sin bestows, all stands still in Christ!
May the peace and love of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in union with the Holy Spirit, rest upon you and your loved ones!
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