Hey Catholic ladies!
As some of you know, I got to go visit the Franciscan University of
Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio a couple weeks ago. I was there for a few days and I’d like to
talk about a thought that occurred to me while I was praying after mass in the
campus’s main chapel. There’s a running
joke on the university’s campus that “only at Franciscan will the lines for
confession be longer than the lines for the cafeteria!” For some reason during mass that joke popped
into my head. And sitting there in the
pew, I thought to myself,” How can the lines for confession be so long HERE of
all places? If you’re in such a holy
place, what sins could people really be committing here?” And that’s when I realized that sin can hide. It turns out that the enemy himself likes a
good game of hide-and-go-seek too. There
are ways the devil uses hide and go seek to lead us to draw closer to him,
sometimes without even realizing it. I’ve
learned that the devil can be the most dangerous when we stop believing that he
is a problem.
When
you go to a place with holy people, like Franciscan, a convent, a youth
retreat, etc., you wonder what people could possibly have to say in
confession. You wonder how people could
sin if they are surrounded every day by holiness. But when we think that way, we start to
compare our own spirituality with that of the people around us. We think to ourselves that if I’m dressing
more modestly than that girl, then I must be ok, even if I show up to mass in a
miniskirt and tank top. We think to
ourselves that if I pray longer than that guy, then I must be ok, even if I’m
not even concentrating on the prayers I’m saying. The devil makes us think that our own journey
to holiness is about superficiality-like the length of my skirt or the number
of minutes spent in prayer. In
situations like this, we are convinced that the devil is hiding because this
battle goes on entirely in our minds. We
can’t physically see other people sinning because these sins happen when the
devil convinces us that we are better than those around us so we don’t need to
try to be any holier. If you are not
striving for God, you have already started to turn away from him. Because of our complacency, the devil is
making us seek him instead of God by telling us that we are close enough to
God! What a grave sin complacency is! We
should never be complacent with where we are in our spiritual lives, we should
always be striving to be closer to God.
James 4:8 tells us “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw
near to God, and he will draw near to you.” Don’t let the devil convince you
that he is not there. There will ALWAYS
be opportunities to sin. The devil is
most dangerous when he can make us believe that he isn’t a threat.
So how
can we resist the devil most effectively?
We have to always be striving for union with God. We have to trust the knowledge that we have
learned about Him. The Bible tells us to
pray without ceasing, which doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to spend all
day in a church, but it means that we need to go about our day with God always
in mind. There is no clearer way that
God speaks to us than through the Bible-so read it! There’s always a spiritual battle going
on-unfortunately the devil wants us to turn away from God just as much as God
wants us to turn toward Him! We can
never be complacent with where we are spiritually, which means that we need to
be trying to be holier every single day.
God calls us every day to live holy and faithful lives, and let’s not
let him down!
Think
about these things and reflect on times when you might have listened to the
devil instead of listening to God. A
Catholic who strives for holiness goes back through her spiritual battles to
see where she went wrong and where she can improve, the same way that an
athlete who strives for greatness goes back through his games to see where he
can improve his skills. I hope everyone
has a fun couple of weeks and I will keep you all in my prayers!
Through Christ who strengthens me,
Emily
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