Part 4, Chapter 7
Imagine this, your sewer is busted and now raw sewage is seeping into your basement. It stinks, it smells and it is messing everything up. It seems like there is no hope, and it sure is filling up the basement. We may be tempted to just let it keep going or even to blame God for what is happening.
Temptation at times can lead us to no hope. We can be so assailed by it that we can start to give up the fight. There is always HOPE!!!! Continue to fight. Keep up the faith. “Make firm protests against consenting, and ask his help thereto; and, so long as the temptation lasts, do you persist in making acts of non-consent” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 168). God is with us, and keep begging and banging down the door of Heaven for help. “The devout soul when assailed by temptation should never trifle with it by answer or argument, but simply fly to the side of Jesus Christ, its bridegroom; renewing its pledges of unchanging devotion and faithfulness to him” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 168). We are to keep our focus on God and not bring out attention to the Enemy.
The Enemy, we have to remember, is anything that is not leading us toward God. One tactic of the enemy is to encourage us to not bring something up to our spiritual director or confessor. For example, “You don’t really need to talk about that, it is no big deal.” This does happen and so St. Ignatius of Loyola in his first set of rules gives us rule number 13: The enemy “conducts himself as a false lover in wishing to remain secret and not be revealed.” “One great remedy against all manner of temptation, great or small, is to open the heart and lay bare it suggestions, likings, and dislikings, to your director; for, as you may observe, the first condition that the Evil One makes with a soul, when he wants to seduce it, is silence” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 168). It is easier to tell ones spiritual director most everything, even if it seems insignificant. This allows us to lay open our souls to one’s director and trust that God will lead.
We may be up to our neck in sewage (temptation) and it may feel like there is no hope, but God is always on our side trying to help us. We are never alone in this battle!