God’s Holiness Makes Us Uncomfortable

The following comes from the Catholic Exchange:

There is a third human reaction to God’s holiness. It is an evil reaction; it rises from man’s contradictory nature and consists of a feeling of discomfort, irritation, and rebelliousness. A strange manifestation! One is inclined to ask how this can come about if God is the moving Spirit and essence of the universe, and man is His creature — “For in Him we live, and move, and are.”

It is indeed difficult to understand; it springs from the mystery of evil. Sin, ultimately, is resistance to the holiness of God. It would be a mistake to think of this resistance merely as an open rebellion against, or as a denial of, God.

Potentially it is present in all of us — sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker; sometimes quite openly, sometimes in the guise of self-sufficient (rational) culture, or healthy common sense. When resistance, open or otherwise, gains the upper hand, prayer becomes impossible.

We must watch out for signs of it in ourselves; we must face it, try to resolve or still it, or overcome it with firm determination, whichever may be for us the most effective way of dealing with it. Let us leave this and return to the two fundamental motives of prayer already referred to.

Prayer’s first motive: a sense of our own sinfulness

The first motive for prayer springs from man’s awareness of his own unworthiness before the holiness of God. Man recognizes that he is selfish, unjust, deficient, and impure. He acknowledges his own wrongdoings and tries to assess them: not merely those of today or of yesterday, but of the whole of his life. Beyond this he tries to visualize the whole of the human condition with its shortcomings. He realizes sin as it is understood by the Scriptures, sin as it is active in himself. He recognizes that sin is transgression of the moral law and of the natural law.

But even more, he recognizes that sin is contumacy before God’s holiness, that it is, therefore, not only wicked but unholy. He admits it and sides with God against himself; he says, in the words of the Psalm: “For I know my iniquity, and my sin is always before me. Against Thee only have I sinned, and have done evil before Thee: that Thou mayst be justified in Thy words, and mayst overcome when Thou art judged.”

We sometimes despair

A third form of evasion is caused by lack of courage. When man sees that he is constantly transgressing and that evil is deeply rooted in him, when he begins to feel that all is confusion and that there is no way out, he runs the risk of despairing of himself, especially when he is a person wanting in willpower and, perhaps, in logic. To hold out in these circumstances is most difficult because the mind seems to answer to all good intentions, “You’re not going to carry this through; you will do again what you have always done before.” There is only one remedy: to put aside all inner searchings and recriminations, to have done with all hesita­tions, and to put one’s absolute trust in God who “quickeneth the dead; and calleth those things that are not, as those that are.”

From this act of surrender to the Absolute, above and within us, will spring new resolve and new strength. We shall be able to say, “I will and shall, for God the omnipotent wills it.”

God’s forgiveness makes repentance possible

There is another mysterious aspect of God’s power which makes it possible for man to acknowledge his wrong and to admit and confess his sins. Man knows this intuitively, and the Scriptures have revealed it to us. God is not only the prime cause of the good and the fount of all justice; He is the all-renewer. He can give a new beginning to what appears final and He can undo all deeds. The words of St. Paul quoted above point to this mystery. God who is the supreme holiness, which by definition excludes all evil, is willing and able to forgive and to renew.

True forgiveness, the forgiveness which we are seeking and which alone is of benefit to us, is a great mystery. It implies not only that God decides to overlook what has happened and turns lovingly toward the sinner; this would not be sufficient. God’s forgiveness is creative: it makes him who has become guilty free of all guilt. God gathers the guilty man into His holiness, makes him partake of it, and gives him a new beginning. It is to this mystery that man appeals when he acknowledges his sins, repents of them, and seeks forgiveness. This is the first of those two motives of prayer which come into being before God’s holiness.

Editor’s note: This article has been adapted from Romano Guardini’s The Art of Praying, available from Sophia Institute Press. 

