dkarla, the Fall made us vulnerable to all manner of attacks, directly by demons and indirectly by them through other. people. But you know instinctively via the Holy Spirit, that the sin would reside in identifying with them, in making them your own. Ignoring them is the goal, the ideal, provided we do recognise them as wicked and are repudiating them. It does happen that the demons are clever enough to make you think momentarily that you succumbed to the 'dark side'. The best, the only recourse is to repeat brief, ejaculatory prayers, such as 'Lord have mercy on me. I like to end it, 'on me, a sinner'. Because that's always appropriate. We, Catholics, have our own variants. referring, for example to Jesus' Sacred Heart, and Our Lady's Immaculate Heart. Also to St Michael the Archangel and our own Holy Guardian Angel. The latter sounds quite childlike, but none the worse for that, indeed, rather appealing :
'Angel of God, my Guardian dear, to whom His love commits me here, very this day/night be at my side to light and guard to rule and gide.' One of the great uses of prayer is to reassure us, as we keep in close company with God, as we converse with him. After all, who better than He, knows what we need.
It should be very quickly apparent though that you did not identify with the force of darkness that attacked your mind/heart. The bottom line is, as someone remarked below, the fact that you recognise and are appalled by such thoughts is itself a clear sign that you are not identifying with the 'dark side'. The following words of St Augustine of Hippo and various comments are taken from the website quoted below it :
"Love, and do what you will: whether you hold your peace, through love hold your peace; whether you cry out, through love cry out; whether you correct, through love correct; whether you spare, through love do you spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.
It's been
paraphrased as:
Love God and do whatever you please: for the soul trained in love to God will do nothing to offend the One who is Beloved.
I've heard people just use the first half without the full expression, usually in a flippant way, but I think Augustine may be onto something here. We certainly get enough discussion about what God wants us to do or things along that line. Augustine seems to think that if we love God we aren't going to offend him and so don't need any "rules". Jesus seems to me to agree with him when he said:
Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
What is the scriptural basis for "Love God and do whatever you please"?
The first paragraphs generally seem the most relevant.
In my own case, and I know it is a feature of the spiritual life, some of my worst, most hideous thoughts occur to me while I'm trying to concentrate on what I am praying, or meditating on, also, if it is a mystery of the Rosary. Likewise, during the Mass.
I don't sleep as long as I used to, because I'll be subjected to a sudden dramatically and aggressively demonic thought, as I doze. They tend to be in technicolor, too ! However, because they're so obviously demonic, they are not quite as personally painful as the more subtle ones, that manifest just as suddenly, but not as dramatically and viciously, and are more likely to cause me fear or anxiety. And we are never perfect in this vale of tears, so fear of evil and sin is nothing to be ashamed of, but rather the contrary. It is part of our fear of God, of offending the utimate source of all love and purity, decency and goodness. Better to be a little too scrupulous than presumptious. Then maybe we'll hear Jesus say : 'Go to the top of the table, my friend.'
