Spiritual Warfare

Suffering can cause us to give up and give in, or fight back.  Christ fought back.


Are you ready for the fight? If you were to enter the boxing ring today, would you be primed? Or are your muscles a little flabby, your lungs easily winded and your feet dragging instead of dancing? Besides you don’t want to break your nose.
Competitive boxers prepare through discipline and hard work. They recognize that only through perseverance, mental fortitude, stamina and skill will they beat their opponent. Their vigorous fitness training includes both physical conditioning and mental preparation. It’s not just the boxer who delivers the explosive punches, hooks, and jabs that wins. It’s the boxer, who outfoxes and outmaneuvers his opponent, mentally and physically, packing the powerful punches and persevering until the end that is declared the winner.
Similarly, before engaging in battle no general worth his 5 stars would ever send a soldier into combat without him first completing the rigorous exercises and tedious drills of boot camp. In addition to forming his soldiers, an astute general recognizes that his enemy is real and he prepares a realistic battle plan.
Think spiritual warfare and you might imagine St. Michael, sword drawn, battling it out with Satan and his minions or the movie The Exorcist with the young girl’s head spinning and voice growling. Cynics may scoff, “Spiritual warfare is just a fairy tale—a Biblical myth to entertain little kids or a sensationalized story of demons and deliverance to create a box office blockbuster.”
The devil, however, is real. As St. Peter tells us, “Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for [someone] to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).  Yes, that someone is you! Definitely, there are times when an exorcist is necessary, but what about you? Are you ready for the fight? Do you have a realistic battle plan to combat the devil in your life?
Are you ready to combat that menacing little voice that taunts you, “You are stupid!? You are worthless! You are unlovable!—relentlessly seeking to drive you to despair. Or maybe, he fuels your pride and presumption, “You are great! You are magnificent! You don’t need anybody to tell you what to do, certainly not an ‘outdated’ Church!”Or maybe he exploits your weaknesses, “You can have another drink. You will only gamble a little. Who will know you are looking at porn? You won’t get pregnant if you have sex. You can do it your way.”
Whatever your weakness—selfishness, pride, anger, bitterness, hatred, jealousy, greed, gluttony, laziness, vanity, and the list never ends–he foments it until it masters you, instead of you mastering your weakness. Maybe it is not a disordered passion, but a frivolous waste of time or money. The kids are screaming, the house is a mess, but you can’t miss that soap opera! You deserve a little “me” time! Or as our pastor said, “Maybe he can’t get you to do something bad, but he will attempt to get you to do the wrong good thing.”


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War

Christians are always engaged in spiritual battle, sometimes incarnating into w worldly one.  To prevent potential suffering on a mass scale, prayer is needed.


Before our very eyes it appears to materialize -- what seemed, on this website, years ago, in 2001, to be an exercise (at least for some, perhaps) in eccentricity.

It was then, just after September 11, that we ran several articles wondering if an unusual display of the aurora borealis immediately following the terrorist attacks heralded a major new war, a war between Christianity and militant Islam -- as an unprecedented aurora did in January of 1938, when a display of the northern lights was seen from Europe to Canada and America's East Coast (even into the Midwest) and like an omen preceded the annexation of Austria by Adolph Hitler (which some consider to be the true initiation of World War Two -- and which a Fatima seer said was the "great sign" prophesied by Mary as indicating just such a conflict).

Now, the lights have been back again. Now, there is a new "war." It is a different war. It has come upon on us in a way that is slow-grinding. It is still in a stage that is nascent. It has been gradual. It may remain that way for a time. It will be punctuated by something unexpected.

Yet a little while, but: It is becoming as it was back in the Middle Ages -- when Muslims decimated churches, destroyed relics, and desecrated statues of the Madonna. And as back then, it is starting to involve Europe in a substantial way. You have that cartoon that led to a slaughter in Paris. You have the killings in Denmark. You have an influx of Muslim immigrants everywhere -- many good, others radical: thirsting for the demise of what is Christian. The leader of Italy publicly expressed fear this week (2/18/15) that his nation will actually be invaded as in those medieval times when, but for the Battle of Lepanto (and the Victory of the Rosary), Europe would have fallen to Islam.

Head we there again? This time, the invasion has been through demographics: Anglican churches are turning into mosques. The most popular name for male babies in England: Mohammed. (Never Jesus.)

After 9/11, the focus was Afghanistan, Iraq, and al Qaeda. There was no ISIS. Now, however -- confounding our great intelligence networks, our experts -- ISIS is rising in a way that is volcanic. Sparks. Fire. Lava. Smoke. Much smoke. Much darkness. Headlines this week on CNN: "ISIS growing at 'warp speed,"' "Religion's week from hell," "Islamists vow to 'conquer Rome next,'" and "ISIS end game: apocalypse." While ISIS may struggle in places like Iraq and Syria, it surges elsewhere. Boko Haram in Nigeria is now flying flags with ISIS symbols.

Lent is a good time for much prayer. Especially, pray for the protection (spiritually) of your families.

