Read on Twitter
Re: the Church crisis, reform, and our own souls. St Ignatius, the 2nd rule for the discernment of spirits: "It is characteristic of the evil spirit to harass with anxiety, to afflict with sadness, to raise obstacles backed by fallacious reasonings that disturb the soul." /1
With the whole McCarrick-Vigano affair, I think there’s some acute spiritual warfare going on. Satan is quite active. And it might not be in the way we think. Of course, he’s been behind all the abuse stuff and McCarrick the failure of bishops to deal with these things. /2
But maybe the end game all along was this: to destroy the spiritual integrity of so many Catholics by bringing us to a false way of reform, namely a revolutionary ethos. His aim was to bring us to wrath, to a spirit of fury, dissension, faction (Gal 5:20), and finally pride. /3
I’ve seen it now in many places: a zero-sum game, where wrath increases, and inversely prayer decreases. Spending *more* time reading analyses of the crisis, raging on media, conversations with sympathizers, etc. *Less* time in prayer, penance, self-reform, works of mercy. /4
Of course we’re rightly upset. But what does the good Spirit call us to in these moments? When afflicted by torments, St Ignatius says, “insist *more* upon prayer, upon meditation, and on much examination of ourselves [and] make an effort in a suitable way to do some penance.” /5
But we think: no, the evil spirit is attacking us *here*! So we need to double down on orthodoxy, on fidelity to a certain approach to Church life, on understanding and explaining the deeper causes of the crisis. Those can be good things. But the evil spirit is cunning. /6
St Ignatius, 14th rule for discernment of spirits (picture): the evil spirit is also like a general “intent upon seizing and plundering a position he desires. [He'll] explore the fortifications and defenses of the stronghold, and attack at the weakest point” not the strongest. /7
![St Ignatius, 14th rule for discernment of spirits (picture): the evil spirit is also like a general “intent upon seizing and plundering a position he desires. [He'll] explore the fortifications and defenses of the stronghold, and attack at the weakest point” not the strongest. /7](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Do8H1L6X4AAH_D8.jpg "St Ignatius, 14th rule for discernment of spirits (picture): the evil spirit is also like a general “intent upon seizing and plundering a position he desires. [He'll] explore the fortifications and defenses of the stronghold, and attack at the weakest point” not the strongest. /7")
Therefore he instead attacks our patience, our ability to trust in Providence, to believe that God is still working through the visible Church, our communion with those brothers and sisters we disagree with, our humble regard of the rectitude of our own opinions, etc. /8
He attacks where we're weakest, and so we end up praying less, doing less penance, loving our brothers and sisters in the Church less, loving our enemies less, trusting less, growing in fear, resentment. Again, it’s not that righteous anger or reasonable criticism is wrong… /9
But the evil spirit is fine using good things to lead us to evil, to sins of wrath, resentment, dissension, and ultimately pride, so we abandon traditional means of spiritual renewal, the renewal which is never the revolutionary ethos, thereby harming us and the Church more. /10
To see this illustrated concretely, historically, consider the saints. Even the saints who have corrected bishops and popes, who vigorously brought about reform, it was always by way of patience, humility, meekness, obedience, penance, prayer, and self-examination first. /11
If you can honestly say that you are first grounding yourself *more* in “prayer”, “much self-examination”, and “penance”, and above all in a spirit of humility, then fine. But if you notice that as your rage and zeal for reform increases, your spiritual life suffers… /12
Then you need to step back and think about how the evil spirit may be manipulating this moment in your life and in the Church. (These are broad strokes, as certain people may indeed rightly discern a call to faithfully raise certain objections to the institutional Church.) /13
But I think the above caution is well grounded in Scripture and the spiritual wisdom of the Church. I’ve also gotten much fruit thinking and praying over this sermon by Bl Newman, comparing the long-term ineffectiveness of a Savonarola to the effective work of St Philip Neri. /14
I strongly recommend it to all who are struggling (and who, like me, are at times inclined to get angry) about what’s been going in the Church of late, along with a prayerful meditation on Galatians 5:19-26 (picture). Here is the Newman sermon: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/occasions/sermon12-1.html /15