Pope Francis: Rejoice and Be Glad

The following comes from the Catholic Herald:

The path to holiness does not involve wrestling with some abstract boogeyman, but involves a “constant struggle against the devil, the prince of evil,” Pope Francis said.

In his new apostolic exhortation, “Gaudete et Exsultate” (“Rejoice and Be Glad”), released by the Vatican April 9, the Pope urged Christians not to think of the devil as an intangible construct but rather “a personal being who assails us.”

“We should not think of the devil as a myth, a representation, a symbol, a figure of speech or an idea,” the Pope wrote. “This mistake would leave us to let down our guard, to grow careless and end up more vulnerable.”

Taking advantage of that vulnerability, he added, the devil “does not need to possess us. He poisons us with the venom of hatred, desolation, envy and vice.”

Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis has warned of the presence of the devil and the dangers of going to hell if one doesn’t turn away from sin.

Recently, however, doubts were cast on the Pope’s beliefs on hell and the consequences of sin when Eugenio Scalfari, a co-founder and former editor of La Repubblica, an Italian daily, claimed that Pope Francis said, “Hell does not exist.”

The Italian journalist has explained on more than one occasion that he does not take notes or record his conversations with the Pope; he re-creates them afterward from memory, including the material he puts in quotation marks.

Shortly after the interview was published in March, the Vatican issued a statement pointing out that Scalfari’s article “is a product of his own reconstruction in which the actual words pronounced by the Pope are not cited.”

In his apostolic exhortation on “the call to holiness in the modern world,” the Pope said Christian life isn’t merely a struggle against human weaknesses or worldly mentalities but a spiritual battle against a very real threat.

“We will not admit the existence of the devil if we insist on regarding life by empirical standards alone, without a supernatural understanding,” he wrote.

While acknowledging that in biblical times there were “limited conceptual resources” to understand the difference between demonic possession and mental illness, the Pope said it should not “lead us to an oversimplification that would conclude that all the cases related in the Gospel had to do with psychological disorders and hence that the devil does not exist or is not at work.”

The path toward holiness, he explained, is a constant battle and without the “powerful weapons” of prayer, the sacraments and works of charity, Christians “will be prey to failure or mediocrity.”

“If we become careless, the false promises of evil will easily seduce us,” the Pope said.

In the fight against the devil, Pope Francis added, cultivating good, progressing in the spiritual life and growing in love are the best ways to counter evil. However, those who choose to remain neutral and “renounce the ideal of giving themselves generously to the Lord, will never hold out.”

“Christian triumph is always a cross, yet a cross which is at the same time a victorious banner, borne with aggressive tenderness against the assaults of evil,” he said.

Why the Devil Hates the Blessed Virgin Mary (And why you should love her)

The following comes from Aleteia:

Satan hates the Blessed Virgin Mary. In fact, he has been doing everything in his power to discourage devotion to her and instill hatred for her for two millennia. Have you ever noticed that it is Marian dogmas and devotions that stir the strongest reactions in those who reject the Church? Even some good Catholics are embarrassed by devotion to our Lady, and they feel we should not be too extreme in our veneration of her.

Perhaps you, too, have wondered why the Church holds the Immaculate Virgin in such high regard. Perhaps you have wonder why God has chosen to use her in the work of redemption. Today, I’d like to take a look at why the devil hates the Blessed Mother so much, and why we should be her devoted knights.

SHE WILL CRUSH YOUR HEAD

The scene is the garden of Eden. The characters are God, the serpent, Adam, and Eve. The devil is smirking in triumph. He has just deceived Eve, and through her, Adam. Oh, he is proud of himself. You can almost feel the demonic pride in destruction, for he has successfully marred God’s handiwork of creation, and dragged human beings —f or whom God has a special love — into death and misery.

God has appeared on the scene to clean up the mess, declaring the tragic curse that has arisen from sin, but also to proclaim the protoevangelium, the first hint at the Gospel and the devil’s doom.

God starts by addressing Satan, telling him he is going to eat dirt for the rest of his days. Then he reveals something that makes Satan cringe in horror — his ultimate defeat will come at the hands of a woman.

