Delusions of sinners
“Lord, that I may see.”—Luke 18:41
1. The devil brings sinners to hell not with their eyes open, but closed: he first blinds them, and then leads them along with himself to torment forever. If, then, we wish to be saved, we must pray to God continually in the words of the blind man in the gospel of this day, “Lord, that I may see.” Give me light; make me see the way I must walk in order to save my soul, and not be deceived by the enemy of my salvation.
This day, then, brethren, I wish to set before your eyes the delusions by which the devil tempts men to sin and to persevere in sin, that you may know how to guard against them when occasions arise.
2. To understand these delusions better, let us imagine the case of a young man who, seized by some passion, lives in sin, the slave of Satan, and never thinks of his eternal salvation. My son, I say to him, what kind of life is this that you lead? If you go on living in this way, how can you save your soul? Do you not see that you are going to hell? But behold, on the other side, the devil says to him: Why should you be damned? Indulge yourself now; you will confess your sins afterward, and so put everything right.
Behold the net by which the devil drags so many souls into hell: “Indulge yourself now, for you will confess it later.” But, I reply, in the meantime you lose your soul. Tell me: if you had in your hand a jewel worth a thousand ducats, would you throw it into a river in the hope of finding it again afterward? And what if you never found it again? O God, you hold in your hand this precious jewel of your soul, which Jesus Christ has purchased with his own blood, and you mean to cast it into hell! For according to the present order of justice, by every mortal sin you commit, your name is already written among the number of the damned. And you say: But I hope to recover it afterward by making a good confession. And if you do not succeed in recovering it? To make a good confession, a true sorrow for sin is necessary, and this sorrow is the gift of God; if God does not give you this sorrow, will you not be lost forever?
3. You reply: But I am young; God has compassion on youth; I will give myself to God later. Behold another delusion. You are young? But do you not know that God counts, not the years, but the sins of each person? You are young? But how many sins have you committed? Perhaps there are many old men who have not committed even the fourth part of the sins you have committed. And do you not know that God has fixed the number of sins he will pardon in each of us? “The Lord patiently expecteth, that, when the day of judgment shall come, he may punish them in the fullness of their sins” (2 Macc. 6:14). That is to say, God has patience, and waits up to a certain measure; but when the measure of the sins he has determined to pardon is once full, he pardons no more, but chastises the sinner—either by making him die suddenly in the unhappy state in which he finds himself, or by abandoning him in his sin, according to the chastisement threatened by the prophet: “I shall take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted” (Isa. 5:5).
If a man has a piece of land that he has cultivated for many years, set a hedge about for its protection, and spent much money upon, but sees that for all this it yields him no fruit, what does he do? He pulls up the hedge and leaves it abandoned, open for whoever wishes to enter, men and beasts alike. So tremble, lest God do the same with you. If you do not give up sin, you will go on losing, more and more, your remorse of conscience and your fear of the divine chastisement; and behold, the hedge taken away, you will be left abandoned by God—a chastisement worse than death itself.
4. You say: But at present I cannot trust myself to resist this passion. Behold the third delusion of the devil, by which he makes you suppose that at present you have not the strength to overcome the temptation. But St. Paul tells us that God is faithful, and never permits us to be tempted beyond our strength: “And God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tempted above that which you are able” (1 Cor. 10:13). I ask: if you cannot trust yourself to resist the temptation now, how will you trust yourself to resist it afterward? Afterward the devil will be made stronger against you, and you weaker; and if you cannot trust yourself now to extinguish this flame of your passion, how will you trust yourself to extinguish it afterward, when it has grown greater?
You say: God will give me his aid. But God is ready to give you this aid now, if you ask it of him; why then do you not ask it? Do you perhaps hope that the Lord, without your taking the trouble to pray now, will afterward increase his aids and graces to you, after you have increased your sins? Do you perhaps doubt the faithfulness of God, who has promised to give whatever is asked of him, in those words: “Ask, and it shall be given you” (Matt. 7:7)? God cannot fail in his promises: “God is not as man, that he should lie, nor as the son of man, that he should be changed. Hath he said, then, and will he not do?” (Num. 23:19).
Have recourse to him, and he will give you the strength you need to resist. God commands you to resist; but you say: I have not this strength. Does God, then, command an impossible thing? No, says the Council of Trent: “God does not command impossibilities; but, by his commands, he admonishes you to do what you can, and to ask what you cannot do; and he assists, that you may be able to do it” (Session 6, ch. 13). When you see that you have not strength enough to resist the temptation with God’s ordinary assistance, ask of him the greater help you need, and he will give it to you; and so you will be able to conquer any temptation, however great it may be.
5. But you will not pray; and you say that for now you will commit this sin, and will confess it afterward. But I reply: how do you know that God will afterward give you time to confess it? You say: Not a week will pass before I confess it. And who has promised you this week’s time? Or you say: I will confess it tomorrow. And who promises you this tomorrow? St. Augustine writes: Crastinum Deus non promisit, fortasse dabit, et fortasse non dabit—“God has not promised tomorrow; perhaps he will give it, and perhaps he will not.” This day of tomorrow God has not promised you; perhaps he will give it, and perhaps he will deny it to you, as he has denied it to so many others.
