We are coming up on the 1st Sunday of
Advent. This weekend we celebrate the
Solemnity of Christ the King. This
weekend should remind us that we belong, as those baptized in to the Body Of Christ,
the Church, to an entity much larger than one person, one parish, one diocese,
or even as the Church Militant. We
belong to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Within that Body, we serve God and each other. Within
this kingdom, we seek to expand the Kingdom and to protect the Kingdom from
what would seek to despoil it. Every
Kingdom has an army. We, the Church
Militant, are that army here on earth.
While in this life, we engage in warfare. Our enemy is not our fellow human beings, but
the devil. As St. Peter reminds us in
his 1st Epistle, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your
adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to
devour.” (I Peter 5:8)
Not the Stuff of Myths and Fairy Tales
It has
been said many times that the greatest trick of the devil is to convince people
he doesn’t exist. It is hard to fight an
enemy that you do not think exists. Certainly, in our culture, the devil and the
demonic has become a sideshow for horror movies, TV shows fascinated with the
paranormal, and otherwise dismissed as the stuff of myths and legends. The devil is reduced to a red-faced, horned, pitchfork-
carrying, and smiling trickster. Some
pooh-pooh the idea of the devil and demonic as mere early man’s misunderstanding
of mental illness. Some find the
necessity to do away with the concept of the devil as they also wish to do away
with the concept of God. Indeed, modern
morality, given its desire for no objective truth, pans the idea of a devil
because to have such an idea would take morality out of the mere subjective
(opinion) and bring it into the objective.
It
doesn’t take much effort to know our society is in the midst of major battle
over morals. The lines are drawn over
most anything to do with human sexuality.
The lines are drawn on many life issues (abortion, euthanasia, capital
punishment, suicide, and other end of life issues). The lines are drawn in
every field of life from faith to economics to politics to education. The battles take place on out airwaves and an
internet. The battles rage in the halls
of power, both religious and secular, and in boardrooms across the
country. The battles wage in our homes,
our families, our churches, and within our own individual hearts. The battle is often a scorched- earth winner-
takes- all endgame.
To
effectively fight these battles, personal and corporate, we have to know who we
are up against and how to do battle. If
we consign our foe to a theological ash -heap, we leave open our flank. Our foe will have no problem mercilessly
overrunning us. I can assure you, with devastating realness,
that the devil and demonic do very much exist and are not to be toyed with or
dismissed. I have come into contact with
these things over the course of 20 years of priesthood and there are things I
have seen I wish I could unsee.
Our Forefathers Understood
In the
Gospels, we see Jesus often doing battle with the Devil and his minions. Some of the more effete of scholars try to dismiss
these encounters as myths and other forms of analogy. They do so for the very same reason anyone
dismisses the Scriptures: it is hard to make your own God and religion when one
already exists. Jesus, however, did not do battle with a
myth. He wasn’t tempted by a mythical
theological construct in the desert. He
didn’t cast demonic analogies from the possessed. He didn’t defeat a fanciful figment of the
imagination on the Cross. He did battle
with an entity who desperately wanted Him to fail.
His apostles
knew what they were up against. For
them, as we see in the Epistles of the New Testament, the devil was a very real
and deadly enemy. They understood the
root of the battle. St. Paul talks about
the concept of spiritual warfare extensively.
St. Paul understood the brutish nature of the devil and his desire to
take down those who were of God. In
Ephesians 6:10-20, St. Paul talks about the armaments and armor to be used by a
follower of Christ in defeating the devil.
Again, St. Paul is not prescribing battle against a myth or an
allegorical figment of imagination. St.
Paul knew the battle was real.
Throughout
the centuries of Catholicism, we have long understood that the devil and his
influence are not myths to be dismissed.
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, when reflecting on the
petitions of the Our Father, remarks in section 2851, “..Evil is not an
abstraction, but refers to a person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes
God. The devil is the one who ‘throws himself across’ God’s plan and His work
of salvation accomplished in Christ.” To
the Church the devil is not a myth, but is very much real. It is why the last
two popes have been insistent in the training of exorcists to be stationed in
every diocese in the world. This should
signal the Church understands it does not battle a mythological construct, but
battles a very dangerous foe.
The Church
does recognize that through Christ we have the upper hand in this battle. AS is written
in the Catechism, section 395, “The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not
infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit,
but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God's reign.
Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in
Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries - of a spiritual
nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature - to each man and to society,
the action is permitted by divine providence which with strength and gentleness
guides human and cosmic history. It is a great mystery that providence should permit
diabolical activity, but we know that in everything God works for good with
those who love him.”
We can
defeat the devil through God’s grace. We
can regain ground lost to him. Through
the grace of the Sacraments, in particular Confession, we can beat back the
foe.
To do
this, though, requires some understanding of how we are attacked and how we
fend off these attacks or regain ground lost to previous attacks. What are his weapons? I posit the three most potent weapons are
fear, wrath, and selfishness. Knowing the
weapon being used against you gives you the ability to use properly the weapons
and armor given us through the sacramental life of the Church.
Good.
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