And I will establish a feud between thee and the woman, between thy offspring and hers; she is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in ambush at her heels (Genesis 3:15, Knox)

Now, scholars argue about whether or not the pronoun is masculine or feminine in the sentence, “She is to crush thy head” — that is, whether it refers to the Virgin Mary or Jesus Christ. But I’m going to let you in on a little secret: it doesn’t matter. You see, Jesus is going to crush Satan through Mary. She is the instrument Jesus is going to wield when he destroys his ancient enemy.

With that in mind, it is just as legitimate to say, “he will crush your head” as it is to say, “she will crush your head.” It’s kind of like telling an armed assailant, “One more step and I will shoot you” and “One more step and my .44 magnum will blow you away.” They are both true statements.

So why does being defeated by Mary pain the devil so much? Why does God want to use Mary to defeat Satan? I’ll explain.

“HE HAS PUT DOWN THE MIGHTY FROM THEIR SEAT…”

The devil hates, I mean he loathes the fact that his ultimate defeat will come at the hands of a lowly handmaiden. In a way, his proud heart could handle being defeated by God himself because he’s almighty and omnipotent. But being crushed by a little Lady from Nazareth? The thought is absolutely humiliating. It drives him crazy. For if there is one thing the most proud creature in all of creation hates, it is being humiliated.

Satan finds his defeat by the Virgin Mary humiliating because she is a woman, and women are the weaker sex (1 Peter 3:7), and he despises weakness. He loves nothing more than to see women abused, degraded, and objectified. Not to mention that our Blessed Lady is a human, and Satan hates humans because we have bodies, and he is a pure spirit that thinks bodies are disgusting. But there’s another, more profound reason Satan hates being defeated by Mary: She is his replacement in heaven.

You see, Lucifer was originally God’s finest achievement. He was more beautiful, more powerful than all the other creatures that God has made. And as we all know, it went to his head. He was so gorgeous, so mighty that he really thought he could be better than God. The defining marks of Satan are pride and envy of the Almighty.

Read the rest here.

To Hell with Satan

The following comes from National Review:

Paul Thigpen discusses his handbook for spiritual battle.

Pope Francis has said that “we are all tempted because the law of our spiritual life, our Christian life is a struggle: a struggle. That’s because the Prince of this world, Satan, doesn’t want our holiness, he doesn’t want us to follow Christ. Maybe some of you might say: ‘But Father, how old fashioned you are to speak about the devil in the 21st century!’ But look out because the devil is present! The devil is here . . . even in the 21st century! And we mustn’t be naïve, right? We must learn from the Gospel how to fight against Satan.”

Paul Thigpen, author of many books, including A Year with the Saints, has compiled the new Manual for Spiritual Warfare, published by St. Benedict’s Press. A handy, attractive, resource, it better equips one for spiritual battle. He talks about the book and combatting evil in the world and our hearts. 

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: Why is it so crucial for Christians to be prepared “to understand and defeat” Satan? 

THIGPEN: The first rule of any type of warfare is to know your enemy. How can you fight an adversary you can’t identify? Worse yet, how can you avoid being a casualty in a battle going on all around you if you don’t even recognize that you’re in danger? 

I realize that some Christians deny the existence of demons, including Satan, as fallen angels, actual personal beings (having a mind and will, but no body) who want to see us ultimately join them in hell. Such Christians believe that evil — or, at least, moral evil — is exclusively a result of human intentions and activities. So let’s address that issue first. 

It’s reasonable to assume that, for Christians, the teaching of Jesus Christ must be accepted as true and his example as normative. (Why else would we call ourselves “Christians”?) All four of the Biblical Gospels make it abundantly clear that Jesus affirmed the existence of Satan, warned us about his interference in our lives — he’s “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31), “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44), and more — and engaged in direct combat with demonic powers. The accounts of his exorcisms are too numerous, and too central to his ministry, to dismiss — not to mention Jesus’ encounter with the Devil himself in the wilderness (see Luke 4:1–13). 

