Dear Bob:

I have the same question as you. In the counseling I do I often shake my head as clients, who are otherwise devout Catholics, tell me how they consulted psychics or shamans, or are into demonic and culture of death music or movies. Where are these people's heads?

All validly baptized persons have the Holy Spirit within them. The Holy Spirit will inform the conscience of those things that are not consistent with Christ. But, I guess people drown out the still small voice of the Holy Spirit with they constant music and television and busyness.

There are many people who cannot survive with constant noise. God tells us, "Be still and know that I am God."

Or perhaps they drown out the Holy Spirit by adopting a worldly mind. A worldly mind is probably the biggest problem of Christians. We are called to conform ourselves to the mind of Christ. Unfortunately few do that, even those who are otherwise devout.

Pride is a big part of it. People do not want to be called a "goodie two-shoes" or a wet-blanket or whatever this generation calls it. Peer pressure is strong and people do not want to be left out.

To be a Christian one must be counter-cultural. That means that we may have to stand alone in a crowd. It means that we may be ridiculed. It may mean losing friends, promotions, or even jobs.

We must have courage to stand for Christ. Most lack that courage.

As to the worldly mind, St. Francis de Sales hit the nail on the head in his description found in his book, Introduction to the Devout Life:

The Worldly Mind

When your worldly friends perceive that you aim at leading a devout life, they will let loose endless shafts of mockery and misrepresentation upon you; the more malicious will attribute your change to hypocrisy, designing, or bigotry; they will affirm that the world having looked coldly upon you, failing its favour you turn to God; while your friends will make a series of what, from their point of view, are prudent and charitable remonstrances. They will tell you that you are growing morbid; that you will lose your worldly credit, and will make yourself unacceptable to the world; they will prognosticate your premature old age, the ruin of your material prosperity; they will tell you that in the world you must live as the world does; that you can be saved without all this fuss; and much more of the like nature.

My friend, all this is vain and foolish talk: these people have no real regard either for your bodily health or your material prosperity. “If ye were of the world,” the Saviour has said, “the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”

Is it not as plain as possible that the world is an unjust judge; indulgent and kindly to its own children, harsh and uncharitable to the children of God? We cannot stand well with the world save by renouncing His approval. It is not possible to satisfy the world’s unreasonable demands… if we give in to the world, and laugh, dance, and play as it does, it will affect to be scandalized; if we refuse to do so, it will accuse us of being hypocritical or morbid. If we adorn ourselves after its fashion, it will put some evil construction on what we do; if we go in plain attire, it will accuse us of meanness; our cheerfulness will be called dissipation; our mortification dulness; and ever casting its evil eye upon us, nothing we can do will please it. It exaggerates our failings, and publishes them abroad as sins; it represents our venial sins as mortal, and our sins of infirmity as malicious.

St. Paul says that charity is kind, but the world is unkind; charity thinks no evil, but the world thinks evil of every one, and if it cannot find fault with our actions, it is sure at least to impute bad motives to them…

Do what we will, the world must wage war upon us. If we spend any length of time in confession, it will speculate on what we have so much to say about! if we are brief, it will suggest that we are keeping back something! It spies out our every act, and at the most trifling angry word, sets us down as intolerable. Attention to business is avarice, meekness mere silliness; whereas the wrath of worldly people is to be reckoned as generosity, their avarice, economy, their mean deeds, honourable…. Let us leave the blind world to make as much noise as it may…let us be firm in our ways, unchangeable in our resolutions, and perseverance will be the test of our self-surrender to God, and our deliberate choice of the devout life.

There is no surer groundwork for the beginnings of a devout life than the endurance of misrepresentation and calumny, since thereby we escape the danger of vainglory and pride… We are crucified to the world, and the world must be as crucified to us. It [the world] esteems us as fools, let us esteem it as mad.

Bottomline: Why do people act foolishly and dangerously?

• Pride
• Worldly Mind
• Distraction causing deafness to the Holy Spirit
• Peer pressure to conform
• Uninformed about the Faith
• Laziness about the Faith
• Just not paying attention to the Faith and the Spirit
• lack of courage to be counter-cultural

What we need to do is pay attention to our faith, have courage, avoid evil but also avoid even the appearance of evil, and think and pursue those things which are excellent.

(1 Thess 5:22)  "Abstain from every appearance of evil."

(Phil 4:7-8)  "And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary