The Honest Soul Recognizing the Pattern Beneath the Sin
A Companion to Discernment in an Age of Disorde
In our last series, Discernment in an Age of Disorder, Sara and I began with a fairly simple premise. Much of the disorder that we see around us does not begin out there somewhere, in politics, institutions, or culture. It begins much closer to home. It begins within the human person.
We looked at pride and the intellect, sensuality and appetite, and vanity and our relationship with others. And throughout those discussions, we kept coming back to the question of discernment. How do we recognize what is true and what is counterfeit? How do we begin to see clearly again?
But that leaves us with a very practical question.
All right. I can see the disorder. What do I actually do about it?
And that is where Sara and I want to begin today.
This series, Practical Restoration of the Soul, takes that next step. We want to look at what the Catholic spiritual tradition actually gives us to work with. How do we recognize the patterns in our own lives? How do we cooperate with grace? And what does restoration actually look like in the very ordinary circumstances of an ordinary day?
Because ultimately, if we are going to talk about the restoration of the soul, it has to become very personal.
Where does God want to begin restoring me?
There is a temptation, even among those seeking holiness, to treat every sin as an isolated failure to be fixed. We see a sharp word, an impatient reaction, a moment of vanity or escape, and we address each one separately. We apologize for the sharp word, resolve to be more patient, or promise ourselves that next time we will do better. These responses may be sincere, but if the same failures keep returning in different forms, the Catholic spiritual tradition invites us to look more deeply. Beneath the scattered sins there is often a predominant fault, a governing weakness that shapes our thoughts, desires, and responses again and again.
Honest self-knowledge, received in the light of grace rather than self-condemnation, is the beginning of real spiritual combat. The Psalmist prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps 139:23–24, RSV-CE). This search is not morbid introspection. It is a humble opening of ourselves to the God who already knows us completely and who alone can heal us. We are not searching for reasons to condemn ourselves. We are asking for light so that grace can reach the places where our freedom is repeatedly narrowed.
When we begin to notice recurring patterns, we are not merely cataloguing faults. We are learning to see how one deeper disorder may appear in many ordinary situations. Pride may surface as defensiveness, resentment, or the need to be noticed. Disordered appetite may appear through different objects while the same demand for immediate relief remains underneath. Only when the pattern becomes visible can vague striving become targeted combat. Grace restores the soul through fidelity in the next good thing.
And you had said before at the beginning, right, that we’re not to treat each individual sin as sort of an isolated event. And I do think that Satan is invested in us doing exactly that, right? He wants us to think that everything that we do is one individual offense, and each pile just keeps piling up and piling up and piling up. But it’s important that we move from the sense of each individual sin and begin to note a pattern.
I think back to when you go to a spiritual director or to confession and you find yourself feeling frustrated because you keep confessing the same sins. And I remember one wise priest once saying, “What, you want new ones?” No, no, you don’t, right? But what you are doing when you’re confessing these same sins over and over again, you’re starting to see, and you’re able to develop, really, a possible predominant fault.
And I would like to pretend that we have one predominant fault that we tend to see throughout our lives, and all the stuff, because we just master that one. [Unclear.] Satan is always willing to reach and tries to test us. But in general, we’re going to find ourselves falling into the same sins.
You had mentioned them: pride, sensuality, vanity, or that sensuality, which is that disordered appetite that is within us. And you start to notice those things. Like, let’s say pride is the one that really keeps coming back to you. When you notice that you’re being defensive every time somebody criticizes you, or you’re overwhelmed with joy when somebody praises you, or that disordered passion, that you’re bored. All of those things: vanity, you’re waiting to be praised, or you’re waiting to be honored, or you walk into an environment and you’re always really nervous, you have to either be the most or the center of attention.
Each of these particular emotions, these movements—I think you really use “movements”—movements within the soul, we need to be able to start, through examination, trying to target: Where are these faults? What are we seeing on a daily basis? You might see the same movements over again. How do I respond to them? Do I always respond the same way? Am I always argumentative? Am I always silent? Do I brood? Do I pout? Find those instances of ourselves.
And then once we become more aware of them, we don’t vaguely try and change pride or vanity. We have to tackle these much more slowly and much more concretely. Did I pout? Did I smile on my face? Right? Go to the refrigerator, find something you can do, right? Build concrete actions.
And then at the end of the day, you know, don’t be in a rush to name your sin yourself, to identify these things, right? You’re trying to lead to their correct files. Everything is not one sin. You’re going to be able to start to group them, and through them, you’re going to be able to identify them and start to concretely build actions to fight them.
Guiding Question: What recurring pattern in my daily life is revealing the deeper disorder God wants to heal? The purpose is not to diagnose ourselves hastily, but to gather honest evidence before God. Over several days, the same movement often becomes easier to recognize, and the particular examen gives us a practical place to begin.
Closing Reflection and Prayer
Where have I avoided honest self-knowledge? Where have I treated scattered sins as isolated problems rather than symptoms of a deeper weakness? Where have I feared to look, lest I see too clearly?
True self-knowledge is a gift of grace. It does not leave us in despair but leads us to deeper dependence on the mercy of God and the concrete work of restoration.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus Christ, You who know us better than we know ourselves, search our hearts. Give us light to recognize the recurring fault that most hinders our freedom to love. Grant us the humility to see it clearly, the courage to name it, and the fidelity to begin the combat against it through prayerful observation and the particular examen. Protect us from both self-condemnation and self-deception. Draw us by Your grace into the freedom of the children of God.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sources Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald. The Three Ages of the Interior Life. Translated by M. Timothea Doyle. Vol. 1. St. Louis: Herder, 1947. (Part II, Chapter XXII, “The Predominant Fault”).
Ignatius of Loyola. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Translated by George E. Ganss, S.J. Chicago: Loyola Press, 1992. (Particular Examen, §§24–31).
Cassian, John. The Conferences. Translated by Boniface Ramsey. New York: Paulist Press, 1997. (Conference 5, “On the Eight Principal Faults”).
The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006. (Psalm 139:23–24).