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Satan’s Siren Song: The Sin of Presumption
A reflection of the Gospel for the second week of Advent given at the Knights of Columbus General Meeting, St. Lucy Council 15659, December 9, 2025.
Greek mythology describes an island surrounded by treacherous, rocky shoals and cliffs. Birdlike creatures with female heads that sing enchanting songs live on the island. These creatures are known as the Sirens. When ships sailed nearby, the sailors heard their song and would immediately become captivated by its spellbinding sound. Their songs were so alluring that sailors would steer their boats straight into rocky shoals, to their death and their vessels' destruction. They might jump overboard into the water and drown, even when they were quite a distance from the shore. The sailors presumed they could reach the shore intact and live in eternal bliss. The story of the Siren's Song illustrates how presumption can distort our reason, logic, and common sense, and the deadly consequences of giving in to it.
The dictionary defines presumption as “to take for granted.’ ‘In Law, to assume as true in the absence of proof to the contrary,’ ‘to undertake with unwarrantable boldness’, and ‘to undertake without right or permission.’” Presumption, then, disorders our understanding of right and wrong, of good and evil, Creator and created.
So, how does presumption lead us away from discipleship with Jesus Christ and doing the will of the Father? The Catechism teaches us: “There are two kinds of presumption. Either man presumes upon his own capacities (hoping to be able to save himself without help from on high), or he presumes upon God’s almighty power or his mercy (hoping to obtain his forgiveness without conversion and glory without merit).” (CCC2092). In this light, presumption corrupts piety, wisdom, counsel, understanding, and fear of the Lord. The things we owe to God are disordered toward ourselves, violating the moral virtue of justice, which consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. (CCC1807)(Col 4:1).
The cunning Satan knows mankind is susceptible to the temptation of presumption, which ensnares us into believing God can be dispensed with. The origin of this disorder goes all the way back to the beginning, namely, with our first parents in the Garden of Eden. (Gn 3). It enticed Adam and Eve to challenge God by presuming they were his equals. The sin of presumption is at the very core of Satan’s Siren Song.
The sin of presumption violates the justice due God in the first three Commandments. The first: “I am the Lord thy God; you shall have no other gods before me.” The second: “You shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” The third: “Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Sabbath.” We make ourselves gods by trying to save ourselves without God’s help. The sin further violates justice toward our neighbor in the last seven Commandments. We do this in a variety of deliberate and subtle ways: inwardly, by breaking our sworn oaths, our sacred promises, our Baptismal promises, or the covenantal vows we made at the start of our particular vocation; or outwardly, by ignoring the corporal works of mercy.
(oaths: Judges 11:29-40, Ps 15:4, Mt 5:33-37) (works: James 1:27, 2:15-16, Mt 25:31-46). The devil points us to the means, motive, and intent by which we commit the perfect murder of our immortal souls. Through his subtle temptation and our willing submission, the devil succeeds in separating us from the love of God (Rev 2: 4-5), and the love for one another. (John 13: 34-35).
The sin of presumption is mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew and read during the Second Sunday of Advent. We hear St. John the Baptist say: “When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’” Mt 3: 7-9. Jesus reemphasizes the words of St. John the Baptist later in Matthew’s gospel when he says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” Mt 7: 21. See also, Mt 12:33-36.
The Pharisees spoken of by John the Baptist are no different from today’s popular culture. The Pharisees and Sadducees believed they were saved by heredity, privilege, or adherence to the Law of Moses as they interpreted it. Today, our culture has been duped as well. It adheres to many mantras that justify a life that contradicts the Church's teaching and leads us into temptation, believing we are free to self-judge our behavior according to our own standards. We might even presume that God sees our misjudged deeds and will overlook them because of our good intentions, or that God concurs with our thinking on the matter, or that we’ve changed His mind, or that we don’t need to bother God. In this light, we presume that we do not need to change our lives, express contrition, or seek forgiveness and absolution. We’ve accomplished all of this without help from on high. But wait, there’s more; Satan is never satisfied. We’ve not crashed into the rocky shoal yet.
Satan’s efforts are relentless. He is always looking to snare us by laying more sophisticated traps with the temptations he observes us falling victim to. Once Satan sees mankind presuming to be like God, knowing good and evil, he entraps us more and more. We become the agents of our demise. Every aspect of our humanity becomes fair game. The devil recognized long ago that we could choose our self-destruction by our own free will; that we would choose our eternal damnation over obedience to God. As Jesus warns us, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. Therefore, I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” Mt 12:30-32.
There you have it: the rocky shoal, the ultimate goal of Satan’s efforts, and the deadly result of souls responding to his siren song. The most severe and fatal act of presumption is speaking against the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the incomprehensible gift Jesus promised to send after he returned to the Father. The prophet Isaiah describes the Spirit this way: “A spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.” Isaiah 11:2-3.
Speaking against the Holy Spirit is a grave mortal sin. Caught in this level of pride, we claim to possess all self-wisdom and self-understanding, we dispense justice arrogantly without right or permission, and justify every wrongdoing with impunity. We defy and reject his Spirit with “unwarrantable boldness,” having no fear of the Lord, taking his name in vain as easily as taking our next breath, or no longer worshiping him and him alone, or intentionally failing to remember to keep the Sabbath holy.
The degree of sinful defiance committed by Satan and his demonic army is recorded in the Book of Revelation 12:7-12. He proclaimed with unwarranted boldness, “I will not serve.” Once we’ve become ensnared by Satan’s Siren Song of presumption, our lives are disordered, and we sing along in his song of defiance and hatred. Satan composed the first verse of our siren song in the Garden of Eden, “You shall be like God, knowing good and evil.” Satan has many more tempting verses to choose from, including: “I am a good person,” “I did it my way,” “The Church isn’t perfect,” “There is nothing after death,” “I live my truth,” “Once saved, always saved,” and “Don’t place your morals on me.” Once we have completely and defiantly disordered our lives by believing we don’t need God for our salvation, we find ourselves enjoying the eternal torment of God’s justice; God respects us and will give us what we are due.
Brother Knights, we believe God sees our works and answers our prayers. In faith, we struggle to conform our lives to the Church's teachings as best we can. We strive to live in the tranquility of order and goodwill by doing the will of the Father. We accomplish this through prayer, almsgiving, abstinence, the corporal works of mercy, full participation at Mass and receiving the Eucharist, frequent use of the sacraments, and love for one another. These works keep us focused on our mission as Knights of Columbus, responding to the Father’s call for all His children to become saints and one day live forever with Him in Heaven.
Let us ask the Father, through the intercession of our patron and founder, Blessed Fr. McGivney, for God’s grace to wisely avoid the sin of presumption whenever we are tempted. May the fear of the Lord and the gifts of the Holy Spirit keep us from presuming that we can reach heaven on our own without good works of faith, and may God bless our works of patriotism, unity, fraternity, and charity.
Vivat Jesus!
SK Paul Thomas, Lecturer, St. Lucy Council 15659, Racine, Wisc.
“Peace is the tranquility of order.” St. Agustine
My wife, Kathy, and I have been married for over 22 years. We have a combined 8 children and 15 grandchildren. I am a retired maintenance specialist having served various heat processing industries for over 50 years. I have been a Minister of the Word since 1974. I belong to dynamic men's prayer and scripture study groups at St. Lucy and St. Paul the Apostle Parishs in Racine, Wisconsin. I have been a Lecturer with the Knights of Columbus since 2018. I look forward to hearing from you at pthomas3851@att.net.
