Hooked on Headlines - The Devil's Bid For Your Attention

Attention wins markets. The Devil knows that too. Here’s why Catholics must resist the lie that information is power, and awareness is a virtue

The Devil doesn’t just tempt you to sin. He tempts you to be distracted. And that’s far more dangerous.

I’v been trying for years to convince Catholics (and other Christians) that they’re fixated and focused on all the wrong things. Catholic news, politics, social unrest—sometimes a thousand miles away where it could never be meaningful to their lives or spirituality. “What’s the pope doing? What’d he say? What are the cardinals talking about, thousands of miles away? What’d that bishop say/do in a diocese I don’t even live and worship in? Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!!”

Can I be blunt with you? It’s time to get over it, folks. Stop playing the devil’s game. Yes, the devil has a hand in it! Hey, you don’t have to take my word for it. This is catechesis from many saints and spirituality masters. Listen to them if you won’t listen to me.

What Saints Have Said

The Setup

Most Christians think temptation is about being drawn toward obvious evil. Lust. Pride. Anger. Something dramatic, and something that prompts an act of the will. But that assumption is too small.

Some temptations are temptations to a disposition—or temptations to inaction. The enemy doesn’t always ensnare us through temptation to sin; he often gets us by drawing us out, thinning us out, and wearing us out.

He fragments your focus, keeping you busy, agitated, and stimulated enough that you never go deep. He draws you (your attention) away from your interior castle where you are strong and fortified, drawing you way out into the intellectual wild where you’re all alone and vulnerable.

Augustine

Augustine viewed an excessive obsession with current events or worldly happenings as a form of curiosity—a vice that distracts from the pursuit of wisdom and holiness.

"You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you... You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness."

God speaks to the soul through an illumination of the intellect. He rarely speaks through signs outside of ourselves, because signs are meant to be read. If a soul is not conditioned and disposed to seeing, “reading” and correctly interpreting those signs, then the signs are useless. God doesn’t work that way.

So it’s bad discipline, and a fruitless venture to direct and guide our will by the prompting of unprofitable things that have our attention

“In addition to the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes… which belong to the old life, and not to the new, there is in the soul through the same eyes a certain vain and curious desire, veiled under the name of knowledge and science… This is that curiosity which is the lust of the eyes.”
— Both quotes from St. Augustine, Confessions

This “lust of the eyes” is a lack of discipline over your attention, and over your intellect. It prompts us to an inordinate and unrealistic drive to be hyper-aware of everything that doesn’t matter, leading us to anxiety (where Peace cannot reign in the heart) and even rage. How is any of that leading anybody to holiness?

Spiritual Warfare

In The Spiritual Combat, Lorenzo Scupoli makes it clear that the enemy studies the soul carefully and adapts his tactics. When he can’t drag a person into obvious sin, he occupies him with lesser things so that greater duties are quietly neglected.

“The devil doesn’t have to turn a Catholic into a heretic or an apostate to disable them. He only has to disorient them. They can be as religious as they like, but if they are disoriented and can’t discern Truth, he has them where he wants them—impotent and unthreatening”
-TJ Haines

Not everything that distracts you is evil. That is precisely why the tactic works. Because we are conditioned to be alert when we’re faced with temptations to evil, but we aren’t so conditioned to be alert and vigilant in the face of temptations to distractions. We believe knowledge is power; but that is not true. Knowledge sometimes is the threat!

Ignatius

Similarly, in the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius of Loyola describes how the enemy operates through agitation and disturbance (Are you listening, social media?). He clouds judgment and stirs restlessness. He creates interior noise. The goal is not always to make you “bad”, it’s to make you unstable and disoriented. A distracted soul is easier to steer than a defiant one.

From Rule 4, on spiritual desolation:

“I call desolation…darkness of soul, disturbance in it, movement to things low and earthly, the unquiet of different agitations and temptations, moving to want of confidence, without hope, without love, when one finds oneself all lazy, tepid, sad, and as if separated from his Creator and Lord.”

And from Rule 2: how the enemy operates in those who are advancing in holiness, going from good to better):

“In persons who are going on intensely purifying their sins and rising from good to better in the service of God our Lord, it is proper to the bad spirit to bite, sadden, and put obstacles, disquieting with false reasons, that one may not go on; and it is proper to the good spirit to give courage and strength, consolations, tears, inspirations, and quiet [this happens interiorly, but not when there is noise], easing and putting away all obstacles [distractions], that one may go on in well doing.”

Scripture

Scripture confirms the pattern. “Be sober and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The first command is sobriety. Clear-minded. Alert. Collected. You can’t be alert and vigilant if your attention is constantly hijacked.

And when Christ explains the seed choked by thorns, He very clearly identifies the thorns as “the cares and riches and pleasures of life” (Luke 8:14). Not necessarily mortal sin. Cares. Pleasures. Preoccupations. Enough to choke growth without sounding alarms or even blipping on your radar. It’s strategic suffocation, by our own cooperation.

Now consider the age we live in. There are endless feeds, “drama pimps”, controversy brokers, and engineered outrage. We’re swimming in distraction. If the enemy can keep you even mildly reactive and perpetually distracted, he doesn’t need to push us into sin—he can just settle for something almost as effective—spiritual thinness.

Grace through masses, rosaries, and devotions won’t save you from that if you are willfully allowing your mind to be distracted (“lust of the eyes”) by things that don’t matter. Grace has to be cooperated with. Grace illuminates the mind and God speaks to the interior of the soul. God doesn’t compete with noise, and grace doesn’t ask for a little elbow room. A sign on the door of your heart and mind that says “Occupied” won’t prompt a knock on the door—it’ll prompt a “Call me when you’re free”.

So cut yourself loose of distractions, my friends. It’s a lie that knowledge is empowering. Wisdom is empowering. And wisdom requires right knowledge, prudent knowledge, and the Truth (information) that leads us to it. Pay attention to the things that matter—the scriptures, prayer life, love of family and neighbor and so on. You’re on a mission to become saints. What the hell are you doing focusing on everything else that won’t get you there?

Nothing going on in the Church, or in the world, can stop you from growing in holiness. Nothing! The only thing that can stop that is you—by choosing to focus on things that don’t truly matter.

Stand watch. God be with you all

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