Ordinary Time

Command over Unclean Spirits

       I am begging you, since it is so delightful, never let any trouble or temptation the devil might give you make you look back;  never let your soul give in to sadness or discouragement, for the devil would like nothing better.  He likes to give us lots of annoyances and different sorts of struggles, and suggest false judgments against what we are commanded in obedience.  He doesn’t do this thinking we will fall at the first stroke, but only to lead us to unreasonable sadness and spiritual discouragement.  For once he has brought us to sadness and discouragement, we become frustrated with ourselves and abandon our spiritual practices, thinking God must not be pleased or satisfied with what we have been doing, since we are experiencing so much darkness and coldheartedness.  We seem to have lost the warmth of charity, and so we think it better to let go of these practices than to keep them up.  Then the devil is happy, because he sees we are ready to be led into despair – and this is the one way he can get us.

         For if all the sins there are were collected in my one body, and I still had true hope and lively faith in infinite mercy, nobody would be able to keep me from receiving and sharing in the fruit of the blood of God’s Son.

St. Catherine of Siena, quoted in Magnificat, January, 2012 p. 141