St. Catherine’s Guide to Discerning Consolations
How to discern God’s consolations from the devil’s trickery
Discernment of spirits is often difficult, especially for those who cling to spiritual consolations and crumble when God-given aridity hits. Although we have St. Ignatius as a profound guide, it can still be challenging to know whether our thoughts and inspirations come from the Holy Ghost or from the temptation of the evil one.
Even when a consolation seems good and holy, it may not be from God. The devil doesn’t always tempt us through vice or darkness—for those who try to be faithful to God, the devil arrives under a pretext of what seems to be light. Sometimes our seemingly-good inspirations are actually tricks—distractions to keep us from accomplishing the true will of God, or to yank us from the path of humility so we succumb to spiritual pride.
How can we discern the difference between a consolation from God and a trick from the father of lies?
St. Catherine of Siena dictated her book—simply called The Dialogue—in 1377 while in mystical ecstasy. Speaking intimately with God over a span of several months, Caterina’s soul rose up with desire and a longing to hear her Beloved’s responses to her varied questions. At one point she asks about discernment: How can we tell if a consolation comes from God or from the devil?
The first—and most crucial—thing we must do if we’re to properly discern spirits is to remain humble. God gives us His graces in various ways, making His presence known through consolations as well as spiritual aridity. The aridity isn’t punishment, but rather a gift to increase our thirst for sanctity and our desire for union with God. The Father tells Caterina:
Sometimes I give the pleasure of a spiritual gladness; sometimes contrition and contempt for sin, which will make it seem as if the spirit is inwardly troubled. Sometimes I am in the soul without her sensing my presence …
All this I do out of love, to support her and make her grow in the virtue of humility and in perseverance and to teach her that she should not try to lay down rules for Me and that her goal is not consolation but only virtue built on Me. I want her to accept humbly, in season and out, with loving affection, the affection with which I give to her … Her beginning and end should be in the love of My charity, and in this charity she should accept pleasure and its absence in terms of My will rather than her own. This is the way to avoid delusion.
(Dialogue 68, Noffke translation)
Everything God gives or takes from us is accomplished to make us holy (1 Thess. 4:3), and the foundation of holiness is humility. Without humility, discernment is crippled; it becomes impossible to have the “eyes to see” or the “ears to hear” the spiritual truths our Lord is sending us (Matt. 13:16).
It’s a delusion to desire an experience of God according to our own conceptions or wishes. We must always humbly submit to His way, whether it comes in the form of consolation or God-willed aridity. Certainly when we’re in spiritual aridity we can pray for relief, but if that relief doesn’t arrive immediately—and if the aridity isn’t caused by a fault of our own—then we should accept what God is giving us in the present moment.
An example of aridity being the fault of our sin rather than a grace from God is given in Dialogue 69. God explains to Caterina—and to us—that some people yearn for His consolation to such a degree that they become spiritually greedy.
These people find all their pleasure in seeking their own spiritual consolation—so much so that often they see their neighbors in spiritual or temporal need and refuse to help them. Under the pretense of virtue they say, “It would make me lose my spiritual peace and quiet, and I would not be able to say my Hours at the proper time’ … But they are deceived by their own spiritual pleasure, and they offend me more by not coming to the help of their neighbors’ need than if they had abandoned all their consolations … When their charity for their neighbors is diminished, so is My love for them. And when My love is diminished, so is consolation.
The desire for consolations only, rather than accepting all phases of the spiritual journey, can also become selfish when we fall into bitterness or irritation during the times when consolations are withdrawn.
If their desire and searching is fixed only on consolations and visions, then they will fall into spiritual bitterness and weariness when they find themselves deprived of these. They think they have lost grace when sometimes I withdraw from their mind. Now I do often grant My servants consolations and visions. But I have told you how I go away from the soul and then return. I go away in feeling only, not in grace, and this to bring the soul to perfection. But this plunges these souls into bitterness …
They should not be foolish or let themselves be so deceived by that spiritual selfishness which does not know the truth. Rather they should know Me in themselves, that I am that supreme Good who supports their good will in time of conflict lest for the sake of pleasure they turn back. So they should humble themselves ... and this is precisely why I withdraw from them: to humble them and to make them know my charity toward them when they find it in the good will I support in them in time of conflict.
(Dialogue 70)
The devil delights in taking advantage of the soul plunged in spiritual selfishness. Taking on the guise of goodness and light, he gives whatever he sees the mind disposed to desire and receive. So when he sees the mind gluttonous, with its desire set only on spiritual visions and consolations … the devil presents himself to that mind under the appearance of light. He does this in different ways: now as an angel, now under the guise of my Truth, now as one or the other of my saints. And this he does to catch the soul with the hook of that very spiritual pleasure she has sought in visions and spiritual delight. And unless she rouses herself with true humility, scorning all pleasure, she will be caught on this hook in the devil’s hands. But let her humbly disdain pleasure and cling to love not for the gift but for Me, the giver. For the devil for all his pride cannot tolerate a humble spirit (Dialogue 71).
So how can we know if our spiritual consolation is from God or a trick of the evil one? God the Father gives us a simple and distinct rule of discernment.
If it is the devil who has come to visit the mind under the guise of light, the soul experiences gladness at his coming. But the longer he stays, the more gladness gives way to weariness and darkness and pricking as the mind becomes clouded over by his presence within. But when the soul is truly visited by Me, eternal Truth, she experiences holy fear at the first encounter. And with this fear comes gladness and security, along with a gentle prudence that does not doubt even while it doubts, but through self-knowledge considers itself unworthy. So the soul says, ‘I am not worthy to receive your visitation—but how can I be worthy?’ Then she turns to the greatness of My charity, knowing and seeing that I can grant it. For I look not to her unworthiness but to My worth, and so make her worthy to receive Me. For I do not scorn the longing with which she calls to Me … She emerges from the course of prayer and My visitation with spiritual gladness and joy, in humility considering herself unworthy, and in charity acknowledging that it was from Me.
(Dialogue 71)
The key to discernment is humility and a hunger for virtue. If spiritual consolation leaves us filled with humility and gratitude for God’s graces, and if our thirst for doing God’s will in all things increases—regardless of the circumstances, in both consolation and aridity—then we can discern that the consolations come from the Holy Ghost. If, however, the so-called “consolations” leave us feeling puffed with pride for our supposed spiritual advancement, or clouded with a sense of foreboding or spiritual confusion, the “consolation” is a spiritual trick and temptation.
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It's hard to come up with a more crucial spiritual lesson for each soul: humility is THE bedrock for all discernment. St. Catherine is a reliable Doctor in truth.