Pinned Post
Russian, 19th c.
Translation of the Epistle for the Fourth Sunday After Easter (James 1:17-2)
Beloved: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration. Of His own will He has begotten us by the word of truth, that we might be, as it were, the first fruits of His creatures. You know this, my beloved brethren. But let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. For the wrath of man does not work the justice of God. Therefore, casting aside all uncleanness and abundance of malice, with meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
Continuation of the Holy Gospel According to Saint John (16:5-14)
At that time Jesus said to his disciples: “I am going to Him who sent Me, and no one of you asks Me, ‘Where art Thou going?’ But because I have spoken to you these things, sorrow has filled your heart. But I speak the truth to you; it is expedient for you that I depart. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I do go, I will send Him to you. And when He has come He will convict the world of sin, and of justice, and of judgment. Of sin because they do not believe in Me; of justice because I go to the Father, and you will see Me no more; and of judgment because the prince of this world has already been judged. Many things yet I have to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will teach you all the truth. For He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He will hear He will speak, and the things that are to come He will declare to you. He will glorify Me, because He will receive of what is Mine and will declare it to you.”
The Saving Words of the Gospel.
And when He has come He will convict the world of sin, and of justice, and of judgment.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Transcription of Homily
If Christ is sending the Holy Spirit to convince the world of sin, and yet at the same time, He calls Satan the Accuser, what’s the difference? How do we distinguish their voices?
When I sent my hunting dog to gun dog school, after about three weeks, the trainer called me and said, “I want to show you how to work your dog in the field.” So, he brought me out to the field. My dog was running around, and he said, “Call him.” So, I called the dog, shouting. Called the dog, shouting at him, and the dog slowly, dutifully started walking my way. And the trainer said, “If I were shouting at you, would you happily come running towards me?” He said, “Say it nicely.” So, I changed my tone, and he said, “Better, but now crouch down, and open your arms, and be welcoming.” It was very humiliating. And as soon as I did that, his entire demeanor changed, and he couldn’t get to me quick enough. He was, all of a sudden, a happy dog.
There’s a difference in tone in how Our Lord works on our souls and on how the devil works on our souls. Our Lord, says the Scripture here, brings about conviction. Satan is the Accuser. When the Holy Spirit is at work in our consciences, it leads us to conversion, to repentance, to penance, restitution, holiness, and peace. When it’s the evil spirit, he is an accuser, and he makes us spiral into ourselves, inwardly, without any constructive or true thoughts, especially thoughts of God’s mercy and the action of grace.
So, here are some baseline principles to distinguish between the action of the Holy Spirit, who convicts us of sin, and the evil one who accuses us of sin.
The Holy Spirit is working towards our healing, towards our restoration. And so, His voice is very specific, it’s gentle, it’s productive. His purpose is to call us to act, to repent of our sins, to make amends. The tone He uses is one of conviction, certainty, but not condemnation. He points out the sin as something beneath our dignity as children of God. And the result is, when we correspond with His conviction, it leads us to act, and therefore to hope, furthering our conversion, our desire to remain faithful to Christ, and He gives us peace of soul.
Notice, too, that when God brings to mind sins that we have to repent of, He’s very specific. He doesn’t come to us with nebulous ideas. It’s always, “You did this. You have to confess that. You have to make amends.” It’s not, “You’re a bad person.” It’s not something overarching and general. He never deals with generalities. It’s always very specific. And He brings about the conviction in ourselves, I’ve sinned. I have to confess, and I have to make amends for that.
The characteristics of the voice of the enemy, on the other hand, who masks himself as an angel of light at times, sometimes trying to convince us that we have very delicate consciences, is that he comes to us using half-truths. So, he may bring up past sins, but he doesn’t bring up the fact that we’ve been forgiven in Confession of those sins. His purpose is to paralyze us in anxiety, driving us away from trust, driving us away from the sacraments, making us turn more inward as prisoners of our own shame. His tone is harsh. It’s vague. It’s overwhelming. It’s repetitive. And it leads to discouragement. We can even think that we’re beyond redemption.
