“The devil is a Pharisee,” my husband said to me the other night. “He makes up fake laws for us to keep.”

The devil tries to make us feel guilty. He waves our sins in front of our faces in an attempt to make us despair, and, when that doesn’t work, he makes up fake laws to confuse and damn us.

You need to have a child, or your life isn’t blessed by God.

You need to foster and adopt a child, or you are not a Christian. 

You need to adopt an embryo, or you are not showing the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

You, you, you, you…

That’s what the devil does. He tries to get you to look in the mirror, not at Christ on the cross. He tries to get you to see a lost and condemned creature, not the righteous Christ Who was put upon you in your Baptism.

For, if he can get you to trust in the keeping of Pharisaical laws over Christ’s forgiveness of sinners, then you are damned and he has won.