That to Discover Temptations to the Superior or Spiritual Father Is a Very Efficacious Means to Take against Them

IT is the common doctrine of the saints and a first principle with those ancient Fathers, as we have said, that all temptations should be discovered and manifested straightway to our elders and masters, and our Father admonishes us of this in the Constitutions. But let us see what is the reason of this strong recommendation, for that will be very useful to the purpose of imprinting this truth on our hearts. The reason of it, says Cassian, is that in this way the devil will not be able to deceive you by his artifices and temptations, as he might deceive a newcomer, since you bear arms put in your hands by your veteran teacher. He will not deceive you, as he might an ignorant and inexperienced person, if you have recourse at once to your spiritual father, a learned and experienced man, and let yourself be guided by what he tells you. Then the devil has not to fight with a new soldier and raw recruit, but with a veteran well versed in this spiritual warfare. All the science and all the experience of your confessor and director you make yours when you open yourself at once to him and are guided by what he tells you.

In this way, Cassian says, there is gained true prudence and discretion, a virtue so great and so much praised by the blessed St. Anthony. Those holy monks once met in collation and spiritual conference, and began to confer and discuss among themselves what virtue was most helpful to perfection. One said it was chastity because thereby a man keeps sensuality subject to reason; another said it was abstinence, whereby a man is master of himself; another that it was justice, and so each one said what he thought. St. Anthony, having heard them all and made up his mind what to hold, said: “The virtue most necessary, and most helpful for perfection, is prudence and discretion; since no exercises of virtue, unless they are done with that, are pleasing to God, or are acts of virtue at all.’”’ Then you ask, says Cassian, what is the easiest and shortest way to attain this virtue. Set down and communicate all your doings to the superior and be guided by his word and counsel, and in this way you will attain it, and make the prudence and discretion of the superior your own. St. Bernard says the same, speaking of this virtue: “Since the virtue of discretion is a very rare thing—rara avis in terris— contrive to supply the lack of it by the virtue of obedience, so as to do nothing, either more or less, or in any other way, than as obedience shall prescribe.” In this way, he says, the lack of discretion and experience is made up and remedied, and true prudence is gained.

For this reason the saints so strongly recommend us to reveal our temptations straightway, and for the same reason the devil uses the utmost diligence in trying to get us not to reveal them, for he has another end in view to the contrary, which is our ruin and damnation. St. Dorotheus says that there is nothing that gives the devil so much pleasure as to find a man who will not disclose his temptations and thoughts to his superior; such a one he reckons that he is sure to overcome, because the man fights against him single-handed. Woe to him that is alone (Eccles. iv. 10), because he has none to help him against a fall or to lend him a hand to rise again. Contrariwise, there is nothing that the devil more dreads or that puts him out more than to be discovered, for with that he loses all hope of victory, is disheartened, and takes to flight.

Our Father well illustrates this in the Book of the Exercises by a comparison, which, as he alleges it, we may well allege. He says that our enemy the devil, in tempting us, takes the same line as a man with a wicked passion does in making his advances to solicit a young girl of honorable parentage, or the wife of a good husband who is jealous of her honor. In seeking to ensnare her, the first thing that he does is very diligently to try to keep the thing secret; and there is nothing he resents or dreads so much as the girl going to tell her father what is going on, or the wife her husband, because upon that he at once gives himself up to despair and loses all hope of gaining his end; but so long as it is kept secret, he has some hope of success. In the same way, says our Father, when the devil is seeking to ensnare a soul, his first object is with all diligence to secure that the matter be kept secret, and that the temptations and reasons alleged in their support be revealed to none, because, once that is assured, he feels certain of victory and the attainment of his purpose. And on the other hand there is nothing that he resents so much as his intended victim’s going and disclosing and manifesting these proceedings to his confessor or superior. As the devil has more power and more success by strategem than by force, when he sees himself discovered, he gives himself up for beaten, and all his frauds and entanglements are confounded. Such is the way with all deceivers, as the Gospel text has it. He that worketh evil, hateth the light (John iii. 20).

