Too many of us fall into one of the most common traps of the devil: dwelling on the past or being anxious about the future. It is extremely easy to succumb to both frames of mind and sometimes we are even stuck in the past and future at the same time!
The worst situation the devil can imagine is a soul who is firmly planted in the present moment.
Screwtape elaborates on the subject and gives us the reason why the present moment is the last place he wants a soul to be:
The humans live in time but our Enemy [God] destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present.For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity…..He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present–either meditating of their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.
Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past….[However] it is far better to make them live in the Future.…Future is, of all things, the thing leastlike eternity….the encouragement we have given to all those schemes of thought such as Creative Evolution, Scientific Humanism, or Communism, which fix men’s affections on the Future, on the very core of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead….He[God] does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do. (The Screwtape Letters
, 75-77, emphasis added)
How often do we live in the past or in the future! How far we are from eternity!
Living in the Present Moment
Saints have been writing about living in the present moment for centuries and is based on Christ’s teachings, especially when He exhorted His apostles to be concerned only with today,
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.“ (Matthew 6:34 RSV)
It is no use worrying about what “could be.” We don’t know the future and we don’t even know if we will enjoy the fruits of our labors. For all we know, today could be our last day on earth.
That is why we must always strive to be in the present moment. We can’t push off holiness to a certain point in the future; we don’t know if we even have a future.
This is extremely hard to do and I know that I struggle daily to stay focused on the present moment. Too often I dwell on the future and can’t wait until today is over. By doing so, I entirely miss the Present and miss opportunities to be Christ to others. I miss God trying to speak to me today and think that someday in the future I will hear His voice.
Blessed Mother Teresa, as an example, desired to be in the present moment. She once said,
“I believe in person to person. Every person is Christ to me, and since there is only one Jesus, that person is the one person in the world at that moment.”
Another very holy person who strives to live in the present moment is Mother Angelica. Her writings on the topic were compiled in the book Mother Angelica’s Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality and are a great source of inspiration. Here is a short video of her explaining the concept to her audience on EWTN:
Fulton Sheen also took on this topic and adds his viewpoint,
All unhappiness (when there is no immediate cause for sorrow) comes from excessive concentration on the past or from extreme preoccupation with the future. The major problems of psychiatry revolve around an analysis of the despair, pessimism, melancholy, and complexes that are the inheritances of what has been or with the fears, anxieties, worries, that are the imaginings of what will be…..
The second remedy for the ills that come to us from thinking about time is what might be called the sanctification of the moment — or the Now. Our Lord laid down the rule for us in these words: “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Mt 6:34). This means that each day has its own trials; we are not to borrow troubles from tomorrow, because that day too will have its cross. We are to leave the past to divine mercy and to trust the future, whatever its trials, to God’s loving providence. Each minute of life has its peculiar duty — regardless of the appearance that minute may take. The Now-moment is the moment of salvation. Each complaint against it is a defeat; each act of resignation to it is a victory. (Catholic Exchange, emphasis added)
Besides Jesus Christ, Blessed Mother Teresa, Mother Angelica and Fulton Sheen, the wisdom of living in the present moment is an accepted fact by many secular figures. One example is Winston Churchill who said, “It is a mistake to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.”
As a fitting conclusion to this post, let this prayer of Saint Faustina be our prayer every day of our lives!
O My God,
When I look into the future, I am frightened,
But why plunge into the future?
Only the present moment is precious to me,
As the future may never enter my soul at all.It is no longer in my power to change, correct or add to the past;
For neither sages nor prophets could do that.
And so what the past has embraced I must entrust to God.O present moment, you belong to me, whole and entire.
I desire to use you as best I can.
And although I am weak and small,
You grant me the grace of Your omnipotence.And so, trusting in Your mercy,
I walk through life like a little child,
Offering You each day this heart
Burning with love for Your greater Glory.— From her Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul, Notebook 1 (1)
Amen.
Read the Entire Series
- The Enemy’s Tactic #11: How the Devil Redefines Humility
- The Enemy’s Tactic #10: The Safest Road to Hell is the Gradual One
- The Enemy’s Tactic #9: The Trap of Living a Double Life
- The Enemy’s Tactic #8: How the Devil Twists Pleasure into a Stumbling Block for Many
- The Enemy’s Tactic #7: How the Devil Hides his Existence with Red Tights and a Pitchfork
- The Enemy’s Tactic #6: How Satan Encourages us to be Charitable to People we Do Not Know
- The Enemy’s Tactic #5: How the Devil Tricks us into Believing that Death Will Never Come
- The Enemy’s Tactic #4: Stripping the Liturgy
- The Enemy’s Tactic #3: Daily Pinpricks
- The Enemy’s Tactic #2: Focusing on Sinners in the Church
- The Enemy’s Tactic #1: The Loss of Reason
- In the Enemy’s Camp: An In-depth Look at the Tactics of the Devil
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***If you would like to follow-along reading the The Screwtape Letters, I suggest to purchase your own copy of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters