Into temptation

Yesterday (Saturday), I had a really, really bad morning. My C-PTSD had been particularly bad, so I was very on edge and anxious. Despite staying up late the night before, I shot awake at 6:50, long before I needed to get up. My goal was to get the oil changed in my car, which I had been trying (and failing) to do for about three weeks. I had given up on my usual service place, so I planned to try a local chain down the road, which I had never visited before. I was afraid that this attempt would also fail, so I determined to get there super early and beat any potential crowds. I showed up about 10 minutes before they opened and there were no lines, so that was a relief, but the ultimate bill (about 7-8 times what I normally paid) sent me spinning into nausea and depression.

I went grocery shopping afterwards, still stunned by the cost, and only spent a few dollars in an effort to relieve my anxiety about finances. At home, I compulsively cooked, which is one of the ways I try to regain control when I’m feeling powerless. I felt completely helpless, like I was chained to a rock while a tsunami raced toward me. I honestly wasn’t sure how I was going to make it through the rest of the day, much less the rest of my life.

Then, suddenly, I knew what was happening: due to a sudden conviction last Wednesday night, I had determined that I needed to go to confession on Saturday. The timing lined up well, so I just made a mental note and forgot about it. I had a certain level of anxiety about it, as I always do, but I’m accustomed to that and so am able to overcome it fairly easily. What I had not anticipated was a spiritual flanking maneuver that attacked not my intention to go to confession specifically, but my ability to function in general on that particular day.

This morning (First Sunday of Lent, Year B), the Gospel tells, in brief, the story of Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness. Our deacon, in his homily, reminded us that the devil is most interested in preventing us from accessing the most powerful means of grace, of which confession is one. Years ago, when I was first becoming Catholic, I read people’s stories of how difficult it was to go to confession — and not just because of their own psychological hang-ups. The lesson was, “When you plan to go to confession, expect intense spiritual warfare.” Things will happen, schedules will fall apart, your resolve will weaken, sometimes it seems like anything and everything possible will go wrong in your life when you make plans to access the sacrament of penance. I so often forget this, which I think is itself an aspect of the spiritual warfare that surrounds this sacrament.

I recently re-(re-re-re-re-re-re-)read C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, a spiritual classic which illuminates the backdrop of human moral choices. While we don’t have to believe that we each have a personal tempter (in the way we each have a personal guardian angel), it is none-the-less an invaluable reminder of how the devil and the fallen angels actively work to prevent human beings from accessing grace. For practicing Catholics, the two most commonly-received sacraments are the Eucharist and Penance, and I believe that the forces of evil make steady work of trying to prevent us from receiving them. But this morning it occurred to me that the devil can prevent souls from accessing grace in an even wider-ranging way: by discouraging them from accepting the Catholic Church.

The Church teaches that God is not bound by the sacraments; that is, JUST because someone isn’t Catholic doesn’t mean that God can’t give them grace. God can give grace to whomever He chooses, in whatever circumstances He desires. That being said, He created the Church as the normal means of providing a never-ending banquet of grace to His children on earth. The most certain sources of grace are the sacraments, which are distributed through the actions of His Church. Therefore, the one of the devil’s main priorities is to keep people away from that source.

Yesterday, once I realized what was happening, I threw myself under the spiritual protection of our Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, my guardian angel, St. Michael, St. Alphonsus Liguori, anyone I could think of to keep me going. Even up to the time I was driving to the church, I was praying for St. Joseph and St. Alphonsus to keep me moving forward. I was in such a bad place that I was afraid I would get to the parking lot and turn around, or make it into the church itself and leave without being shriven. I didn’t have anything else; my soul was under such attack that I couldn’t lift a finger to defend myself. All I had was the cold, clear, raw decision: “I must go to confession,” and I had to rely on the power of God through the intercession of the angels and saints to carry me through despite my feelings of despair and depression.

I don’t really have any brilliant way to wrap this up, other than to say: go to confession. Access the sacraments. Expect resistance, and rely on the great cloud of witnesses who are in the presence of God, and whose intercession is powerful. Ask your guardian angel to remind you, when you can’t figure out why everything in your life is suddenly falling apart. If you have a personal tempter, you also have a personal angel, and you have the saints who love you and are on your side, and are willing to fight for you.