Disrespected by the Devil
By Fr. Matthew Palkowski OFM Cap
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Temptation to sin is a temptation to disrespect ourselves, even to enslave ourselves. To live a morally virtuous life is to respect ourselves; it is difficult but a morally virtuous life is to understand who we are and what we deserve.

Now, one might ask what I could possibly mean. Isn't sin all the "fun" stuff that old people, too old to have any fun, what to take away from everyone else? And the answer is "no." But to understand why, one must think a bit about what evil is, what sin is, who God is and who we are.

God is the highest of all that is good and the highest in all that is good. All splendor, all joy, all delight that we know are only pale shadows of the reality of these things in God. What is good draws us; goodness is desirable and majestic, with a mixture of the two that varies with each good. Because what is good, is desirable and majestic, God is the most desirable, indeed all we desire, and the most majestic, the most awe-inspiring (literally the most awesome).

We are sons and daughters of God, the Most High. We are the image and likeness of God. We are created to exercise the priesthood of all believers, bring God's grace into the world. Whenever we act in the world causing something to share in an attribute proper to God, causing something to be beautiful, or just, or merciful, we are acting as the image of God and allowing the world to reflect its Creator just a bit more. Because of all of this, we have a great dignity. We are made for, and in, Christ. We are destined for a greater splendor than we can imagine.

If we have this great dignity, if we have this great splendor, why don't we see it? Why do we, or at least some of us, seem to be so wretched? The answer is evil and the sin that comes from evil. To understand, then, what happens to us we have to turn our attention to evil and sin.

Evil is a twisted, a perverted, good. Evil does not have an independent existence; there is no evil equal to God. There is no such thing as pure evil. Every evil has to have some good, if only the good of existence. Because evil is a twisted and perverted good, it twists and perverts the desirability and the majesty of what is good. In the place of desirability, evil is seductive. In place of majesty, evil is menacing. While the mixture of seductive and menacing varies with different evils, there is something of each in every evil. The fruit of evil is sin, leading to death.

We sin to the extent that we freely act according to what is evil. We act against who and what we are. When we sin, we act in a way that brings us death. It, however, must be understood that, when one sins, one chooses a good. One chooses a twisted and perverted good. One, nevertheless, chooses a good. No one who is sane chooses an evil as an evil. One always chooses a good, or at least a perceived good. One, however, chooses a lesser good in place of the greater good.

This has a couple of effects on the image of God that is the human being. Sin goes against our dignity, that is, it is disrespectful of who and what we are, and it enslaves us. Another way of viewing sin is to see it as the area or areas where we want to be able to act as if we were God. We, however, are not God and when we try to act as God we fall as low as our pride attempted to reach above us. When we try to free ourselves from God in any way or in any part of our life, we end up allowing ourselves to be enslaved to the world, the flesh and/or the devil, as the spiritual tradition of the Church recognized.

When we sin, our intellect is darkened, at least a bit. It becomes harder for us to grasp what is truly good; we find it more difficult to distinguish between right and wrong. We may even begin to think that what is in fact bad, is good or what is false, is true. When we sin our will is weakened, at least a bit. It becomes harder for us to choose what is truly worthy; we find it more difficult to desire what is right and reject what is wrong. We may even begin to long for what is immoral, to yearn for what is depraved. We move against what is best for us, best for other people, best for the whole of the created order.

If we want to be what we were made to be, to have the glory that God intended us to have, what are we to do in the face of evil and of sin? We can avoid evil to keep it from getting a grip on us. We can repent of sin to break its hold on us.

Now, avoiding evil may sound simple enough. If, however, the choice one makes is between a good and a twisted good, the challenge is that they can look very much alike. How does one distinguish between the two? How does one know that one is choosing what is really good, and not just something that looks good but is evil?

The quick answer (although not an easy one) is that one is to follow one's conscience. Now this looks easy at first because most people confuse their conscience with how they feel about things. One is obliged to follow one's conscience, but one also has the obligation to form one's conscience. Strong feelings are not the same as a well formed conscience. In fact it could easily be a sign of a poorly formed conscience, since one may not able to distinguish between a movement of the emotions and a movement of the conscience.

