Transcript

Emily Mentock: Hi, and welcome back to The Real + True Podcast. I’m your co-host, Emily Mentock.

Edmund Mitchell: And I’m Edmund Mitchell.

Emily Mentock: And today we are continuing to work through the fourth pillar of the Catechism, where we’re journeying through the Lord’s Prayer and each petition. So today we’re talking about the last petition; the sixth and seventh petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

So just as a quick recap, the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer concern God’s name, Kingdom, and will. And then the next four concern our needs— including these last two—about temptation and evil. So I think to kick things off, Edmund, I’d love to ask you from your experience and ministry and the research that you did for working on this unit, how do people today view sin and right-and-wrong or morality?

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. We were talking just before the podcast about the differences in all the different generations’ perception of sin. I think in general, there’s less of an openness to the concept of sin, but I think we might see that play out in different ways with different generations. But yeah, I think there’s people who view it more as a relativistic approach. Like, “Well, it’s whatever you decide is right and wrong.”

I think there’s also—I’m interested in your experience with this—but I think there’s also people who are hypervigilant, even if they’re not super religious. There was this Barna research that came out recently for Gen Z that said that morality is often subjective or seen as subjective. So two and three; 66% agree that they need evidence to support their beliefs. 

But it’s interesting—I just wanted to note this as well though—that among the same generation, nearly two and three report having prayed to God within the last seven days. What’s your experience with this, especially different generations’ outlook on it?

Emily Mentock: Yeah, I think you’re exactly right. The way I experienced it—I’m a millennial like you—and I think we’ve definitely seen—and even the Popes have talked about, and it’s reflected in theological writings—this sort of age of moral relativism, where everything is relative. So it becomes very difficult in the secular world without having a formed conscience to distinguish between right and wrong. We all have reason that we can use to kind of know about these things. 

The Catechism talks about this; we covered this extensively at the start of the third pillar on morality. But it’s difficult to have a conversation about it in the world other than expressing personal belief. And that’s kind of the environment of my peers in the secular world that I grew up in. And then in my faith circles—and a lot of my formation—was overcoming this moral relativism.

But what I have seen now more and more with younger generations; with people that I’ve talked to who are on campuses or in high schools is this kind of wave of young people who are assigning morality to a lot of habits that they have, where they are seeing it more absolute or more objective in terms of right and wrong; good and bad. That’s not necessarily formed by the spirituality, but this can spill into spirituality as well. And not that it’s a bad thing; of course we want to pursue what we think is good for us. 

But this part of the Catechism, and especially talking about temptation—which we’re going to dive into today—it’s not always as black-and-white; as obviously bad “avoid,” and obviously good “do this.” We could be led into trial. We have to discern whether it’s God who’s testing us, or it’s Satan who’s tempting us. 

So I’m really excited to talk about this more, because I think it’s such an important part of the catechetical formation of young people as they gain more freedoms; as they start to decide things for themselves. And yeah, I think the Catechism has a lot of wisdom to offer us here.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. It’s interesting when you were mentioning assigning morality to habits and things like that. There’s obviously lots of conversation about “Are you doing enough if you’re not doing an ice bath, or you don’t have this diet?” There’s this aspirational kind of attitude of becoming a better version of yourself. And it’s interesting, even even people who are atheistic or materialist—materialists in the sense of “I don’t believe in the spiritual world or God”—there is this challenge we’re faced with decisions in our everyday life. So it’s interesting. 

But when we were talking about this episode in particular, we’ve already covered temptation, sin, morality in the third pillar. And I love that this is brought up in the petition of the Lord’s Prayer and in this fourth pillar on the heart, because as someone who’s struggled to get things that I want to get done, done—anyone who’s struggled knowing that they shouldn’t do something or should do something and then don’t—it really is this big challenge.

What comes to mind is that passage in Scripture where St. Paul is like “I noticed that the thing I want to do, I don’t do. And the thing I don’t want to do, I do.” So it’s interesting that really this is a heart challenge. The challenge is “How do we wrestle with and deal with, ‘We ought to wake up and something as trivial as take an ice bath, but then we don’t.’ Or ‘we ought not lie’, but then we do.’”

