Skip to main content

The Screwtape Letters: How are you Tempted?

One of my favorite scenes from The Emperor's New Groove is when Kronk is debating with his shoulder angel and demon. It is a comical look into a serious reality. As Fr. Ripperger says, we all have a chief tempting demon and a guardian angel. We have this war occurring for our souls regularly. We can discern these voices through prayer and reflection to then choose the advice of our guardian angel. The Screwtape Letters was instrumental in developing this skill. I began to see the temptations as they came up to make the right choice.


The Talking Demons

C. S. Lewis in this book records the conversations between Screwtape and his nephew Wormwood. The letters are always from Screwtape to his nephew who advises the demon on the next moves to tempt the patient (the human wormwood is assigned to). Screwtape praises the junior tempter when he leads the patient from God but cautions Wormwood from celebrating too much as God is always working. When Wormwood makes a blunder, he is scrutinized and quickly shown the error in his thinking. Wormwood ultimately fails in the end and must suffer punishment for his failures. 


Due to it being two demons talking, it can be disorienting to read. They refer to Satan as our father below and God as the enemy. This backward thinking for Christians is adapted to as you read but it is always unsettling. It sticks to what has been taught in the Catholic Church about demons. They cannot read our thoughts, but they can read our expressions and infer much from them. They can implant thoughts and foster them if we accept them. They can use world events, such as a war, to cause us to fear and sin. They look for our weaknesses to tailor their temptations to whatever will have the greatest rate of success. They do not care how we fall as much as they care that we simply do fall. 

It is a great caution to those who seek virtue. The demons talk about how they can use our intentions to improve against us. They will either praise us quickly so that we stop progressing or push us past the point of virtue into another excess. I have seen this within myself. I started to progress in humility just to be tempted with how great I am at being humble. I am an ambitious person, in the vice sense, and was trying to control that while working at a factory. While taping up a mold, one of the lowest starter jobs, I was tempted to be one of the greatest tapers there. This is comical when reflecting on it, but I could only see it through the illumination of the Screwtape letters. The virtue we seek is in the middle of two extremes, and it is difficult to achieve. The demons want to push us to either extreme. This book illustrated how they attempt to do this. 

I highly recommend this book for your spiritual journey. It will show you the traps that will be laid before you. It will also show you that God is ultimately in control. He is always fighting for you, even to the end. This book can be found as a free PDF online and a free audiobook version at most libraries. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Truly Catholic Biology Textbook

Textbooks are not normally a book that gets discussed in a blog. However, my education background demands that I discuss textbooks. I started my professional career as a biology teacher. I love the subject but never felt that the textbooks properly conveyed biology. They tried to reduce life to atoms, molecules, and cellular processes. I eventually taught math and religion. This change allowed my frustration with biology to be shelved. That is until I came across Christ the King Books  and discovered a real biology textbook.  Christ the King vs All others Most textbooks I taught with used the approach of small to large. They began teaching atoms and molecules, then cells and their processes. Eventually, you move to organ systems and finally organisms. Teaching this way challenged my students. They had little exposure to chemistry. To compensate for that, they would receive a crash course at the beginning of biology. As a student, I hated these chapters and just wanted to learn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Harry Potter and the Great Controversy

Harry Potter is a lightning rod book series. Some say it is harmless fun with an epic good vs evil tale. Others claim it is demonically inspired fiction that is sure to lead your child to hell. Growing up, Harry Potter was a book series I read and watched all the movies, the sixth was the worst. I will present my thoughts on the series and if I would recommend it for your library.  Synopsis Harry Potter is an unlucky boy. We meet him after he has lost his parents and is forced to live with his unpleasant uncle, aunt, and cousin. We are told that he will be famous in the wizarding world but he will have no clue since he is living with his nonmagical family. He grows up with his aunt and uncle being treated like a second-class citizen while his cousin is spoiled rotten. Eventually, he gets a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, a school of witchcraft and wizardry. His aunt and uncle refuse to let him see the letters until a half-giant called Hagrid, delivers the letter himself. Harry is...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dolorous Passion: What Love our Lord Shows Us

  A week ago I was on a business trip in the south California valleys. When you are in the valleys, in every direction you look are mountains. They are majestic and beautiful so you pull out your camera to capture that sense of awe. I tried to capture the beauty so I could show it to my kids. After looking at the pictures, I knew that they would not do the landscape justice. Still, I did the best I could to convey it to them when I returned home. That is how speaking of this book is. There is a beauty that cannot be captured by explaining the book, you have to read it yourself.  Synopsis The book starts at the celebration of the Passover among Jesus and His apostles. It explains Christ commanding His apostles to prepare for the Passover meal It gives the events of the Passover and the secret movements of Judas. After completing the Passover, Jesus and His 11 apostles leave for the Mount of Olives. Christ then goes through His agony and you get a glimpse of the temptations and ...
Post a Comment
Read more