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Illustration: Depiction of the sin of Adam and Eve
(The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Pieter Paul Rubens)
Pope Francis’ catechesis 1 on Vices and Virtues
Paul VI Audience Hall – Wednesday, 27 December 2023
Catechesis. Vices and Virtues. 1. Introduction: Guarding the Heart
“There can be no dialog with the devil”
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today I would like to present a series of catecheses on the theme of vices and virtues.
And we can start from the very beginning of the Bible, where the Book of Genesis, through the account of the first parents, presents the dynamics of evil and temptation.
Let’s think of the earthly paradise.
In the idyllic image represented by the Garden of Eden, a figure appears that becomes the symbol of temptation: the serpent, this figure that seduces.
The snake is an insidious animal: it moves slowly, crawls on the ground, and sometimes you don’t even notice its presence – it is silent – because it manages to blend in well with the environment and above all, this is dangerous.
When he begins to dialogue with Adam and Eve, he also proves to be a refined dialectician.
It begins, as one does in bad gossip, with a mischievous question: “Is it true that God said, ‘You must not eat of any tree of the garden?'” (Gen 3:1).
The sentence is false. God did indeed offer man and woman all the fruits of the garden, except those of one particular tree: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
This prohibition does not forbid man to use his reason, as is sometimes misunderstood, but it is a measure of wisdom. As if to say: recognize the limit, don’t feel like the master of everything, because pride is the beginning of all evil.
And so, history tells us that God places the first parents as masters and guardians of creation, but he wants to protect them from the presumption of omnipotence, from making themselves masters of good and evil, which is a temptation.
A bad temptation even now. This is the most dangerous trap for the human heart.
As we know, Adam and Eve could not resist the temptation of the serpent.
The idea of a not-so-good God, who wanted to keep them submissive, crept into their minds: hence the collapse of everything.
With these stories, the Bible tells us that evil does not begin in man in a sensational way, when an act is already manifest, but evil begins much earlier, when we begin to entertain it,
to lull it in our imagination, in our thoughts, finally to be ensnared by its flattery.
The murder of Abel did not begin with the throwing of a stone, but with the grudge that Cain pitifully harbored, which made him a monster within himself.
Again, God’s recommendations are of no avail.
Dear brothers and sisters, there can be no dialog with the devil.
Never! There should never be any discussion. Jesus never conversed with the devil.
He drove him away. And in the desert, during the temptations, He did not respond with dialogue. He simply responded with the words of Sacred Scripture, with the Word of God.
Be careful: the devil is a seducer.
Never talk to him, because he is smarter than all of us and he will make us pay.
When temptation comes, never engage in dialog. Close the door, close the window, close your heart. And that is how we defend ourselves against this temptation, because the devil is cunning, he is intelligent. He tried to tempt Jesus with quotations from the Bible, presenting himself as a great theologian. Be careful. We don’t talk to the devil and we don’t have to talk to temptation, we don’t talk to each other.
The temptation comes: let us close the door, let us guard our hearts.
You have to be the guardian of your heart. And that’s why we don’t talk to the devil.
It is the recommendation – to guard the heart – that we find in various fathers, the saints.
And we have to ask for this grace to learn to guard the heart.
It is a wisdom to know how to guard the heart.
May the Lord help us in this work.
But he who guards his own heart guards a treasure.
Brothers and sisters, let us learn to guard our hearts.
