Timothy J. Cullen

The Noonday Devil

There is nothing quite like a retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola to cause one to “reminisce” in a way that has nothing whatsoever to do with memories of the “good old days.” When one prepares for general confession, one must almost certainly look back on a lifetime (short, long, middle of the road, doesn’t make a difference) in which sin played all too prominent a role. Trust me: it does indeed leave a bad taste in the mouth until the Sacraments do their purifying work.

When the bells justle in the tower

The hollow night amid

Then on my tongue the taste is sour

Of all I ever did.

A.E. Houseman

January is the month in which the feasts of St. Paul the Hermit and St. Anthony Abbot (both are founders of monastic tradition) are celebrated. Both saints were desert fathers, the former the first known hermit, the latter generally considered the founder of monasticism. Both were well acquainted with the “noonday devil” of Psalm 90, sung during Compline on Sundays and in the Mass on the first Sunday of Lent.

“[T]hou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night…or of the noonday devil,” reads the Vulgate.

The “noonday devil”?

St. John Cassian (c. 360-435, a desert father who emigrated to Europe), in his fifth-century Monastic Institutes, knew it for what it is: accidia, a “spiritual weariness or distress of heart…akin to dejection.”

When the noonday bell rings out the Angelus—three notes, then nine—, the means is at hand to drive off the noonday devil with a hearty “Apage, Satanas!” followed by “And the angel of the Lord…” Prayer is a powerful arm against sloth, against accidie, against despair, against the devil in all his forms: daytime, nighttime, indoors and out. Once upon a time, Catholics all across Christendom paused at noon to pray the Angelus, as they did at daybreak and at sunset; this is a custom that cries out for renewal.

Church bells, once ubiquitous in the West, chiming in every city, town, village and hamlet, in cathedrals, churches and chapels, are largely silent now. When once they called the faithful to prayer, rang out to celebrate marriages, military victories, tolled to commemorate the passing of the souls of the dead, now they sound seldom, far less often than the five calls to prayer a day broadcast from the minarets of mosques throughout the world, the mosques of Muslims who will not renounce their faith or tradition to placate the demands of the secular materialists who want the West’s church bells muffled for good and all.

The enemies of our Faith will never succeed, of course. The bell that opens the sessions of the New York Stock Exchange, the modernists’ “temple,” will long since have fallen silent when the bells rung at the altar still sound the consecration, sound it until the end of days.

Where church bells sound, neither the days nor the nights are “hollow,” and for the soul in a state of grace, the taste of the host on the tongue of the repentant sinner is sweet, not sour.

A smaller bell rung by a seminarian walking the long corridor sounds at 6:30am to arouse the retreatants from sleep. We are lodged in a school of mines, except that the eight of us are here not to learn to mine minerals, but to dig deeply into ourselves. Silently.

The purpose of the Spiritual Exercises is straightforward and simple: to save one’s soul. Just as the flabby body benefits from exercise, so does the slothful soul respond to spiritual exercise, and the Church has in the time-honored and now sadly neglected Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola the solution to the problem. A retreat dedicated to these exercises will be of far greater benefit to the melancholy than two weeks at the fat farm might be for the overly self-indulgent.

The noonday devil stalks the burnout, the weary, the alienated, the disappointed, the frustrated, the stressed…The noonday devil “makes hay while the sun shines” among the masses of the disillusioned who have been led astray from God and among Catholics who have fallen away from the habit of daily prayer—morning, noon and night—and examination of conscience.

As is easily understood, the desert fathers of old found the heat of midday a time of great vulnerability to lethargy, even stupor, as the merciless desert sun beat down upon them. Dozing off both spiritually and physically left them prey to the depredations of the noonday devil, sibilantly whispering into their inner ears a message of futility and despair of ever achieving their spiritual goals.

This year’s January retreat at the school of mines took place in early summer here in the Southern Hemisphere, and the lecture hall was bright with glare and hot. As noon approached, one of our two Retreat Masters would be at his desk, the sunlight toasting him in his black cassock. The noonday devil knew better than to approach; he was biding his time until we eight returned to our rooms for the contemplation.

