"Q. 689. Why does the bishop give the person he confirms a slight blow on the cheek?
A. The bishop gives the person he confirms a slight blow on the cheek, to put him in mind that he must be ready to suffer everything, even death, for the sake of Christ."
Or, as the good Sisters taught us: "You are about to become a soldier for Christ." I was being prepared by this Sacrament, this overflowing of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, for spiritual warfare in my soul and in the world.
Confirmation candidates no longer receive a slap on the cheek - and it was as I discovered, a cross between a slight slap and a gentle caress, along with a blessing for peace. I almost wish they did. Being a soldier of Christ implies a discipline, a training in discerning between the good and evil impulses that attempt to "move" us daily, and a putting on of spiritual armor.
As Pope Francis puts it: "The Christian life is a constant battle....We are not dealing merely with a battle against the world and a worldly mentality that would deceive us and leave us dull and mediocre, lacking in enthusiasm and joy. Nor can this battle be reduced to the struggle against our human weaknesses and proclivities (be they laziness, lust, jealousy or any others). It is also a constant struggle against the devil, the prince of evil."
On this battleground, we are never spiritually standing still. We are either moving closer to God, or closer into the Enemy's camp. The rules of discernment help us ascertain which direction we're going in at any time.
It's no wonder that Pope Francis frames life - or the interior of our souls - as a battleground. He is a Jesuit, a member of the Society of Jesus, founded by a Spanish ex-soldier named St. Ignatius of Loyola. For Ignatius, the attributes of an heroic soldier also described the Christian who was trying to follow Christ: generous, humbly serving the King of Kings, willing to give and not count the cost, willing to fight and not heed the wounds, willing to toil and not seek to rest, to labor and not look for any reward except knowing that you had surrendered fully to the will of God. And, yes, this saying of Ignatius reminds me of Don Quixote's wonderful song in "The Man of La Mancha:" "To Dream the Impossible Dream."
At the age of eighteen, he took up arms for the 2nd Duke of Nájera, and participated in many battles without injury until, at the Battle of Pamplona, he was gravely injured by a cannonball, which hit him in the legs. Returned to his father's castle, he underwent several painful surgical operations (anesthetics were unknown at that time) and had plenty of time to lie on his back, bored and anxious to return to battle. But these operations left one leg shorter than the other. He limped; his military career was over.
But, while recuperating, he underwent a religious conversion. Because there were no books of romance on hand during his convalescence, Ignatius whiled away the time reading a life of Christ and lives of the saints. He discovered that he was suddenly filled with enthusiasm to do great things for the greatest King of Kings: Our Lord. It was during this period of conversion that Ignatius began to write down material that later became his greatest work, the "Spiritual Exercises," a perfect blueprint, written by a savvy soldier, for navigating the inner spiritual battlefield of the soul with the strategy of discernment.
Often when we hear the word "discernment" we think of it in terms of discerning a vocation, or trying to discern what to do in a crisis. But, discernment is a means of spiritual combat to help us follow the Lord more intentionally and faithfully. Discernment is a spiritual gift we should ask for from the Holy Spirit, a gift to use every day of our lives as we make even ordinary decisions. It's especially important today, since contemporary life attracts us with so many options for action and distraction, and presents everything as being good for us.
"Without discernment, we can become prey to every passing trend. How do we know if something comes from the Holy Spirit, or if it stems from the spirit of the world or the spirit of the devil? The only way is through discernment, which calls for something more than intelligence or common sense. It is a gift which we must implore. If we ask with confidence that the Holy Spirit grant us this gift, and then seek to develop it through prayer, reflection, reading, and good counsel, then surely we will grow in this spiritual endowment." (Pope Francis, #166, "Gaudete et Exsultate.")
There are four simple rules to follow in discerning whether or not you are experiencing God in your life, or the subtle influence of Satan or other evil spirits.
Rule #1: The first, obvious question to ask ourselves in discernment is to ascertain the orientation of our life. If you're been reading these blog posts, you're probably trying to lead a decent Christian life. If you're scrupulous, you might be afraid you're on the path to hell, but the fact that you are trying so hard not to sin shows the fallacy of your self-assessment.
If someone has deliberately turned away from God, "the evil spirit tries to get such people to rationalize their behavior and attitudes: 'I'm not such a bad guy. I may steal money, but it's only what I deserve for all that I have done for this company.' 'Compared to Helen, I'm a saint.' 'I take care of my wife and kids; my affair with Jane doesn't hurt them because they don't know.' In other words, the evil spirit tries to douse the conscience pangs of anyone who is acting contrary to what is right. The pangs of conscience, on the other hand, come from God's Spirit. They do not attack us, but rather raise questions about our behavior: 'Are you really happy acting this way?' 'Don't you feel a twinge of regret when you come home to your wife and family after an evening with your mistress?'" (Fr. William A. Barry, S.J.)
Rule #2 teaches us that if we're trying to live honestly and uprightly to the best of our ability, "the bad spirit raises doubts and questions that cause inner turmoil and self-absorption, while the good spirit tries to encourage us and to increase our peace, joy, faith, hope, and love.