Ash Wednesday...

It's said that in 1968, a 90-year-old woman in Norway had visions of the future. Stated she: "The Third World War will begin in a way no one would have anticipated—and from an unexpected place." We will have a "special report" on one man who claims a more specific prophecy.

Europe. The Middle East. Israel.

They now behead Christians in public. Men. Young women. Kids. They plot and plot to bomb transportation. They plot and plot to cause mayhem. And so they surge. September 11 was the opening act, but just a mere opening act, or really a preface, to the return of militant Islam as a force that threatens Christian civilization. Have there been other signs? Allegedly, there are recent apparitions in Iraq. Whatever the relevance of that, there was a Church-sanctioned apparition in Mosul years ago, an apparition that foresaw apocalypse -- in a city where Catholic churches have now been all but totally annihilated (along with the site of apparitions). Ironic it is: ISIS is now attacked by Egypt, where in ancient times there was devotion to the occult goddess: Isis. Sobering thoughts for the beginning of Lent, 2015.

Will Israel play into things? Will Israel last? And if not, what will occur? What might precede its demise? Events in nature? Much to mull over, in these times. The Mid East will not be the only hotspot. It will be a point of origin. It always is a point of origin. It will play a role. But it may not even be the focal point. Will it remain? There is the intriguing passage in Jeremiah 31:36: "The Lord promises that as long as the 'natural order' lasts, so long will Israel be a nation."

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Men

Christ the Man is the salvation of the world.  Society needs Christ-like men today for salvation.  Unfortunately families are breaking down because real men are few and far between.  True masculinity is waning in the culture.


In a wide-ranging interview Cardinal Raymond Burke used frank language to express his grave concerns about the way in which the Catholic Church has been damaged by radical feminism. He also addressed, with a candor rarely heard from pastors, sexual immorality and liturgical abuse.
“The radical feminism which has assaulted the Church and society since the 1960s has left men very marginalized,” the cardinal told Matthew James Christoff, founder of ‘The New Emangelization’, an evangelizing mission focused on men.


“Unfortunately, the radical feminist movement strongly influenced the Church, leading the Church to constantly address women’s issues at the expense of addressing critical issues important to men; the importance of the father, whether in the union of marriage or not; the importance of a father to children; the importance of fatherhood for priests; the critical impact of a manly character; the emphasis on the particular gifts that God gives to men for the good of the whole society,” said Cardinal Burke. “So much of this tradition of heralding the heroic nature of manhood has been lost in the Church today.”


The former head of the Vatican’s highest court said, “Sadly, the Church has not effectively reacted to … destructive cultural forces” such as sexual immorality, feminism and family breakdown, and has instead “become too influenced by radical feminism and has largely ignored the serious needs of men.”


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Sinful Anger

“Anger as a deadly sin is ‘a disorderly outburst of emotion connected with the inordinate desire for revenge.’ . . . It is likely to be accompanied by surliness of heart, by malice aforethought, and above all by the determination to take vengeance.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains a similar description:

By recalling the commandment, “You shall not kill,” our Lord asked for peace of heart and denounced murderous anger and hatred as immoral.

Anger is a desire for revenge. “To desire ven­geance in order to do evil to someone who should be punished is illicit,” but it is praiseworthy to impose restitution “to correct vices and maintain justice.” If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill or seriously wound a neighbor, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal sin. The Lord says, “Everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judg­ment.” (no. 2302)

This is different from the feeling of anger, which is not sinful in itself. That anger is defined as “a strong feeling of displeasure or hostility.” We can’t control when we will feel angry, since that depends on events that occur outside of us. But we can control what we do about the feeling.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, the feeling of anger is one of the passions. “In the passions, as movements of the sensitive appetite, there is neither moral good nor evil. But insofar as they engage reason and will, there is moral good or evil in them” (no. 1773). So it is how we act based on this feeling that determines whether we sin or not. We find also in the Catechism that we should be moved to do good not only by our will but by our heart as well. In other words, we must attempt to convert our very feelings to be fully virtuous (no. 1775).
St. Paul mentions outbursts of anger along with sev­eral other sins, including fornication, jealousy, enmity, and strife. He concludes with this warning: “I warn you as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:20–21). What could be further from Christ’s command in the Sermon on the Mount, to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:43)? He said, “I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the fire of hell” (Matt. 5:22).
We can suppress our anger; or we can express it by sabotaging the efforts of those who caused it; or we can express it in an irrational tirade of bad words and insults; or we can express our anger rationally — or at least process it rationally. If we merely suppress an angry feeling, it will go down into our subconscious and wait for a chance to explode. And it will explode. It is better to do something constructive with it.
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Embracing the Cross

The vocation of a priest is to embrace suffering, not run away from it.  Just as Christ embraced His cross, men called to be like Christ (in persona Christi) take on the sufferings of others through celebrating the sacrifice of the Mass and serving other completely. 


Through God's grace, many good men are beginning to hear and answer the call.


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