Christians must take these accounts seriously. Some would try to interpret them as nothing more than encounters with mentally or physically ill people. But if that’s the case, then one or more of the following must be true: 

Jesus was ignorant of the victims’ real condition and was mistaken about the existence of unclean spirits. But for a believing Christian, how can this option be possible? The divine Son of God, through whom all things were created, was ignorant and mistaken about something so important to his ministry and mission to the human race? And he mistook an inner dialogue with himself to be a conversation with a demon in the wilderness? 

Jesus was trying to accommodate the culture by deliberately misdiagnosing these maladies in accordance with the false ideas of the time, rather than correcting the ideas (which were dangerous if true) and explaining that the illnesses were illnesses, as demons don’t really exist. How could Christians affirm that the holy Son of God would engage in a deception of that sort?

On at least one occasion, Jesus cast a mental illness out of a man and into a herd of pigs (see Matthew 8:28–34). This proposition is absurd on its face, and leaves only one more option: 

The Gospel accounts are historically unreliable. Jesus never taught or did these things. Once again, for the Christian, this option in untenable. If these earliest and canonical accounts of Jesus’ life are unreliable about a matter so critical to his ministry, mission, and even identity (the demons called him the “Son of God,” which is why they had to submit to his authority; see Matthew 8:29), then why accept the testimony of these books about anything else he said or did? 

 In addition to the Gospel accounts, the Bible affirms in many places the existence of demons and their malicious intentions toward us. For Catholics, the Church’s authoritative tradition has continued to affirm that teaching since the beginning, and Church history is filled with countless examples of exorcisms and other encounters with demonic powers. 

For all these reasons, then, I think it’s crucial for Christians to be prepared to understand and defeat Satan. It’s simply not an option to do otherwise. 

 LOPEZ: I know it’s in the Bible and all, but is the Devil really “as a roaring lion . . . seeking someone to devour”? How do you know this is true? 

THIGPEN: Let’s lay aside for a moment the consistent, persistent witness of the Christian Scriptures and tradition. Consider the massive accumulated evidence of confirming testimony. Throughout all history, peoples of vastly different cultures around the globe have affirmed the reality of evil spirits — even when they have disagreed about most other spiritual realities. Many of our contemporaries as well, who by any reasonable standard are intelligent and in their right mind, have testified to having encounters with demonic powers. 

The recent case of demonic possession in Indiana, widely publicized, provides just one example. Extraordinary, preternatural phenomena were observed and reported by objective, perfectly sane witnesses — in this case, not just family members but medical and law-enforcement personnel who had had no previous experiences of that sort or even an interest in such phenomena. They witnessed some of the classic phenomena associated with demonic possession (and infestation of a house) that had no merely natural explanation. We simply can’t dismiss such testimonies as mass hallucinations or hoaxes. 

No doubt, some types of mental and physical illness have been wrongly attributed to demons, today as in the past. Nor can we deny that superstitions and legends about evil spirits abound. But these misguided ideas about the Devil don’t in themselves prove that he doesn’t exist, just as age-old beliefs about a flat earth don’t prove that our planet doesn’t exist. 

Skeptics may demand “scientific” evidence. But what kind of relevant evidence would scientists be capable of measuring? The natural sciences measure matter, energy, time, and motion; the social sciences analyze human behavior. Demons have no physical bodies, and they aren’t human. We can’t put them in test tubes or subject them to psychoanalysis. 

The most, then, that scientists can do is observe the effects of demons on the physical world or on human behavior. But the prevailing mentality among scientists will press them to seek other explanations for such phenomena, even when those explanations are utterly inadequate.

Fr. Thomas Rosica on Pope Francis and the Devil

The following comes from CNN:

Pope Francis seems to be obsessed with the devil.

