Sunday Meditation: To Whom Are You Listening?

Remember the old Disney cartoons showing Pluto with an angel whispering in one ear and a devil in the other. That's not too far off. Our guardian angel is always with us trying to give us good advice. But do we listen? Or are we so enamored by the noise of the world that we can't hear his voice, especially when the devil is booming in our other ear.

But it's not only our guardian angel who's trying to communicate with us. Good and holy shepherds also compete with the world, the flesh, and the devil for our attention. C.S. Lewis offered a masterful description of the devil's tactics in his Screwtape Letters. It's wise to know the enemy and how he works on you. One of his most powerful weapons is discouragement. You know, that little nagging maggot that runs an endless loop of negative messages:

• You're worthless. You've committed so many sins, you can never be forgiven.
• Nothing you do has any value.
• How can anyone love an ugly, disgusting worm like you. 
• Why keep fighting when the battle is already lost.
• Just give up and find happiness wherever you can. You've suffered enough.

Well, you get the idea. Judas could have been forgiven, but in his pride, he believed his sin was bigger than God's mercy. His discouragement led to the devil's victory through despair.

So how to fight these poisonous darts from the enemy? One way is to listen to the voice of your guardian angel. He will affirm the messages of hope you hear from others, especially good shepherds. Benedictus had an inspiriing daily meditation last Sunday. It was written by Fr. Francis Xavier Weninger (d. 1888), an Austrian Jesuit priest, professor, and author who carried out missionary work in the United States. He tells this wonderful story:

St. Teresa one day saw Our Lord Himself standing at the side of a priest in the pulpit softly whispering into his ear what he was preaching to the people. How attentively must not the saint have listened to every word which came from the lips of that priest! How carefully would you not listen to this sermon were you to see beside me Christ suggesting to me all that I am saying! And yet whenever a priest of the Church preaches the Gospel and expounds it according to the interpretation of the Fathers and of holy mother church, it is really Christ that speaks to us. Has he not declared emphatically, "He that hears you hears Me" (Lk 10:16?

Hmmm....Are we to listen to every priest in the pulpit? Can we trust Cardinal Cupich and Cardinal McElroy? Read the caveat and the answer is clear. We are to listen to the shepherd who "expounds [the Gospel] according to the interpretation of the Fathers and of holy mother church." Only then can we know for sure that Christ is speaking to us through the priest. That means we ourselves need to study the Gospel and the Fathers of the Church. St. Paul warns us sternly in a number of passages, especially Galatians:

I am amazed how quickly you are deserting the One who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — which is not even a gospel. Evidently some people are troubling you and trying to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be under a curse! ... Galatians 1:6-9

St. John is equally as direct:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you will know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and which is already in the world at this time. ...1 John 4:1-3

Stay close to your guardian angel,
a trustworthy guide always!

The more things change, the more they stay the same. We live in a far different culture than the apostles, but the liar and deceiver has not changed. He seeks to win over believers to his cult of soul murder. There are so many warnings in the Bible that we are stupid if we do not study them and take them seriously. Here are just a few additional Bible passages: 

• Colossians 2:8
• 1 Timothy 4:1
• Matthew 24:24
• 2 Peter 2:1-3
• Acts 20:29-30

How fruitful it would be to spend the rest of Lent studying these scriptures so that we might not be taken in by the lies of the enemy. May God bless all of us in these last few penitential weeks before we celebrate the Holy Triduum and rejoice with our resurrected Lord. Come, O Holy Spirit....

May Jesus Christ be praised!