TERESITA TANSECO-CRUZ
My brother, the priest, once scared me with a hair-raising pronouncement. He said that the clever devil does not knock at the front door but quietly sneaks in through the back. “Before you know it, he’s sitting comfortably in your living room.” Cringing over that creepy image, I imagine how often I have left my back door open.
For instance, I would never comment on a new acquaintance on her questionable taste in clothes (front door locked, easy). But if I look askance at her outfit, snickering quietly, maybe that back door opens just a crack. If I muse that I would never be caught dead dressed tackily like that, the door opens some more. The cunning trespasser’s foot could now be halfway in. But – if I judge this “poor creature” to have no class nor place in my orbit, that door swings widely open. I might as well have laid out a bright welcome mat and offered refreshments. The intruder then swoops in with a gleeful “Why, thank you, dear! I’ll help myself here!”
The open back door that invites deadly intrusion does not begin with the outsider but with its partner. Prepare to cringe. That ally is the appalling, persistent enemy within me called ego. What an unmistakable “inside job”! To continuously indulge my ego is to cramp God’s space in my dwelling dangerously. It makes his presence smaller and smaller and the pernicious, destructive crumbling of my abode bigger and bigger. And that should terrify me every single day of my life.
Lord, grant me the grace of guarding that back door with unwavering vigilance!