His tweets and homilies about the devil, Satan, the Accuser, the Evil One, the Father of Lies, the Ancient Serpent, the Tempter, the Seducer, the Great Dragon, the Enemy and just plain "demon" are now legion.

For Francis, the devil is not a myth, but a real person. Many modern people may greet the Pope's insistence on the devil with a dismissive, cultural affectation, indifference, or at the most indulgent curiosity.

Yet Francis refers to the devil continually. He does not believe him to be a myth, but a real person, the most insidious enemy of the church. Several of my theologian colleagues have said that he has gone a bit overboard with the devil and hell! We may be tempted to ask, why in the devil is Pope Francis so involved with the prince of demons?

This intelligent Jesuit Pope is diving into deep theological waters, places where very few modern Catholic clerics wish to tread.

Francis' seeming preoccupation with the devil is not a theological or eschatological question as much as a call to arms, an invitation to immediate action, offering very concrete steps to do combat with the devil and the reign of evil in the world today.

In his homilies, Francis warns people strongly to avoid discouragement, to seize hope, to move on with courage and not to fall prey to negativity or cynicism.

He is drawing on the fundamental insight of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, the Pope's own religious family. With his continual references to the devil, Pope Francis parts ways with the current preaching in the church, which is far too silent about the devil and his insidious ways or reduces him to a mere metaphor.

During the first months of Francis' pontificate in 2013, the Evil One appeared frequently in his messages. In his first major address to the cardinals who elected him, the Argentine pontiff reminded them: "Let us never yield to pessimism, to that bitterness that the devil offers us every day."

In several daily homilies in the chapel of the Vatican guest house, the Pope shared devilish stories with the small congregations rapt in attention as he homilized on taboo topics.

He has offered guidelines on how to rout the demon's strategy: First, it is Jesus who battles the devil.

The second is that "we cannot obtain the victory of Jesus over evil and the devil by halves," for as Christ said in the Gospel of Matthew, "who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters."

The Pope has stressed that we must not be naive: "The demon is shrewd: he is never cast out forever, this will only happen on the last day."

Read the rest here.

Great Saints and Martyrs Knew How to Fight Evil

The following comes from William van Ornum:

“The devil went down to Georgia. He was lookin’ for a soul to steal.”

But he didn’t stop there, of course. In May, he made an appearance at Harvard -- a trip that’s usually good for some choice morsels -- but he actually ended up losing a few souls that had been within his grasp. Bad enough that the celebratory Black Mass fizzled out. Worse, a local church was S.R.O. with “Catholics” adoring his sworn enemy.

Fortunately for satan, the enemy’s followers were aglow from spoiling his big night and from the “grace” of Adoration. They’re now convinced he’s back in the netherworld and give him scarcely a thought. They never even see him coming.

That’s a mistake C.S. Lewis tried to keep us from making. In fact, he wrote a sort of playbook that lays out Satan’s tactics: The Screwtape Letters. Written in 1939, when the bombs started falling in Britain, Lewis tried to warn his countrymen that there’s one enemy of Christians even worse than the Nazis. (For this, he received scathing criticism.)

The book is an exchange of letters between a young devil-in-training named Wormwood and his “supervising” satanic uncle (Screwtape). Wormwood delights at the  declaration of war, hoping that killing, rape, destruction, and evil of all kinds will ensue. Screwtape rebukes him sharply. Wars, he explains, are also opportunities for heroism and self-sacrifice. They can be a catalyst for many men and women to save their souls.
 

When I told you not to fill your letters with rubbish about the war, I meant, of course, that I did not want to have your rather infantile rhapsodies about the death of men and the destruction of cities. In so far as a war really concerns the spiritual state of the patient, I naturally want full reports.

Now that it is certain the German humans will bombard your patient’s town and that his duties will keep him in the thick of danger, we must consider our policy. Are we to aim at cowardice -- or at courage, with subsequent pride, or at hatred of the Germans. (Letter 28, Screwtape to Wormwood)

How about us? Do we spend our days thinking about how we’d correct the evils in the world or do we try to develop compunction and contrition for our own failures? 

