Episode 107 -- Spiritual Combat c66 -- Illusions from the Devil at the End of Life

If the devil cannot make us vain by reminding us of our good deeds, what last trick might he try?

If the devil has not been able to make us lose faith, fall into despair, or become vain, he has one last trick up his sleeve. He will sometimes use his angelic power to produce images or visions or illusions. He will transform himself, as it were, into an angel of light, and try to deceive us with these imaginary visions. Instead of being humble, a person becomes so fascinated at being a “visionary.” But Fr Scupoli warns us about how the devil uses this tactic to lead us astray. He gives us a few pieces of advice on what to do when such things happen to us. His advice is useful not only for the end of our lives, but at other periods too.

The Lord wants us to desire union with Himself by faith, hope, and charity. Fr Scupoli suggests, like St Philip did, the distrusting of these visions. If a vision is really from God, he will find a way to convince us after we have tried to ignore it!

As we saw last episode, vainglory is the third tactic of the devil as death approaches.

Glory is not always bad.

• Glory = the recognition, the manifestation, the showing forth of someone’s excellence, greatness, goodness.

• Vain = empty/pointless

• There is nothing wrong, in itself, with knowing another’s goodness or even one’s own goodness. In heaven, we will know the full truth of ourselves and others. Glory becomes vainglory when we do one of the following:

1. Seek glory, recognition, for something we do not really have!

2. Seek glory, recognition, for something that is not really great at all, something very small and fragile…

3. Seeking recognition from someone whose judgement is very poor and uninformed.

4. Seeking recognition, glory, admiration, but not REFERRING it to the honour of GOD and the salvation of others.

At the end of our lives, let us not focus on the good works we have done as though we are the primary AUTHOR.

1. God has done these things through us. They are HIS. Why pretend that these good works are really mine alone?

2. Our contribution is fairly small! Why focus so much on it?

3. Our own judgment is poor. We are bad judges in our own case! Why try to impress ourselves?

4. Whatever we have done is meant to honour God and help others get to heaven.

What the devil tries to do is to make us focus on ourselves too much. The good news is the way in which the Lord gradually frees us from our bad self-love. He allows this self-love to fade away. He enables us to love ourselves with charity, as He loves us, as vital members with unique missions of his Mystical Body.