SUBTLE ENEMY
The feeling of guilt consists in making us feel guilty when in reality we are not
I do not want to talk about guilt, but about feelings of guilt. If we have sin, we have to say, “I have sinned, I am a sinner.” Faults are realities that should not discourage us, but rather throw us even more into the hands of God, realities that must make us encounter the Savior Christ.
Photo: Wesley Almeida / cancaonova.com
We can not save ourselves alone.
The biggest problem these days is to sustain the idea that we do not need Christ as Savior because we can save ourselves. This is all theory or philosophy – you can call it whatever you want – from the New Age, which says that you no longer need the Savior: “The Savior is me, the Christ is me!” It does not refer naturally to the Christ, who dwells in us, the personal Christ. For them, Christ would be that force, that energy that is in us: “The more I discover it in myself, the more it comes out of me.Therefore, I become the God of myself, I become the Christ. “
As we can see, we have something that is truly distorting and destroying our whole spiritual life. For them, the spiritual life consists in making spiritual experiences, experiences made by themselves.
By staying an hour in front of a tree, for example, they receive energy from the tree. This is for them the spiritual experience. We are on totally different paths, so we can say that New Age spirituality is probably the most subtle and serious enemy of Christian spirituality today.
Psychological wound
In this way, I am not referring to guilt, but guilty feelings. The reality of guilt is what makes St. Paul speak: “There is in me a law that does not allow me to do the good that I want, but leads me to do evil.” Feeling guilty instead consists in making us feel guilty when in reality we are not guilty. But I say to myself, “God forgives my sin, but I still sin!” Here we have a great psychological wound.
We find many believers with this feeling of guilt, which can turn into scruples or perhaps into depression, obsession; Often on a fixed idea. We fix our attention on a point, which is practically unreal, because, if God forgives us, we are no longer guilty. The devil is certainly celebrating when he finds such a weakness in man. He tries and can, with some ease, convince us that God no longer loves us.
God loves us and forgives our sins.
“God loves me!” It all starts from here, the walk to healing begins here. It does not begin with the saying, “I am a sinner!”, But in speaking: “God loves me, He forgives my sin”.
Since God loves us, we try not to sin anymore, because love must be reciprocated with love. So the beginning of the journey is here: “God loves me!” Is not God love? This is how St. John defines it! When there is a feeling of guilt, it is very easy for the enemy to enter very subtly to get in the way and stop us from continuing our walk.
Frei Elias Vella, OFM Conv.
Note: St. Alphonsus Liguori also told us to remember that since God forgives us, once we ask for forgiveness we can trust in His mercy. Then if we have feelings of guilt that is not from God, but from the enemy. —ed.