The Screwtape Letters presents many of the smaller battles in daily life that ultimately may matter more for our salvation than great campaigns against global evils. 

Screwtape suggests that turning Christians against each other on moral issues is a great way to stir up pride -- a cardinal sin. It’s possible for Christians to be “correct” in their moral stance but “sinners in pride” because they are being sanctimonious, hypocritical, or prideful. And Satan knows what comes before a Fall, doesn’t he? 

Maybe it’s better to meditate on one’s failure to be a truly supportive spouse rather than constantly carping about the gay agenda? Or better to quell one’s own anger when it’s about to erupt than to lament the evils of terrorism? This list of priorities can, of course, be individualized about six billion ways. I’m sure that, with a little thought, you can create your own list.  

Great saints and martyrs are people who became very skilled at fighting Satan. The place of combat isn’t a battlefield or a coliseum; it’s wherever you are in your daily life.

First, remember that your eternal salvation is priority number one. Everything else follows from this. A recent article in Aleteia reminded readers how easily sin can be downplayed, even forgotten. C.S. Lewis is unapologetic about the priority that should be given to the “supernatural” aspects of Christian faith. So was psychiatrist Karl Menninger, who authored Whatever Became of Sin while Lewis was writing about Screwtape. Even small sins are important:
 

You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is to the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is not better than cards, if cards will do the trick. (Letter 11, Screwtape to Wormwood)

Second, beware of ideologies or moral causes that make Christians fight against each other. In his time, Lewis pointed out the rancor between pacifists and those who were giving their lives for their country. How could pacifists be Christians--it is obvious they were cowards, so many of the faithful thought. One wonders what issues Lewis would single out in our time that have this same effect?  (Stop now and wonder, too.) 

“A nation divided among itself can not stand.” This comes not from Lincoln, but the Old Testament.

Read the rest here.

The Devil and Pope Francis

The following comes from Fr. Dwight Longenecker:

Deliver Us From Evil is a new film based on the experiences of New York police officer Ralph Sarchie. When the cop investigates a series of horrific crimes, he is led into the realm of the demonic and teams up with an unconventional priest to cast out the devil.

Some reviewers rate the movie as a typical exorcist horror film, scratch, and yawn then flick the channels. They shouldn’t.
 
Demonic possession is not only real, but as the practice of Christianity fades and fascination with the occult increases, the need for exorcism becomes more pressing. This week the Congregation for the Clergy at the Vatican approved the statutes of a new Catholic organization, the International Association of Exorcists. Founded by the well known exorcist, Fr. Gabriel Amorth, the Association of Exorcists fosters awareness of the spiritual problem, trains exorcists and holds conferences which bring together theologians, medical practitioners, psychiatrists, and clergy.
 
Fr. Francesco Bamonte, an exorcist from the Diocese of Rome toldL'Osservatore Romano that the Holy See’s approval of the new organization “is cause for joy." He explained, "God calls some priests to the precious ministry of exorcism and liberation, giving them the task of accompanying” those people who require specific spiritual and pastoral attention. The ministry of exorcism is an exercise of Christ’s ministry of deliverance and a sign of his victory over evil in the world.
 
That this organization should be approved at the top level of the Vatican show the seriousness with which the Catholic Church takes the reality of demonic forces.The ministry of exorcism is often associated with “conservatives” in the church while “progressives” prefer to dismiss demonic possession as no more than epilepsy or mental illness. The fact that Pope Francis takes the problem so seriously shows that the reality of demonic evil is not limited by labels.
 
In this report from the Washington Post it is pointed out that Pope Francis speaks literally and openly about the devil more regularly than any pope since Paul VI. He publicly laid hands on, and prayed for a man who it was claimed was demon possessed, he refers to the devil regularly in his homilies and speeches, dedicated a new image of St. Michael in the Vatican gardens -- praying especially for Michael’s protection in the battle against Satan.
 