And that’s what this pillar really dives a lot deeper into, which is the heart. There’s this beautiful passage,—one of my favorites—in Jeremiah; the prophet Jeremiah, where he’s talking about this day that God is kind of telling him will come; where the covenant and the Commandments won’t be written just on stone. But it says, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people”  (Jeremiah 31:33). 

And I’m getting chills just right now because it’s really beautiful and moving to me in particular; in a special way, because of that challenge of “I want to do these things. For some reason, I don’t.”

Emily Mentock: I don’t have another heart Scripture passage to quote back to you. But I can say from my personal experience, that is where I encounter the Lord; that is where I can return to, and know where I can find God, and where I can invite God to come and dwell in me. Which is super important then to draw from that place when we are facing temptation or evil in the world; to know that no matter about that external reality that God is dwelling in us in our hearts. 

And so that is going to help us do things like overcome the heresies of moral relativism and sin that we face today. So I think that’s kind of a good way for us to segment into a main part of the discussion that we’re going to have today, which is talking about two major heresies related to this topic, and how we can teach on them as we’re teaching this part of the Lord’s Prayer. 

So the first one is Pelagianism which says that “God’s grace is not necessary for salvation, and that my human free will is strong enough.” And then Jansenism, which is that “human free will is incapable unless you are specifically chosen by God.” 

So Edmund, what can we learn about avoiding both of these two extremes when teaching about temptation and sin?

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah, I think we’ve set it up really well. The intellectual focus of the faith in the Church over the last couple centuries—if you look at the history—it makes sense. You think about at the time of the explosion of the printing press, and you have maybe a more uneducated, lay faithful who are leaving the Church for Protestantism because people are making really strong, intellectual arguments. And so the Church is like, “We need to intellectually form people.”

At the same time, you have the Enlightenment sweeping in the West, and this emphasis on the intellect as so important; rationality and reason. So it makes sense that the Church was kind of affected by this, and these things can become overemphasized. You have Thomas Aquinas who lays out this amazing, intellectual treaty in the Summa for defending the faith and explaining the faith in a deep, intellectual rigor.

But if we maybe say that the third pillar that covers sin and temptation is more of the content that someone should intellectually know, this fourth pillar is reminding us that we need the heart. We can’t just know Jesus intellectually. And so these two heresies actually are a result of—I would argue—hyper-intellectualizing the faith. 

So if you know that sin is a thing and temptation’s a thing, and you want to avoid that, but you avoid the concept of the heart and grace, you can go in one of these extremes. We found this—if you remember—in the challenging parts of the sacraments pillar, where it was like, “We choose something, but also we can’t leave out God’s grace. We can’t do it without God’s grace. But if we overemphasize God’s grace, then we kind of let ourselves off easy with our responsibility to act.”

So these two heresies are really, really important. Not that you have to necessarily define them for people, but just internally when you’re talking about sin and temptation, to keep in mind that we can’t go in one of these two extremes.

Emily Mentock: Yeah, I think you’re exactly right. We don’t have to do a deep dive necessarily on these two heresies specifically—and the Church history of battling them—to stay true to the faith. But I do think it is important—and you defined this so well—to understand that two of the extremes that we face when we consider how we respond to or pray for overcoming temptation, is either indifference or scrupulosity. 

So if you don’t want to go down the heresy path, and the Church’s reasons, and the way we responded, it is just important to understand those concepts. Which maybe aren’t as extremely heretical today, but still very much something that we all have to be aware of in our own lives and in our prayer, so that we are not being indifferent to sin, and we’re also not being scrupulous to sin.

So the Catechism gives a lot of wisdom on this, and I really love in paragraph 2846, it clarifies something. It says: “We therefore ask our Father not to ‘lead’ us into temptation. [But] It is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: [because] the Greek means both ‘do not allow us to enter into temptation’ and ‘do not let us yield to temptation.’”  