St. Dorotheus relates to this effect what befell St. Macarius. He says that the great Macarius, a disciple of St. Anthony, one day met the devil, and asked him how he was getting on with his monks. “Very badly,” he replied, “because no sooner does a thought come into their minds than off they go and discover it to their superior. But,’’ he added, “‘there is one who is a great friend of mine. I hold him in my hand, and do with him what I like, and spin him round and round like a top;” and he mentioned his name. On hearing this, St. Macarius went to see that monk, and found that he was making this mistake, that he never related his temptations to his spiritual father, nor got guidance from him. The saint exhorted him to unbosom himself, and henceforth never to trust any more in his own judgment. The advice was well taken, and so the evil was remedied. St. Macarius caught sight of the devil again another time, and asked him how things were going with his friend the monk. The devil answered in a great rage: “He is no more my friend, but my enemy.” St. Dorotheus here remarks very well that all St. Macarius’ monks were tempted by the devil, but the others he could not overcome, on account of their at once giving a clear account to their Spiritual father of all that passed in their soul, and being guided by him. This one alone was overcome and led astray by the devil, who trusted in his own judgment and guided himself by his own lights, refusing to declare and manifest himself to his superior and spiritual father. And he was also cured as soon as he manifested himself. Cassian says that he cannot be deceived who manifests and declares himself entirely to his spiritual father, and quotes in confirmation what the Holy Ghost says by the Wise Man: If thou discoverest and layest bare his disguises and artifices, that is, his secret and hidden temptations, he shall not deceive thee, nor carry thee away (Ecclus. xxvii. 19). God deliver thee from the serpent that biteth secretly (x. 11). When the serpent or viper plays the rattlesnake, and comes hissing and making a noise, and the snake charmer hears him, there is a remedy. In the same way God keeps you from the devil, the old serpent, who bites when he is alone in silence; but when your spiritual director hears him, who can charm him with verses of Holy Writ, there is a remedy at hand.

A further point to note in this matter is the high value that God sets on the humility that is shown in having recourse to the superior or spiritual father, and opening your heart to him. So pleasing is this humility to God that often the temptation is put an end to by the mere revealing of it, without observing the remedy, and even though the superior does not mention any remedy and makes no reply. So says Cassian: “The temptation lasts no longer than while it is kept covered up in the heart; uncover and reveal it, and at once it disappears; even before the superior has given his answer, it is already gone; as the snake lurking in a dark hole or under a stone makes off at once when it is discovered.” Lift up a stone, and you will see how the toads, adders, and lizards that were there make off and cannot suffer the light; so the devil, the old serpent, says Cassian, makes off at once when he is discovered, because he is the father of darkness and cannot endure the light. The devil, being so proud, greatly resents the discovery of his petty and base arts; he is too proud to stand it, and so flies away at once when he sees himself discovered.

Let us set ourselves here to consider and reflect if for bodily ailments there were physicians who could cure them by merely having them made known to them, what a boon we should take that to be. But what in the treatment of bodies is impossible, is witnessed by daily experience in the life of the soul; by the mere declaration of temptations to the superior, they are often gone before he has given any answer. Even further, I say, by the mere resolve to tell the thing to the superior or spiritual father, the temptation often comes to an end and vanishes. You were going to tell it him; and before you reached his door, God had scattered all that cloud, and delivered you from the temptation and trouble that was on you. We have an example of this in the Lives of the Fathers of Egypt. They tell of one who had fasted sixty weeks and prayed continually that God would declare to him the solution of a certain doubt he had; and as all that time he could not come by it, he resolved to go to another monk, who dwelt in the same desert, and lay it before him; and as he went out of his cell for that purpose, he found on the spot an angel, who gave him the solution of his doubt, telling him at the same time that by that act of humility he had merited to have his doubt cleared up more than by all the praying and fasting that he had done. In the holy Gospel we have also a good example of this in the ten lepers that came to meet Christ our Redeemer on His way to Jerusalem, crying out: Jesus, Master, have mercy on us (Luke xvii. 13). He bade them go and show themselves to the priests. And the holy Gospel says: While they were on the way, before they arrived there, they were cured. God takes such satisfaction in our humbling ourselves, and subjecting ourselves to the men whom He has put in His place, that He will confirm it by miracles to show how pleased He is. Often by merely threatening the devil to discover him, he takes fright, and leaves you and makes off. So it is a good thing here to do what children do, who, when anyone annoys them, threaten that they will tell their father.