In a homily last April Pope Francis quoted his critics, “ 'But Father, how old-fashioned you are to speak about the Devil in the 21st century!' ” The pope reminded his listeners not be fooled by the lies of Satan. “Look out because the Devil is present,” he warned.

Read the rest here.

Venerable Fulton Sheen on The Devil

Taking the Devil Seriously

The following comes from God and the Machine: 

The reality of the devil was one of the hardest things for me to accept when I returned to the Church. When I made my choice to assent and submit to all the Church teaches, I knew I had a long road ahead of me. I knew that much pride and intellectual vanity and modernist funk would have to be scraped away before I could conform myself fully to the Church.

This process of death to self and the world in order to allow a new life in the Spirit to take root is not easy, and indeed it is ongoing. Each Catholic is in a different places in his or her journey. If you would have questioned me about my faith in my early 20s, I would have dismissed many key elements of Church teachings and sounded like a typical cafeteria Catholic. Faith is not a static thing. It’s organic. It has its seasons of growth and seasons where it seems to lay fallow.

And we all have those weaker moments. Not moments of disbelief, necessarily, but of weakness, of a lessening ardor, of a gentle fading of the passion for the Lord. The distractions and pressures of the world batter us and threaten to push faith to the fringes.

That’s the place where Satan wants us. When we aren’t looking, when we are distracted, when we are weak or sick in body or mind, when we have doubts: those are moments for him to do his work.

Families are organic, and thus they, too, have their cycles from fallow to fruiting. The Church is always under attack, from within and without, and the family is an image of the Church. Why think it could be any less under attack? One look around us shows a society where the meaning of marriage has collapsing. Gay marriage didn’t do it. That was just a final bullet to the head after the damage wrought by no-fault divorce and other family-destroying policies and social trends.

So when Francis speaks of the family being under attack by the Devil, he’s speaking a truth more need to hear:

 Families are the home Church where Jesus grows. He grows in the spouses’ love and in the children’s lives. For this reason, the enemy attacks the family so much. The devil does not want it. He tries to destroy it, to prevent love from becoming free. Families are the home church. But married people are sinners like everyone else, they do not want to go in faith, in its fertility, in children and the faith of their children. May the Lord bless the family, and make it strong in the face of the crisis by which the devil wants to destroy it.

We need to start acting like the devil is real and threatening, particularly in our families. The Church cannot stand without the family. One is a reflection of the other.

The problem is that we don’t like to think about demonic activity in our world, and we certainly don’t like to talk about it. When was the last time you ever heard Satan mentioned in a homily? I don’t think I ever have. The recent controversy about the Black Mass at Harvard pushed it forward and forced us to deal discuss it in the open, and we shouldn’t let that moment go to waste.

Read the rest here.

Pope Francis to Charismatics: “The devil wants to destroy the family”

The following comes from Vatican Insider:

“At first I thought Renewal was a samba school,” the Pope joked and the whole stadium roared with laughter. Then he warned: “When someone thinks they are important, that’s when the plague hits.” Finally, he kneeled down as faithful prayed at the end of his speech, asking the Lord to bless him, just as Francis had asked of them to do straight after his election on 13 March 2013, from the central Loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica.

“Someone is missing here, possibly the most important people: grandparents. They are the guarantors of our faith.” Francis’ words totally threw the organisers of the Charismatic Renewal Convocation (Renewal in the Spirit – RNS), who only expected four people to speak at today’s meeting at the Olympic stadium: a priest, a young boy, a married couple and a disabled person.

“Like good wine, the elderly have freedom given to them by the Holy Spirit,” the Pope said, recalling the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, where he met two elderly people, Simeon and the prophetess Anna. “The elderly are the Church’s wisdom and yet we cast them aside,” the Pope said. That elderly lady, Anna, canonized “gossip” because instead of gossiping, she went around saying that the Saviour had come. Grandmothers and grandfathers are our wisdom and strength.” “May the Lord always give us elderly people who pass onto us the memory and wisdom of the Church and the sense of joy with which Simeon and Anna greeted promises from afar,” Francis said.

