“Discouragement … leads people to make decisions often to stop trying or to pull back or to do something else or simply come to a halt. It is that little edge of freedom to decide in discouragement that is of such great interest to the devil, who knows that the journey to God is all about freedom and that, in the end, all God wants of us is our free and loving response to him.”  
— Father Louis Cameli, “The Devil You Don’t Know”

Discouragement can sneak up on us, pouncing out of the blue.

It happened to me this week when I read about the civilly-married couple who were a part of the large baptism for the children of Vatican employees done each year on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord .

The couple does not work for the Vatican; they simply wrote a letter asking to be included.

It would seem that the pope went into the event thinking that baptizing their daughter would help show the world his hope of welcoming the wandering sons and daughters of the Church back to the practice of their faith.

Unfortunately, his staff must not have researched this couple. In fact, from what the husband told the daily newspaper, they have no plans to have their marriage blessed in the Church anytime soon, saying that they might decide someday to do so, maybe. They obviously aren’t in any hurry; their newly-baptized daughter is seven months old, and she is their second child.

So, instead of everyone seeing the Holy Father welcoming home a prodigal couple, it was more a matter of watching a father indulge spoiled children who continue to squander their heritage. In a private ceremony, he would have had a chance to talk with them, but he was limited to his homily in this public venue.

At first glance, the pope’s actions to me seemed to say that nothing really matters. If I was young and not aware of the graces of the sacrament, I would probably use the event to tell my parents that the pope showed that he doesn’t care if you marry in or out of the Church.

Only after thinking about it and bringing it to prayer, could I  piece together how easily such a scenario could happen, and how automatically the wrong conclusion could be drawn. And I’m sure such a mistaken conclusion will be embraced by anyone looking for an excuse to do what they want to do.

What I didn’t expect when I heard of the event was the discouragement I felt. And the strength of those destructive feelings.

I’m betting that I’m not alone in being thus attacked. I’ve talked with some who were hit hard after Pope Francis’ misused remark about not judging people with same-sex attraction. I know of others who were tempted to take his remarks on abortion as an attack on prolifers.

What a coup for the devil when he can take our spiritual leader’s remarks and actions and twist them out of context for use against the faithful followers — using them to hurt people who are striving to please God by following Church teaching!

Those of us who strive to live our faith and become good and faithful servants to God through the help and instruction of our Church must not allow evil to worm its way into us through discouragement — or through its other common wiles of deception, division or diversion. Often the people of God are not attacked directly. Instead the use of subtle doubts, niggling irritations and moments of confusion are more-frequent weapons of choice by the evil spirits who are consummate liars.

The things we do and don’t do, the sacrifices we make on behalf of our faith do matter, whether or not they are known by anyone other than God. When we begin to wonder if our efforts are worth it, let us bring our temptations to prayer, throwing ourselves on God and asking Him for understanding.

“You have to help me with this!” is a mighty good prayer for such times of discouragement.

God will give us the help we need to resist temptations. Let’s not jump to conclusions, thinking we know the whole story of something or of someone ­— including the pope.

Let’s take such things to prayer, to God who knows it all.