How many have gone to bed at night alive and been found dead in the morning! And how many, in the very act of sin, has God struck dead and sent to hell! Should this happen to you also, how will you then repair your eternal ruin? “Commit this sin, only confess it afterward.” Behold the delusion by which the devil has carried so many thousands of Christians to hell; for it is hard to find a Christian so desperate as actually to wish to damn himself. All who sin, sin with the hope of going to confession; but in this way many wretched souls have damned themselves, and now for them there is no longer either confession or remedy for their damnation.
6. But God is merciful. Behold another common delusion by which the devil gives courage to sinners to go on living in sin. A certain author writes that the mercy of God sends more souls to hell than his justice; and so it is, for these blinded men, trusting in his mercy, continue to sin, and so are lost.
God is merciful. Who denies it? But for all that, how many does he send to hell every day? God is merciful, but he is also just, and is therefore bound to punish those who offend him. He shows mercy to sinners, but only to those sinners who, after offending him, weep over it and fear to offend him further: “And his mercy . . . to them that fear him,” sang the divine Mother (Luke 1:50). But with those who abuse his mercy in order to despise him the more, he exercises justice. The Lord pardons sins, but he cannot pardon the will to sin.
St. Augustine writes that whoever sins with the intention of repenting after his sin is not a penitent, but one who wishes to mock God: Irrisor est, non poenitens—“He is a mocker, not a penitent.” On the contrary, the Apostle tells us that God will not be mocked: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked” (Gal. 6:7). It would be a mockery of God to offend him as much and as often as you please, and then to go to paradise.
7. But, you say, since God has shown me so many mercies in the past, I hope he will show them to me in the future too. Behold another delusion. So, because God has not chastised you until now, he will never chastise you? On the contrary: the greater the mercies he has shown you, the more you ought to tremble, lest, if you offend him again, he pardon you no more and chastise you. Behold how the Holy Ghost warns you: “Say not: I have sinned, and what harm hath befallen me? for the Most High is a patient rewarder” (Ecclus. 5:4). Do not say: I have sinned, and no chastisement has come upon me; for God bears with us, but he does not bear with us forever. He waits up to a certain term; but when the term arrives, then he chastises the sinner for all the sins he has committed; and the longer he has waited for repentance, the more severely he punishes, as St. Gregory says: Quos diutius expectat, durius damnat—“Those whom he waits for longer, he condemns more severely.”
Therefore, my brother, since you know that you have grievously offended God many times, and that God has not sent you to hell, you ought to say: “The mercies of the Lord, that we are not consumed” (Lam. 3:22). Lord, I thank you for not having sent me to hell, which I have so often deserved. And for this you ought to give yourself wholly to God, at least out of gratitude, considering that many, for fewer sins than yours, lie in that pit of fire, without hope of ever coming out of it.
The patience with which God has borne with you ought to move you, not to despise him still more, but to serve and love him the more, making amends for the offenses you have committed against him by penances and other holy works; for you see that he has shown you mercies which he has not shown to others: “He hath not done in like manner to every nation” (Ps. 147:20). And so you have just reason to tremble, lest, if you commit a single other mortal sin, God abandon you and you be lost.
8. Let us come to the next delusion. You say: It is true that by this sin I lose the grace of God; but for all that, it may be that I shall still be saved. Yes, it may be that you will still be saved; but you cannot deny me this—that after so many sins committed, and after so many graces God has given you, if you now offend him again, it is very likely that you will be lost. Hear what the sacred Scriptures say: “A hard heart shall fare evil at the last” (Ecclus. 3:27). The obstinate sinner shall die an unhappy death. “Evil doers shall be cut off” (Ps. 37:9). The wicked shall at last be cut off by the divine justice. “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Gal. 6:8). He who sows sins shall in the end reap eternal torments.
“Because I called and you refused . . . I also will laugh in your destruction and will mock when that shall come to you which you feared” (Prov. 1:24, 26). I called you, says God, and you mocked me; at your death I will mock you. “Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time” (Deut. 32:35). It belongs to me, says God, to avenge sins, and I will avenge them when the time of vengeance arrives. “The man that with a stiff neck despiseth him that reproveth him, shall suddenly be destroyed, and health shall not follow him” (Prov. 29:1). The man who obstinately despises the one who corrects him shall be chastised with a sudden death, and for him there shall be no hope of salvation.
9. Now, brethren, in view of these threats of God against sinners, what do you think, my brother? Is it easy, or is it very difficult, to save your soul, if, after so many calls and so many mercies God has shown you, you go on offending him? You say: But for all that, it may be that I shall still be saved. But I answer you: What folly is it to rest your eternal salvation upon a “may be” so difficult? How many, with this “may be,” are now already in hell! And do you wish to make yourself their unhappy companion? Come to your senses, my dear Christian, and tremble, lest the sermon of this day be for you the last mercy that God will show you.
Points for Reflection
1. “To make a good confession, a true sorrow for sin is necessary, and this sorrow is the gift of God; if God does not give you this sorrow, will you not be lost forever?” (§2)
2. “Have recourse to him, and he will give you the strength you need to resist” (§4)
3. “Lord, I thank you for not having sent me to hell, which I have so often deserved” (§7)