Read the rest here.

The Problem of Evil

The Subtleties of Satan

The following comes from Fr. Dwight Longenecker:

Are demons and angels real?

There are an increasing numbers of new stories about exorcism and the reality of the demonic. I wrote recently on how the demonic may be manifested in many ways other than the obviously shocking stuff of the exorcism movies. The Devil in Ordinary told the story of a guy I met who was outwardly normal, but there was another quality to him which lurked beneath the surface which seemed diabolical.

As a Catholic priest I do not come across many instances of horrible demonic possession in the classic sense. However, I do come across many situations with very ordinary people where there is an irrational level of evil in their lives.

In many ways the classic examples of demonic possession are counter productive. They certainly make us aware that the devil is real, but they disguise the fact that the reality of evil is present in many other ways. If we are not careful we will conclude that the only time the devil is present is when a little girl’s head spins backward, she vomits nails, talks like Darth Vader and walks up the wall.

In my experience it is far more likely that the diabolical is insinuated into ordinary lives in far more subtle ways. Isn’t that what we would expect from the Father of Lies, the Great Serpent? What I mean is that Satan is more likely to control certain parts of our lives–claiming certain areas for his own which we have yielded to him. I envision him like a constrictor serpent wound tightly around certain parts of our lives–not letting go, hoping bit by bit to take control of our will completely until we are ruined.

Let me give you an example. I worked with a young man who had given in to pornography and sexual promiscuity. When we began to do some spiritual work, in this area he had a complete blind spot. He wanted to grow in grace, but really could not see the sin problem. When I insisted the rage emerged and it was extraordinary and frightening to see. He actually looked at me in a weird way. His eyes slanted and he exhaled through his teeth like a hiss. It only lasted for a moment, but something else was there.

Full scale exorcism was not necessary. Here was a man who went to confession and Mass regularly and seemed to be a good Christian. Nevertheless, something else was operating. There was a portion of his life that was not redeemed and a battle was going on for his soul.

This was not demonic possession as such, but what is sometimes called “obsession”. It is like the person has been infected with a virus that is working in the body as an alien agent and causing sickness, but not death.

I am convinced that this sort of demonic infection is very common and increasing. So what to do about it?

Regular unrelenting confession is the first remedy. Repentance and a complete and open examination of conscience. If this can be done with a spiritual director-priest even better. Secondly, I think we should consider what I called “self deliverance”. This is a way of using our prayer life to consciously name and expel the demonic influences. Reciting the Lord’s Prayer slowly with a focus on “deliver us from evil” is a powerful remedy. The use of holy water, scapulars, blessed candles, images and other sacramentals are useful. Finally, a real, conscious concentration on the presence of the Lord Jesus and his holy name in the Eucharist can help to drive out the demonic that exists in our ordinary lives.

I realize critics will sneer that my approach is medieval and superstitious and that I am seeing devils hiding under every bed. Not so. I am pretty down to earth about these matters. In fact, I am also prepared to accept that these influences are not objectively demonic. They might be. They might not.

It is practical good sense, however, to view them as demonic. It helps us to identify the problem, name it and cast it out. So, for example, a person may be struggling with alcoholism and they may call it “the demon drink”. The problem may have a demonic dimension or it may not. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the person sees the problem as a real objective problem and takes positive steps to expel the “demon.”

This would seem to put the whole matter into the realm of “practical ritual” and “useful symbolic language”–a mindset that denies the objective reality of the demonic. It needn’t. One can affirm the positive value of “practical ritual” and “symbolic language” while remaining agnostic about the objective reality of the demonic in particular cases.

The bottom line is that it is better to believe in the demonic and deal with pastoral cases as if it is real than not to.

It is better to remember that our adversary the devil is stalking about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour….

And to be on guard.