In the introduction, we explored how Saint Ignatius experienced consolation and desolation when recovering from a serious battle wound, which led to a profound conversion—and a deep understanding of the external forces constantly at work in our spiritual lives. This new awareness also gave life to the Fourteen Rules of Discernment, which Saint Ignatius laid out in detail when he authored his renowned retreat guide known as the Spiritual Exercises.
The Reason Behind the Rules
At first glance, the Fourteen Rules of Discernment might seem like a set of guidelines for making decisions. Rather, they are rules that help us recognize and respond to the spiritual movements, or ‘spirits’—both good and bad—that affect our spiritual lives every day.
God lovingly invites us into a secure, restorative, and healthy relationship with Him through prayer (CCC2558) so that we may be happy with Him forever in heaven. Satan seeks to keep us from this saving relationship with God by tempting us with desolations or false consolations. Enter the battle of prayer (CCC2725), a tug-of-war in our souls between the abundant life God offers us and Satan’s attempt to destroy it at all costs.
The battle of prayer—and by extension, the Rules of Discernment—center around recognizing these temptations. If we know what they are, we can learn how to respond to them with divine help. The Rules of Discernment teach us to identify the many ways Satan is trying to draw us away from God’s care, and how our Lord, on the other hand, seeks to encourage and help us against these temptations. Through the rules, we gain valuable context for our experiences of consolation and desolation, receiving clarity in how to counter temptations most effectively.
Natural vs. Spiritual Movements
Before we dive into the rules themselves, it’s important to make a distinction between natural and spiritual consolation and desolation. Natural consolation and desolation stem from our physiological and psychological state. Reasons for natural desolation might be health issues, lack of sleep, a bad day at work, or losing a loved one.
Spiritual consolation and desolation, on the other hand, stem from our spiritual state. Spiritual consolation occurs when we are moving toward God in our soul or actions, while spiritual desolation happens when we are moving away from Him in our soul or actions.
As we will see in our journey through the rules, sometimes our natural feelings will coincide with these spiritual movements, and sometimes they won’t. At times we may actually experience spiritual consolation even when enduring earthly suffering. On the other hand, we may feel gratified superficially even when moving away from God, becoming spiritually distant or numb. While natural consolation and desolation can certainly impact our state of spiritual consolation or desolation, they aren’t reliable measures of spiritual consolation and desolation. They’re simply an additional data point. Thankfully, the Rules of Discernment give us clearer parameters for measuring these spiritual movements.
The First Rule
In his First Rule, Saint Ignatius states the following:
“In the persons who go from mortal sin to mortal sin, the enemy is commonly used to propose to them apparent pleasures, making them imagine sensual delights and pleasures in order to hold them more and make them grow in their vices and sins. In these persons the good spirit uses the opposite method, pricking them and biting their consciences through the process of reason” (Source).
In this first rule, St. Ignatius is helping us identify the actions that Satan (the evil spirit) and God (the good spirit) will take when we persist in sin—particularly, mortal sin. St. Ignatius tells us that when we’re committing sin, Satan will try to keep us enslaved to ongoing sin by making it look attractive or feel good. God, on the other hand, will try to “prick” our conscience and awaken our reason so we can move away from sin toward His freedom and love.
This first rule zeros in on an important truth: we wouldn’t choose sin if it didn’t contain some apparent good or promise of fulfillment. We are not drawn to sin because it is damaging, but rather because it proposes some good that the enemy has accused God of withholding from us.
Automatic Reaction vs. Reason
These false promises or fleeting pleasures appeal to our senses, or ‘sensitive appetite’ as St. Thomas Aquinas calls it. This might resonate if you’ve ever thought, just one more episode when watching your favorite show, or tried to limit yourself to just one potato chip. This is no coincidence—shows intentionally end with a cliffhanger with the next episode queued to autoplay. Salty snacks are engineered to maximize our body’s dopamine release to intensify cravings.
Even though we know that binging five hours of TV or crunching our way to the bottom of the bag is inherently unhealthy, in our fallen human nature it’s easier to let our sensitive appetite to rule over reason. These are just a two mild examples of the countless enticements that target our senses daily. Satan is constantly tempting us to react before our reason and will can kick in. The enemy knows that when we do allow our reason and will to temper the sensitive appetite, our conscience will usually lead us in a healthier direction.
Recently I witnessed this firsthand. My teenage daughter and I were watching a show she liked on her birthday. As we finished the second episode, she lobbied for a third. Fighting my own sensitive appetite, I quickly pressed the pause button as it was loading and gently suggested a trip to her favorite art gallery—an activity also on her birthday wish list. Hopping up from the couch, she said she would take a snack break and decide. Five minutes later, she said, “well now that a few minutes have passed, I don’t really feel like watching anymore. Let’s go to the gallery.”
Hitting the Pause Button
The same pattern occurs with mortal sin—which involves grave matter that causes damage to our bodies, minds, and souls. We feel an initial “hit” of temporary pleasure or relief, but then there’s a “crash.” Just as St. Ignatius discovered when craving worldly pleasures, the fulfillment is always fleeting; we must chase more to achieve the same temporary satisfaction.
The seductive pleasures and false promises of mortal sin are far more addictive than the most delectable potato chip. We see it in drugs and gambling, self-harm and social media, lust and anger, gossip and envy, idolatry and the New Age. Once we’ve committed sin, especially serious sin, the enemy’s tactic is to keep us from thinking about it at all costs while proposing more sinful pleasures to keep us reacting to our vice-filled cravings. The enemy knows that if we don’t stop to consider our actions, we won’t acknowledge their harm or the state of our soul. In the event we start to think about it, the enemy seeks to suffocate our reason and our will with shame that paralyzes us, justifications that silence our conscience, or other easy escapes that numb and distract us from the issue at hand.
Yet the Lord can still work through our reason to help us out of the fleeting (and damaging) pleasure of sin. Just as my daughter discovered when she took a break from the superficial pleasure, hitting the pause button can lead to far more life-giving and fulfilling pursuits.
Waking from the Daze
This is why the Lord’s tactic is to “prick” our conscience when we’re trapped in sin. We might perceive these pricks as punishment or pain, but they’re really God’s attempt to hit the proverbial pause button on our automatic cravings and reactions. God regularly works through the people and circumstances in our lives to prick our dissociated conscience so our reason can re-awaken and remember a deeper reality.
Just as exterior silence helps to reclaim our natural senses, pausing internally affords us some semblance of spiritual stillness and reflection. God’s “pricks” allow us to start employing our intellect and our will long enough to stop, turn toward Him, and let Him strengthen our willpower so our reason can begin to rule over our reactions.
In turn, we can begin to purify ourselves of sin with the help of God’s abundant grace and mercy.
This puts us squarely on the path of growing once more in relationship with God—a path that leads us straight to the Second Rule of Discernment.
Image courtesy of Unsplash.
Find out more about Discernment of Spirits with this free video series by Dan Burke.
