The Consequences of Playing with the Devil: A Warning from St. Peter Chrysologus

I recently heard someone say that he didn’t like what the Catholic Church teaches about abortion and same-sex marriage, so he would never want to be Catholic. That got me to thinking. Are we supposed to conform God to our wants and desires or conform our lives to His laws?

It’s the latter, of course.

Christ did not come to the earth to give a set of rules and commandments and then tell people to twist them into only what they want to follow or to pick and choose their favorites and disregard the rest. He came to give us a better way to live—a roadmap to eternity with Him in heaven.

St. Peter Chrysologus once wrote: “The man who wants to play with the devil will not be able to rejoice with Christ.” 

It can’t be any clearer than that. Tell Christ you don’t want Him, and He will allow you to walk away. Oppose Christ and He will give you what you want. Play with the devil by twisting God’s words and teachings, and you soon become one with the devil. You will start to believe his lies that we can create our own version of faith or religion, that we should put ourselves and our wants above God, and that we know better than our Lord.

But when we embrace God and live according to His commands, we will live forever with Him.

This is both the easiest and most difficult truth to live by. And it’s one we must teach our children. Repeatedly.

Rejoicing with Christ for eternity in heaven should be our goal. And it should also be the goal that we have for our children and our spouses. There is no greater gift to someone than working to protect their soul.

But caring for the souls of our children and our spouses takes effort, it takes time, and it takes love. For love is not just a feeling; it’s an action.

What does that look like for parents? It means not only openly and proudly living our faith but teaching our children the truths of the faith, helping them understand God’s love, and integrating the teachings of the Church into our daily lives.

That’s why lesson booklets from the Culture of Life Studies Program are so crucial. It gives you the tools you need to teach Catholic and pro-life values at home.

There is no guarantee that our children will remain faithful as they grow into adults, but it is our responsibility and our obligation to teach them the faith so that they have the spiritual tools they need to reject the desire to “play with the devil,” to combat the evil of the world, and to see the beauty of the faith that Jesus Christ Himself started.

The distractions of the world are the instruments the devil uses to keep us from God. We can be assured that he rejoices when we walk away from God, when we give in to doubts, and when we tell ourselves that we can choose which of God’s commands to follow.

But we have the truths of the Church on our side, for as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. By faith ‘man freely commits his entire self to God.’ For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God’s will.”

The Catechism goes on to explain that faith requires works and that “‘faith apart from works is dead’: When it is deprived of hope and love, faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his Body. The disciple of Christ must not only keep the faith and live on it, but also profess it, confidently bear witness to it, and spread it.”

Bear witness to the faith. Profess it. Spread it. All of that starts at home with our families.

It’s not easy, but Jesus never said that following Him would be. And so, as St. Peter Chrysologus advised, “Do not forfeit what divine authority confers on you. Put on the garment of holiness” and “let Christ be your helmet.”

God is our protection against the devil and his ways. We need only choose His protection and choose to fortify our homes and our families against the wickedness of the devil. We do this by educating our children and helping them see and feel the love of God and our faith.