The noonday devil had been in my room before, I realized. When I stood facing the wall to place myself in the presence of God, I looked up at the coffered-wood ceiling and there on the beam saw a graffito: “Mi templo el baile/Mi religión el cuarteto/Mi dios la Mona.” That translates as “My temple: dance/My religion: the cuarteto (a vulgar and insipid local pop music)/My god: la Mona (the nickname of the best known performer, about whom I will say nothing, having learned something of charity during the retreat).

Ah, youth! This in what was once an overwhelmingly Catholic country, but one in which we are now treated to photos of a recent presidential candidate at a “séance” Mass: a group of women seated around a dining table with a rather androgynous priest officiating.

Viva V-II, the Devil’s own antiquated “spiritual ballistic missile.”

Pray for the poor, benighted soul who scrawled in his dorm room that little blasphemous paean to a pop star. Pray for those poor, deluded kaffeklatch “worshippers” and their enabler.

That day’s contemplation, appropriately enough, was on Hell.

Three bells rang as the seminarian made his way along the corridor: time to begin and the contemplation ended: time to enter into colloquy.

The Exercises focus the soul, the heart and the mind on the most important “conversation” one can imagine: talking directly to God. The conversations the retreatant has with the Masters are of great importance—one always has doubts, and these priests are the men prepared to resolve them—, but when Christ Himself is listening to you….Speak sincerely, tell Him what you will, and be assured grace will enter into you and the noonday devil will go off to sulk in his corner.

What one tells Him, one tells one’s confessor, and all that is sour within one will be purged. What greater grace can one wish? What better way to drive away the noonday devil?

The noonday devil dislikes church bells; so do his human allies. So, too, do the unrepentant, for whom at all times, but especially when alone, upon their tongues “the taste is sour of all they ever did,” and, more often than not, are doing and will do; their lives lack supernatural grace and thus lack joy, lack peace, lack the savor of faith, hope and charity.

Church bells chiming are meant to call our attention to matters of the spirit, to bring a prayerful pause to the daily spiritual disorder created by the modern world, an inquietude far greater than that experienced by our rural ancestors. Church bells notwithstanding, for a greater spiritual “wake-up call,” nothing compares with a retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises.

We have the inestimable good fortune to have available to us the Spiritual Exercises as well as well-schooled, sanctified and serious clergy to direct us in them, so we have a highly effective means of combatting the noonday devil and his allies, witting and unwitting; we should make sure to take advantage of retreats when we can.

The colloquy with Christ continues until six bells sound. Out of the spiritual “starting gate” and out of the improvised monastic “cells” that are the dorm rooms come the retreatants: the directors await them for colloquy designed to help them resolve doubt, deepen their spiritual “mining.” These dialogues are the only occasions upon which silence is broken; given the wisdom of the Fathers Director, they serve to focus the retreatant’s silence and clear away doubts and insecurities that can cloud the mind and spirit. Even lingering noonday imps are sent packing after these sessions.

The “noonday devil” is relentless in his attacks during our everyday lives in the “world.” He works 24/7 to undermine our true purpose on this earth: the salvation of our individual souls. The retreat provides a welcome respite from the noonday devil’s doings and provides us with renewed spiritual strength to combat his wiles when we must leave the cloister behind and return to the thousand and one distractions the noonday devil is determined to place in our paths, to divert us from the straight way down the dead-end street that is paved with doubt, indifference and despair: slow but sure spiritual death.

Retreat from the tumult of the world ruled by the noonday devil. Grant yourself five days that will be of more spiritual value to you than the remaining thirty dozen that make up the year. Rid yourself of the sour taste of spiritual sloth, of sin, of anxiety and despair. Fill the “hollow night” with the words of the psalmist:

He that dwelleth in the aid of the most High, shall abide under the protection of the God of heaven. He shall say to the Lord: Thou art my protector and my refuge: my God, in him I will trust… There shall no evil come to thee: nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling. For he hath given his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. (Ps. 90:1-2; 9, 10)

Neither the noonday devil nor “the business that walketh about in the dark” (Ps. 90:6) stands a chance.

When the bells justle, their notes will be music to your ears.

Timothy Cullen, a regular contributor to The Remnant and a former equities trader who lived for many years in Spain, is the happily married father of adult children. He and his wife now live in a rural area in Argentina in a straw bale house they designed themselves. Mr. Cullen is a graduate of Cornell University.