Notice, too, that he makes us focus on ourselves, not on the heart of our Redeemer. If you want to look at this selfishness of self-accusation, read Chapter 7 of the Letter of Paul to the Romans. He talks about what he calls “the law of sin,” how it makes us ultimately narcissistic. Count how many times Paul says “I,” “my,” and “me” in Chapter 7 of Romans.
The tactics of the Holy Spirit and of the evil spirit are also quite different. God can bring about sadness, and there is a congruent sadness for our sins, but not at the cost of trust in His mercy. And so, when we correspond with the grace, He brings about peace. When the enemy accuses us, it’s heavy. It brings about shame and despair, anxiety. When the voice is from God, and we humbly submit, He gives us graces that are disproportionate to any effort that we put into this. And He will also show us precisely the restitution we have to make. If we broke things or stole things in our youth, we have to make up for that in this life. Better to accuse ourselves now and make amends than be accused of it later. With the devil, his tactic is for us to hide ourselves, like Adam and Eve, amongst the shrubs. To hide ourselves in shame and to hide ourselves from the sacrament of Confession.
And so, how do we respond to these? Well, when our Lord intervenes, we have to act immediately. Immediately. Don’t wait. Because that’s a grace that He’s giving, a grace of conversion, and it requires immediate action. Not frenetic movement, but humble, peaceful, grateful, sorrowful, contrite action. When we recognize the characteristics of the evil voice, we don’t engage. We don’t argue. We let it die of neglect. Just don’t engage. Don’t give it legs.
Some daily exercises to help us in our discernment of these spirits. A morning offering. Daily meditation on the word of God. The devil hates a mind that does meditation. Adoration. The devil hates a heart that opens itself to the action of grace in Adoration. Fasting and penance. The devil hates a body that is penitential. John of the Cross says that the more penitential we become, the more aware we become of how the evil one was always working on us. Because he hides amongst our disordered affections.
So, when we’re attached to different things, whatever the nature of those things are, as long as they’re not God, he’s camouflaged amongst those things. But as we divest ourselves of those attachments, we start to see that he was there all along, and he was working on me, and I was cooperating in many ways, perhaps unbeknownst to me. But now that we’ve become prayerful, now that we’ve become penitential, he’s exposed, and we no longer give ourselves over to him. Also, I would recommend an examination, a nightly examination of conscience. The way to do this is first to ask your guardian angel for guidance, and he’ll help you. Then thank Our Lord for the graces of the day. Recognize the gifts that He gave you that day. Recognize where you cooperated with His grace. And then those areas where you did not cooperate. If we just start with what we did wrong, it’s almost never-ending. If we start with the fact of God’s graciousness, and that we did, in fact, cooperate with some of those graces, then we start to see things with more objectivity. The more we do this, the more frequently we do this, and it becomes a habit, the shorter it gets, and the more precise is our vision of ourselves. The more we do this, the more we start to see things with more objectivity.
Five minutes is plenty for that. We’re responsible, just as Our Lord accuses us of facts; we’re responsible for confessing the facts. With regard to grave matter, we have to say number and kind. If you do if you don’t know, ask your guardian angel, and if you still don’t know, then just say that to the priest. But we’re responsible for facts. Don’t confess nebulous generalities. That goes nowhere.
Ultimately, this is a question of “Who do I trust?” Do I trust the Holy Spirit? Do I trust the Sacred Heart? Do I trust the Father of Mercers? Or do I trust myself? We’ve all done that, and it hasn’t helped us that much. We’ve trusted the devil and his lies, and it got us nowhere good. So, ultimately, we have to constantly purify our intention. Why do I do what I do? Who is the one that I trust, and then we surrender ourselves to it anew. The more this becomes habitual, the deeper we go in this relationship, and the more easily we distinguish between these two voices, the one of accusation and the one of conviction.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
~Fr. Ermatinger