B. Particular Statements About Consolation

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First consolation is described in terms of its sources.

 

[330] 2. God alone can bring about consolation without any concomitant causes. We know the experience of having certain thoughts, achievements, or events which bring about a feeling of great consolation in our lives. We also know the effect of another person or persons whose very presence or conversation can give us joy. But we can more readily attribute our consolation directly to the touch of God when there is no thought, no event, no person--in general no object of any sort--which seems to be the source of such a movement. The directness of sense words, such as "a touch" or "a taste" seems to point more accurately the way to describe this special action of God in our lives. The effect of such a taste or touch, which may bring along delight or joy, is what we can more readily grasp and speak about. But in these cases, we should be aware that God himself is truly said to be the direct source of all our consolation.

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[331] 3. When there is a reason for consolation, whether it be from certain thoughts or achievements or events , or even more so from certain people who have  an effect upon us, then either the good spirit or the evil spirit can be involved. On the one hand, the good spirit brings about such consolation in order to strengthen and to speed the progress of our life in Christ. The evil spirit, on the other hand, arouses good feelings so that we are drawn to focus our attention on wrong things, or to pursue a more selfish motivation, or to find our won will before all else. Quietly and slowly the change is brought about until the evil direction becomes clear.

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Ways of working with spurious consolation are:

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[332] 4. For a person striving to lead a good life, the evil spirit ordinarily begins like an angel of light. For example, we find ourselves inspired by pious thoughts or holy desires, and then after some time we are caught up in the pride of our own intellect and in the selfishness s of our own desires.

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[333] 5. We can become discerning persons by examining carefully our own experiences. If in reflecting on the course of our thoughts or our actions we find that from beginning to end our eyes have remained fixed on the Lord, we can be sure that the good spirit has been moving us. But if what started off well in our thought and action begins to be self-focused or to turn us from our way to God, we should suspect that the evil spirit has somehow twisted the good beginning to an evil direction, and possibly even to an evil end. So we can discover that an original good course has led us to be weakened spiritually or even to become desolate or confused. The signs of desolation give us a clear indication of the evil spirit's influence.

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[334] 6. When we recognize that we have been duped by the evil spirit through a certain thought progression or course of action, we should review carefully all the stages which we passed through from the time when the evil became apparent back to its very beginnings in the good. By means of such a review, we will find that we can more quickly catch ourselves when we are being led on by the deceit of th evil spirit and so we are more enabled to guard ourselves in the future.

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Finally, there are further insights in regard to consolation in the progress of our spiritual life.

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[335] 7. As we continue to make progress in the spiritual life, the movement of the good spirit is very delicate, gentle, and often delightful. It may be compared to the way a drop of water penetrates a sponge.

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When the evil spirit tries to interrupt our progress, the movement is violent, disturbing, and confusing. It may be compared to the way a waterfall hits a stone ledge below.

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In persons whose lives are going from bad to worse, the descriptions given above should just be reversed. The reason for this lies in the conflict of opposing forces. In other words, when good or evil spirits find our heart a true haven, they enter quietly just as anyone comes into his own home. By contrast, evil spirits cause create commotion and noise as they try to enter into the heart of the just person intent upon the good.

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[336] 8. When the consolation experience in our life comes directly from God, there can be no deception in it. Although a delight and a peace will be found in such an experience, a spiritual person should be very careful to distinguish the actual moment of this consolation-in-God-himself from the afterglow which may be exhilarating and joyful for some period of time. Quite often it is in this second period of time, that  we begin to reason out plans of action or to make resolutions which cannot be attributed so directly to God as the initial experience which is non-conceptual in nature. Because human reasoning and other influences are now coming into the total picture of this consolation period, a very careful process of discerning the good and the evil spirits should be undertaken according to the previous guidelines before any resolution or plan of action is adopted.