How does one form one's conscience? It doesn't happen automatically. Since there is a countercultural aspect to it, one cannot depend on one's culture to properly form one's conscience. Since it is not the same as strong feelings, one cannot depend on emotions. In fact, one must learn to distinguish between emotions and a sense of what is right, at times even going against what one feels strongly. This is not easy.

There are, however, resources available to help form the conscience properly. First, there is the wisdom of those who are striving to live a good life. They can be family or friends, who help us to see things in a different way. Second there is one's own life of prayer. As one approaches God and spends time with God, one learns what is good and bad, right and wrong. Next there are the Scriptures. Spending time with the Scriptures helps us understand our situation. It gives us insight into God, into the human condition, the origin of evil and the effects of sin. Unfortunately, how one is to understand Scripture is not always obvious. One needs an authoritative interpretation. Jesus left that for us in the Church, especially in Peter and his successors. Another place, then, to look for help is in the Magisterial teaching of the Church, the authoritative teaching of the Pope and the bishops in communion with the Pope. Finally, keeping close to the Sacraments, which are ways in which the grace of Christ comes to us, helps us. The Sacraments are ways the grace of Christ comes to us through the Church, the body of Christ. This grace allows us to be open to learn what we need and to hold fast to the good that forms our consciences. All of these are aides, and even necessary, to forming one's conscience in a proper fashion. This allows us to avoid sin and its degrading effects on us.

What do we do when we have sinned? When we recognize that we have fallen into sin, we must repent of it. We must turn away from the evil and the choice for evil. What we must do to turn away depends on how we have sinned. As Scripture says, in I John 5:17,not all sin is deadly (that is, not all sin is mortal sin). The force necessary to turn away from sin depends on the strength of the way we turned to sin. There are many ways of repenting of sin. Prayers of repentance, such as the Act of Contrition or the Our Father can free us from sin. In a most powerful manner, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is given to us as a gift from God so that, no matter how strong the sin is in our lives, we might be free of it. And in the end it is God Who frees us from sin. Ordinarily He does this through the Church, since He gave the power to forgive sin to the Church for this purpose. He, however, is free to act as he wills.

In some way, this still leaves the question hanging: why should we avoid evil, why should we repent of sin? What is this great good that trumps all the other goods, leaving them as lesser goods? What could possibly be so good as to lead one to place strict limits, and at times reject outright, what so many see as the ultimate goods of power, pleasure and control?

The first answer is, of course, God. Through the paradox of the cross one turns away from the power, pleasure and control that the society has to offer to find God. Yet, in finding God one finds all one could want. In submission to God, one finds the power that allowed the saints to overcome even torture and death to the amazement of those who watched. In submission to God one finds spiritual pleasures of which the pleasures of this world are the palest of shadows. In submission to God one finds true self control and the one who conquers himself or herself is the one who truly conquers. There is no greater good, no greater joy, no greater beauty than God. Only God is worthy to reign in the human heart.

This points us to the second answer, and there is a second answer. There is a great good, a very great good, that is all too often overlooked. That good is you.

You are a greater good than you imagine yourself to be. You are created for a glory you cannot imagine. You are created to be in right relationship with God, sharing in His power, His beauty, His joy, His peace. Through you relationship with God, you are created for right relationships with all of the created order so that His power and beauty, His joy and peace, his righteousness, goodness and love flow through you, out to the whole of creation. As this happens, the whole of creation rejoices in you and you rejoice in it. This is your dignity. For this you were created.

We can attempt a separate glory, putting ourselves in God's place. This was the temptation of Eden and it is, at its core, the temptation we all face. It is based on the lie that we could take God's place and turning us from the source of our greatness, who is God alone, it debases us, it disrespects us, it destroys us.

We can, however, turn back to God Who is for us. We can turn back to God Whose image we are. We can allow Him the freedom to do whatever He wants in our life because what He wants is to restore to full life and glory the image He made us to be. It is God who dignifies us and purifies us. We are called to cooperate with Him in this process. By turning to God, by allowing His to heal us and make us holy, we allow Him to make us whole and restore our dignity. It is in the Father's loving embrace that we find out who we really are.