Pills of Faith January 28 "Envy: a blasphemy against the Spirit"

Envy: a blasphemy against the Spirit
"Drive out demons by means of the prince of demons" ... It is a peculiarity of the characters perverted and driven by the spirit of envy to close their eyes, as far as possible, on the merit of others and when, overcome by evidence, they can no longer, despise him or travisarlo. So every time the crowd rejoices in devotion and marvels at the sight of the works of Christ, the scribes and Pharisees close their eyes on what they know to be true or lower what is great, or misrepresent what is good. Once, for example, pretending not to know him, they say to the author of many wonderful signs: "So what sign do you do because we see and can believe you?" (Jn 6,30). Not being able to deny the fact with impudence, they despise it with malice, ... and misrepresent it by saying: "Drive out demons by means of Beelzebub, the prince of demons".

Here, dear ones, the blasphemy against the Spirit that binds those who have taken between the chains of eternal guilt. It is not that the penitent is refused the forgiveness of everything if he does works worthy of conversion (Lk 3,8). Except that, crushed under such a weight of malice, he does not have the strength to aspire to that worthy penance that attracts forgiveness. ... He who, perceiving evidently in his brother the grace and the work of the Holy Spirit, ... is not afraid of misrepresenting and slandering and impudently attributing to the bad spirit what he knows belongs to the Holy Spirit, is abandoned by the Spirit of grace, to which he makes this affront and, now obscured and blinded by his own malice, he no longer accepts the penance that would obtain his forgiveness. What's more serious, in fact, than blaspheming the goodness of God ... and insulting divine majesty, in order to discredit a man out of envy of a brother who has been ordered to love like ourselves (Mt 19,19, XNUMX)?