Spiritual Combat

We are in a spiritual combat.  We are not in war with others, but ourselves.  We are sinners.  Before we attempt to take the speck out of someone else's eye, we need to take the log out of our own. 


Venerable Fulton Sheen spoke about the sword and war, but he said the sword needs to be pointed inward, not outward, and that the war is not with others, but with ourselves. The following is a quote from Bishop Sheen from a retreat he gave on St. Therese of Liseux:

We are fond of talking peace today, but all we mean by peace is lack of disturbance. Our Lord said, "I came not to bring peace." God HATES PEACE in those who are destined for war! And we are destined for war, spiritual war. We've forgotten that we're in a combat. We are in genuine combat. When our first parents were driven out of the garden of Paradise, God stationed an angel with a flaming sword, a two-edged sword that turned this way and that. Why? To keep our first parents from going back to eat of the Tree of Life and thus immortalize their evil. And the only way we can ever get back again into paradise is by having that sword run into us. It's flaming because it's love. It's two-edged because it cuts, and it penetrates. It's not the sword that's thrust outward to hack off the ear of the servant of the high priest as Peter did. It's the sword that's thrust inward to cut out all of our seven pallbearers of the soul, the pride and covetousness, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, and sloth.

In one of the recent interviews given by Pope Francis, he was asked, "Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?"  His reply: "I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner."  We must all come to the same personal realization in our own lives.  We must turn the sword of God upon ourselves.    

As far as calling out other people as sinners, I refer to the words of our Lord:  "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye."  (Matt. 7:5).  Does this mean never denouncing the evils in society? Absolutely not. Again, quoting Bishop Sheen (from his 1932 book, Moods and Truths):

Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons. We must be tolerant to persons because they are human; we must be intolerant about principles because they are divine. We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have led them astray; but we must be intolerant to the error, because Truth is not our making, but God's. And hence the Church in her history, due reparation made, has always welcomed the heretic back into the treasury of her souls, but never his heresy into the treasury of her wisdom.