So I think it’s important to understand that this “do not lead us” is our best English translation of a Greek word with a complex meaning, that can give us insight into what it means to avoid the scrupulosity. That doesn’t mean “remove temptation for your life.” That would be something probably very difficult to do. Even cloistered nuns in a convent locked away in a mountain still face temptation in their lives. So we’re praying that we’re not yielding to it.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. What comes to mind—and free to tell me if this works—but what comes to mind is people in my life know that—you know, those; what are they? They’re like coconut Girl Scout cookies; they’re like coconut chocolate.

Emily Mentock: Samoas.

Edmund Mitchell: Yes. If those are in the house, I can eat the entire package just not even thinking; just throughout the day, I just eat the entire pack. And so I just try not to keep them around. 

What comes to mind is if you have a friend, or my kids; where I say, “Hey, don’t allow me to eat these. If I have a lapse in judgment or I’m just not paying attention, don’t allow me to enter into this situation.” Or “Don’t let me yield to this.” 

I’m still responsible, ultimately, but if I could have some help with this so it’s not like, “Hey, God. Don’t plague me with temptation or Girl Scout cookies.” It’s cooperation with God to do this and to avoid temptation.

Emily Mentock: Yeah. And I think it’s also praying for the gift of trust in what God is telling us. So if we are tempted by something that we could have; maybe it’s not sinful to do it. I could be lazy and stay up too late and scroll on my phone. But I know that it’s better for me to serve the world by getting to bed at a prudent time, and not be tempted to just sit on my couch doing nothing. 

Then we’re asking God for the grace to have the strength, of course; the will and strength to overcome it. But also, to trust that what God offers us is greater than giving into the temptation to do that thing. 

And this is probably an important time to distinguish between temptation and sin. Because giving into sin is a different thing. If you’re sinning, that’s a different thing that we’re asking for here. Now, we’re tempted to sin, but temptation itself is not the sin, right Edmund?

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. And that’s a really important thing that for some of us, that might seem obvious. But I’ve actually met a lot of people that really struggle with this, where they thought, “Man, these thoughts are popping in my head, or the fact that I’m wanting to do this.”

 Even my own son, I remember there was a time where he was really wrestling with this. Where he said, “I really want to do this one thing, and I feel bad that I want to do this thing that I know is wrong.” And I met one individual in ministry—who I think had an actual mental issue with this—but he was plagued with intrusive thoughts or these temptations; just like evil thoughts and actions and things like that. And it was really hard for him because he felt a lot of shame about it. And it was constantly trying to reaffirm that the temptation itself is not sinful. 

Now it might highlight where our heart lies if we’re constantly—what’s the word?—obsessing over something. So allowing yourself to obsess over a thought;

Emily Mentock: Giving into that,

Edmund Mitchell: It’s cooperating with that.

Emily Mentock: Exactly.

Edmund Mitchell: That’s a good way to put it. Yeah. So things popping up or things being hard and tempted, that’s just part of our human nature. And we shouldn’t have—honestly, in some ways that shame can sometimes be attached to pride because we think, “Oh, I have this perception of myself that I’m not tempted.” Or “I’m not the type of person to think these things.” 

And it’s an opportunity for humility—and like we said earlier—to just trust that God is the only one. If it wasn’t for God’s grace, I would be this sinner. We’re all sinners, but if it wasn’t for God’s grace, I would be falling into these sins.

Emily Mentock: Right. For some reason, this is an example that’s coming to mind. Maybe this will make it in the podcast; maybe it won’t. But I always get frustrated because my husband leaves his dishes on top of the dishwasher instead of putting them in. And so in those moments—every time—I am tempted to just yell at him instead of handling it the loving way. The temptation is always to react in a frustrated, yelling way about that. 

Does that mean should we get rid of our dishwasher, get rid of the plates, get rid of the counter, get rid of my husband because this thing in my life is always tempting me to yell at him? Which would be very wrong.

Or, should I recognize that this is a temptation in my life to get frustrated; to lash out, and instead, ask God for the more virtue; more patience for a holy marriage, so that I can better overcome that temptation to yell and find ways to more consistently and more lovingly solve that little friction?

