Today, I’d like to talk about a sin I learned from this Monsignor, which I go to every year for my annual retreat. He said one of the greatest sins we struggle with in our age is the sin of self-condemnation. And by that, he means that we condemn ourselves. There’s a difference between conviction, which is what the Lord does; He helps us be aware of our sins and desire not to do them again, and self-condemnation. So, self-condemnation is looking at ourselves and condemning ourselves. It’s important to recognize that condemnation always comes from Satan. Satan is the condemner. So, if we find ourselves condemning ourselves and listening to that voice, it’s not the voice of God; it’s the voice of Satan. There is a difference between, I did something bad, which would be conviction, and I am a bad person, which would be self-condemnation.
We hear this in the second reading, from John’s first letter. He said, “We belong to the truth and reassure our hearts before him in whatever our hearts condemn, for God is greater than our hearts and knows everything.”
I like to teach Discernment of Spirits, and I have one of the things online; you can find it on our web page. Saint Ignatius gives these fourteen rules to help us understand the voice of God and the voice of Satan. I’m not going through all fourteen with you right now, but the first couple of rules and one other are very important.
The first rule he describes is a different way of life. One way of life is a person striving to grow closer to God. So, that would be all of you coming to Mass every Sunday, receiving the sacraments, praying daily, and going to confession regularly. As we go on that path, the voice of God is always a voice of kindness, goodness, gentleness, affirmation, and love. So, God will always speak to us like that.
Satan will do the opposite. Satan will agitate us, Satan will condemn us, Satan will make us lose hope and make us think we will never get out of whatever sin we are trapped in. That’s the voice of Satan for those of us who are moving on the path towards God. Now, it’s interesting because if we are on the path that is going away from God, the voice changes completely. So, if we are missing Mass, going from mortal sin to mortal sin, not receiving the sacraments, not praying daily, If we are going down this path, the voices change. Satan becomes very soothing. Satan will say, ‘You’re doing alright; don’t worry about it; there are people way worse than you.’ And God, during this time will, because we are on the wrong path, will shake us and jar us and use guilt to help us to realize that we are not going on His path.
So, it’s important to realize those two ways of life and to think, which way of life am I on. And Jesus says it’s better that we be either hot or cold, because if we are lukewarm, He will spit us out of his mouth. What I think he means by that is that if we are lukewarm, it’s very difficult to know the voice of God and the voice of Satan. So, we ought to be convicted, we ought to be convicted to do God’s will. And when we are on this path, it’s very important to know, that condemnation is never from God. Condemnation is always from Satan. And this condemnation can come in a couple different ways when we find ourselves in that trap. One of the traps of condemnation would be to look at ourselves and say, ‘I’m never going to get rid of this sin.’ Condemnation, we will look at ourselves and say, ‘Man, I’m such a horrible person.’ Condemnation would be the voice that beats up on ourselves all the time. And that’s never of God.
Now the good thing is when we realize this is happening, we can think to ourselves, ‘Oh that’s self-condemnation, that’s not of God. I don’t need to do that.’ But it’s also important we realize that when we are condemning ourselves, we are placing ourselves in the judgement seat of Christ. Christ is the just judge. And when we condemn ourselves, it’s actually a sin of Pride. But it’s also a sin of a failure to Hope, failure to believe that we are created in God’s goodness and likeness and that he wants to do good to us.
So, first of all being aware of those times when we condemn ourselves, and realizing that when we do that, we are harming ourselves whom God loves; we are taking the place of the accuser and the condemner, and that is Satan. Now the interesting thing is when we condemn ourselves over and over and over again, pretty soon we start to look at other people and we start to condemn them. And that leads us into a vicious cycle of judging people, condemning people, and so it’s important to realize that, that when we are condemning or judging other people, we have again placed ourselves in the role of Christ. But even more so we are listening to the voice of the enemy. Satan is always the condemner, whether that being ourselves or whether that be other people.
So, be aware of that. But he does say, “if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in God and receive from Him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.”
So, from this point forward, no more self-condemnation, no more condemning ourselves, no more condemning others, no more listening to the voice of Satan, but listening to the voice of our God.