"If you are trying to live a good life, the evil spirit might try to cause you self-doubt and discouragement by giving you thoughts like these: 'Who do you think you are, some kind of saint?' 'Everyone cuts corners in this office. What's the matter with you? Are you holier-than-thou?'....'Most people, even if they believe in God, don't try to live the way you do.' Such questions and thoughts have only one aim, to trouble your spirit and keep you troubled and questioning....Notice that all the questions and doubts focus on you, not on God or God's people.
"The good spirit, on the other hand, might inspire thoughts like these: 'I'm genuinely happy to make amends with my estranged sister.' 'I wish that I had stopped drinking a long time ago. I'm much healthier and happier now, and easier to live with.' 'God seems so much closer to me since I began to take some time every day for prayer, and I feel less anxious and insecure." (Barry)
Rule #3: "Ignatius believed that God wants us to be happy and fulfilled and that the way to be happy and fulfilled is to be in tune with God's dream for the world and for us." (Barry)
When we choose to pray - even for a moment - about every decision, we are admitting to the spiritual fact that God has a dream, a plan for each of us, a trajectory for our lives, a unique mission for us to undertake. "Discernment is a grace....Discernment seeks a glimpse of that unique and mysterious plan that God has for each of us, which takes shape amid so many varied situations and limitations. It involves more than my temporal well-being, my satisfaction at having accomplished something useful, or even my desire for peace of mind. It has to do with the meaning of my life before the Father who knows and loves me, with the real purpose of my life, that nobody knows better than he....It requires no special abilities, nor is it only for the more intelligent or better educated. The Father readily reveals himself to the lowly." (#170 "Gaudete et Exsultate.")
If we are trying to accept God's friendship and live in accordance with that friendship, and we admit that God has a plan for us that we desire to accept and follow, then we will experience happiness through God's gift of "consolation." Consolation refers to any experience of desire for God, any distaste for our past sins, any sympathy for the sufferings Jesus went through or the sufferings of any person. We experience consolation when we can observe that all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are increasing is us: peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faith, hope, charity, joy, faithfulness, self-control, and experiences of tranquillity and peace when our soul desires closeness to our Creator and Lord. If God is our friend, God consoles us even in the midst of the inevitable pain and suffering we have in this life.
Rule #4: Spiritual desolation is the opposite of consolation, and does not come from God. Turmoil of soul, disquiet from various agitations and temptations, experiences of feeling out of sorts, ill at ease, unhappy, listless, tepid, and feeling separated from God, are experiences of desolation that do not come from God. These move us toward lack of faith and leave us without hope and without love. (Barry) Akin to this is our spiritual state when we think we've committed no serious sins against God's law, and, instead of moving forward towards God, we instead fall into a state of dull lethargy. We see nothing to reproach ourselves with, and we fail to realize that our spiritual life has turned lukewarm. We can end up weak and corrupted, moving into the Enemy's camp.
If we are living close to God, trying to stay awake with our lamps lit, God's Spirit moves in us and we experience ourselves as feeling "more alive, more peaceful, more energized, and also more concerned about others than about ourselves as a result of that experience." (Barry)
If we're living our lives solely on our own timetables, it's easy, without ongoing, prayerful discernment, to fail to recognize God's timetable. We can fail to heed the promptings of God's grace and ignore God's invitation to grow.
"Often discernment is exercised in small, and apparently irrelevant things, since greatness of spirit is manifested in simple, everyday realities. It involves striving untrammeled for all that is great, better, and more beautiful, while at the same time being concerned for little things, for each day's responsibilities and commitments. For this reason, I ask all Christians not to omit, in dialogue with the Lord, a sincere daily 'examination' of conscience.'" (#169, "Gaudete et Exsultate.")
Above all else, discernment requires that every day we say "Speak, Lord, I'm listening," and then keep on carefully listening in every event of the day. But it also requires times of concentrated prayer. "The Lord speaks to us in a variety of ways, at work, through others, and at every moment. Yet we simply cannot do without the silence of prolonged prayer, which enables us better to interpret the real meaning of the inspirations we believe we have received, to calm our anxieties and to see the whole of our existence afresh in his own light." (#171, "Gaudete et Exsultate.")
Humbly listening to God is so essential because God is always making things new in our lives. We can be bogged down by partial or insufficient ideas
about who we are. Our habits and ways of seeing things can put blinders on us. Only by sitting in the light of God's Face can we "become truly open to accepting a call that can shatter our security but lead us to a better life. It is not enough that everything be calm and peaceful. God may be offering us something more, but...we do not recognize it." (#172, "Gaudete et Exsultate.")
How generous are we willing to be with the God Who gives us everything?
With God's grace, we grow in discernment in these ways: listening to God through prayer, reception of the Sacraments, being challenged and consoled by Scripture and other spiritual works, meditating on the events of each day, doing an Examination of Conscience each day, consulting the wise, and praying over every decision we make.
We grow in discernment by recognizing the spiritual movements in our souls. The evil one causes us to rationalize about the sins we commit, and grow self-absorbed, while God's Spirit gives us pangs of conscience so we admit to our wrong-doing and turn back to God and the people in our lives. The evil spirit attacks us with desolation: discouragement, turmoil and temptation, self-doubt, lethargy, and lukewarmness, while God's Spirit encourages and energizes us through the joy of consolation and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Discernment is a spiritual gift to continually ask God for. Through its power, we will find ourselves growing, daily, into the unique and incredible Other Christ that God dreams we can become!