 So that’s kind of a silly example, but to “lead us not into temptation” doesn’t mean, “Okay, God. Take all the plates and bowls and dishes out of my life.” It means “Help me overcome the temptation that comes with the reality of my life and our fallen world; our sinful world, where those things exist.”

Edmund Mitchell: Totally.

Emily Mentock: Not that it’s a sin to not load the dishwasher.

Edmund Mitchell: I think that’s a good segue into someone might acknowledge that we don’t want them to go too far and just be indifferent to it. We do have limits. When you’re dating, there are certain people that are going to be more messy than others. That doesn’t mean you just should tell yourself, “Well, it’s just an opportunity for me to grow.” We have to be realistic about our capacity to handle those moments. 

And we shouldn’t be overly scrupulous, but we also shouldn’t be indifferent or laissez-faire; “it just doesn’t matter. Just put yourself in any situation, and God will figure it out. And if I sin, I sin. But if I don’t, then ‘God, help me.’”

Does that make sense? Have you seen that attitude; the opposite attitude, or experienced that?

Emily Mentock: Yeah, I think that’s sort of a result of the moral relativism at times, too. We can be so relative about what’s right and wrong, but then we become indifferent to if it’s right or wrong. This is where I have seen the link that “Well, if this person’s doing it, and they seem okay” or “If I have this reason I’m using to justify it, then it’s probably fine.” Or saying, “Well God, if you didn’t want me to do this, then don’t let this ex come back into my life. Then I won’t be tempted to text him.” Or something like that.

So I think that it is not the right relationship with God to just be indifferent to the tests, trials, temptations that we face and expect God to do it for us. But we also don’t want to be so overly scrupulous that then we’re paralyzed or cutting good things out of our lives that are gifts from God out of fear or shame that they’re going to lead us to temptation.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. And I think the important thing to highlight in all of this—that we keep coming back to—is the relationship. Yes, sin does affect us personally, but it also affects the body of Christ, and it affects our relationship with someone. It’s not just that you don’t want your husband to be messy because that makes him a messy person, and we look down our nose at messy people. It’s also that it wounds the relationship with His spouse and it might imply an indifference or a lack of charity towards another. 

Picking your nose isn’t just a gross thing to do because you’re the type of person that does that. It’s kind of gross because it implies this lack of concern for others; this disrespect for others. Like, “I’m going to do this right in front of you because I don’t care.” And so it’s not just about what we talked about earlier, “Oh, we need to be the type of people that do ice baths and don’t sin;” it’s about the relationship with God our Father and the community, the Church.

Emily Mentock: Yes. That relationship is so important. And that’s where the Catechism gives us and points us toward the tool of discernment. Because to be able to discern “When is this something that’s sort of a trial that’s going to help me grow in virtue but not something I should cut out of my life?” For example, my marriage? It tests my virtue for sure to be in relationship with that person, but that doesn’t mean that I should cut him out of my life and try and just live in my own little sinless bubble, which would never exist. 

Or “is this a temptation? Is there other relationships in my life,” like maybe a friend who always asks you to go out drinking, and you always end up drinking too much. Or a friend who’s going to kind of throw shots at you, and you know you’re going to end up too drunk and to the point where it’s sinful or impacting your life in a really negative way. 

And maybe then you do need to discern like, okay, “How should I handle this relationship?” So the Catechism points us to discernment as a way to understand between trials and temptation.

In paragraph 2847, it says: “The Holy Spirit makes us discern between trials, which are necessary for the growth of the inner man, and temptation, which leads to sin and death.”

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. And that’s really important. All of the Old Testament—you could argue—is just a battle of God and man; God trying to teach us human persons the right order of things. The scribes and the Pharisees, they were so focused on the law, and so focused on how just and right it made them. 

But what Jesus pointed out was often, for example, “Yeah, you’re following the Sabbath by not working or doing any of this, but then someone is sick or ill, and then you’re going to be proud that you follow this law?” What is it that has the higher priority here? And it’s relationship; it’s charity. 

I’m thinking of one situation in college where there was a friend who—he was in this pre-program preparing to go to the seminary. And so you have to do the Liturgy of the Hours all the time. And all of his friends had planned to go to this dinner together before break. And it was really important for us all to be there. He had forgotten to kind of do his Liturgy of the Hours beforehand, and he was sitting out in the car to do it. 

And one of his other friends—I think who was further in the program—was like, “Hey. No man, you missed it. This is important; these people are important. And so even though you might”—he was saying how he was going to just feel horrible during the dinner, and that he’s not as prayerful as he should be. 

And, and it was like “But this is in service of community and relationship, and you can’t change the fact that you missed it. Maybe just do it later tonight, and it won’t be at the right time, but the priority is this charity and community with one another.” And again, discern all of these situations. This isn’t a prescription, but that’s what Jesus was teaching us.

Emily Mentock: Yeah,

Edmund Mitchell: We can’t avoid some temptations. And so we shouldn’t not have relationship or charity with people because they’re going to put us in a tempting situation, but we also can’t be indifferent about our limits.

Emily Mentock: I love that example, because you’re exactly right. In that moment—by the time it got to that point—the greater good was to be in community. This is not a blanket statement for every situation of “Should you pray or should you go to dinner?” It sounds like for a particular friend in that particular moment. 

And the advice he got from this older seminarian guy who was more advanced in the program, was that the greater good was community. And so what the intention to learn from that is, “Okay, I missed this; I missed my Liturgy of the Hours.”

Doesn’t mean that I should then put this smaller thing over this bigger thing, but, for me to continue to grow in virtue and grow in formation, I need to learn, “How do I remember this next time? How do I remember to pray my Liturgy of the Hours at a different time next time? Or I invite everyone to pray it with me.?’” Or some other solution.

If you’re going to be living life to the full and enjoying the gifts that God has given you, you’re going to encounter temptations. If I have a habit of not being an alcoholic—which is a different thing, and alcoholism is a disease—but if I have a habit of just being careless, sinful, drinking too much, should I just never go to a friend’s wedding ever again? Probably not. I probably should go to my friend’s wedding, and then work on the virtue of prudence and moderation to not drink too much there; to not let it become sinful. 

And I think that this is where that gift of discernment is so important. And the Catechism goes on to explain—which I think is so important—that “Discernment unmasks the lie of temptation, whose object appears to be good, a ‘delight to the eyes’ and desirable, when in reality its fruit is death” (CCC 2847).

God does not want to impose the good, but wants free beings. And so I think that the idea that we can know for certain when we’re distinguishing “is this a temptation? Is this a trial? Is this an area where God is inviting me to grow in virtue, or is this Satan tempting me to sin?”

We can always trust that God will never be the one tempting us to sin. That doesn’t mean that we won’t face trials or challenges where God is inviting us to grow in virtue, but He won’t be the one who to lead us to sinfulness. And I think this is where that discernment; that work of the heart is so, so important.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. I love that “Discernment unmasks the lie of temptation.” And all of this is really highlighting the fact that all of this comes back to the heart. When we’re praying in the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil,” we should be bringing to mind this heart posture. 

And there’s a really great little aphorism that’s really impacted my prayer. This idea that “Rules without relationship lead to rebellion.” And this was true when I was young, and it’s still true today. You don’t want someone to just follow the rules and be really obsessed with making sure they’re not breaking any rules, out of just a focus on the rules. 

We don’t want people to come to a wedding because ‘that’s the rule about siblings; is they need to come to weddings.” You want someone to be at your wedding because they love you; you want people to be there because they care about you. And so the petition implies this decision of the heart, and that’s hard to do. You can’t just decide your heart is focused on God.

Emily Mentock: Yeah. You’re exactly right. So I’d love to end this episode, Edmund, with some practical suggestions for teaching this part of the Lord’s Prayer, which—as we talked about—requires a lot of discernment, and requires understanding the heart and an awareness also of the culture of morality that you’re speaking into so that you can better catechize on the prayer that’s going to guide people through that. 

Teaching of morality is a separate thing, but this is focused on teaching of prayer. So you had some practical suggestions for catechists. Do you want to go through a couple of them?

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. We shouldn’t shy away from the 10 Commandments and presenting them, and also experiences of presenting them in the context of prayer. I know for me—when I first was a youth minister—I would shy away from “The 10 Commandments you need to know intellectually, but let’s get into the prayer stuff; let’s get into the heart stuff and your relationship with Jesus.” 

But these are actually places that are really fruitful to bring to prayer. So an example that comes up time and time again is an Examination of Conscience, which again, shouldn’t just be an intellectual checklist. It reminds me of this idea that that inner monologue sounds—when it is more in line with the devil’s language—it’s very condemning. It’s like, “Oh, you’re, you are a liar. You did this thing.” 

But in prayer, it says that the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. And when you’re convicted, I think of when you’re in an argument with someone you love and you’re just like, “No, I don’t think I did anything wrong.” And it’s that moment where you go, “You know what? I really should repair this.” It’s not “I’m a horrible person (hopefully), but the Holy Spirit softens our heart; convicts us of sin, and goes, ‘You know what? There was this area where I could have done better’ or ‘There was this part of my life where I willingly chose temptation or sin.’”

The general practical tip here is the 10 Commandments and prayer sometimes seem like they wouldn’t go together, but to bring the 10 Commandments and the teaching of this heart posture into a conversation about prayer and having people experience the 10 Commandments and not just intellectually understand them.

Emily Mentock: I think that where I experience the 10 Commandments in prayer the most is in an Examination of Conscience. There’s many ways to do an Examination of Conscience, but a common way is to sort of follow a template of going through each Commandment. 

And I think what I love about it is that when you are doing an Examination of Conscience, it’s not just, “Did I murder or not? Did I kill or not? Did I commit adultery or not?” It is truly examining your full conscience of everything that falls under this Commandment; searching your heart for examining your whole conscience of reflecting on your life of “Where was the temptation and sin in my life that would fall under this Commandment?”

So I really like that tip because one thing I always like to remind people of is that the Catechism says we’re in the business of forming consciences.

And so a great way to put into practice our prayer to God to “lead us not into temptation” is to examine our conscience of where we were led into temptation by the evil one, or where we were protected against it from God, or where we need to avoid temptation in the future. 

So I think an Examination of Conscience and teaching people of all ages to pray it at an age-appropriate level is so important. And related to that—because I think the Examination of Conscience is kind of a head thing, but also a heart thing—is teaching people that temptation begins and occurs at the heart level. 

You gave the example of your son. You can have a longing for something, but we also want to right our hearts to have a longing for God above all else, out of that loving relationship.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. And it’s important to teach people that in prayer is where Jesus encounters us. And so that means that we have to be honest in prayer. And so if there are areas of your life where you’re just noticing “I do not love the way God loves. I’m not thinking about this the way God thinks about it” —this is hard—those are the places to bring to prayer. 

Yes, we should go to the Catechism and form our conscience and understand it intellectually, but if we don’t then encourage people and walk people and show them what it is like to then bring that into prayer and say, “God, I need you to encounter me at the heart level and supported by the sacraments and grace.” I need to keep bringing this to prayer and say “Honoring the Sabbath and keeping it holy. This is something I’m struggling with.”

And then to take that to prayer and say, “Jesus, I need you to help form my heart so that I experience this”—not just intellectually because that’s not enough. We need that grace and relationship at the heart level.

Emily Mentock: Exactly right. That’s what this whole unit is all about; that we battle sin, temptation, and evil with Jesus through prayer. 

So, thank you so much everyone for joining us for another episode of The Real + True Podcast. We are on a mission to unlock the beauty and truth of the Catechism, and help people around the world encounter its pulsating heart: Jesus Christ. 

We’ve been working through the fourth pillar of the Catechism during the season. We have already covered the first three pillars of the Catechism, and next episode will be our season finale as we wrap up our work of four years working through the entire Catechism. 

We believe that the Catechism is a faithful echo of a God who desires to reveal Himself to us. And so you can find more podcast episodes, the videos that we mentioned in this podcast, and more information at realtrue.org. Have a great day!