The Trouble with Angels

Some time ago I read Joan Wester Anderson’s thrilling collection of stories attesting to angelic intervention in human affairs. If you do not believe in angels, check out these true stories of angelic intervention. This exhilarating book offers overwhelming evidence that heavenly beings are very much with us -- combating evil, bringing news, warning of danger, consoling us in our suffering. The flip-side of these spiritual faculties, as readers of these pages can attest, is the existence of a dark kingdom, using the same intelligence and power to prevent the spread of God’s kingdom, get more recruits, and consolidate the powers of evil in the world. In Luke 4:7, Satan declares that power over the kingdoms of the world have been delivered to him, and he offers Jesus a share in this power, if only Jesus would worship him; As we hear in the Lenten reading, Jesus avoids the temptation, but does not contradict Satan’s claim of power. With some restrictions, the power is there. The spiritual landscape we encounter includes extraordinarily intelligent, gifted, influential and murderous demons capable of outsmarting all the forces of the other side.

In my book I recounted Pope Leo XIII’s account of a vision of Satan, which gave birth to the St. Michael prayer. As told on this blog, future popes have also discerned diabolical opposition—one thinks of Pope Paul VI’s warning about the “smoke of Satan” in the Church, and Pope Francis’ recent remarks ascribing the persecution of Christians to the devil, and exhorting “Let us renounce Satan and all his works and seductions because he isa seducer.”

We should not lose sight of the tremendous advantages that Satan has in his intention of subverting the Body of Christ—with the help of human minions bent on exterminating Christianity, often aided by great numbers of misled Christians anxious for the Church to gain acceptance by the modern world. The greatest plus for Satan is the experience he has had with Christians for two thousand years, coupled with his awareness of what sort of things destines one to hell. Libido just may have pride of place.

Since the onset of the sexual revolution, we have had to face an ever-increasing display of sexual problems. One has only to think of the tremendous increase in the number of post-1960s illegitimate births and abortions, sexually transmitted diseases, opposition to censorship of pornography (especially on the Internet), and the resulting sexual addiction (in some extreme instances resulting in murder). Consider too the tremendous blows to marriage and the family done by adultery, the battle over the homosexual lifestyle in the United States, Canada and Europe (now to the point of the redefinition of marriage under the law); the increasing incidences of sexual harassment, child pornography on the Internet, Internet predators, date rape, and of course, the divorce rate. Then, too let us not forget the abortafacient properties of the Pill. Clearly attempts to reduce procreation so as to block God’s favorite thing to do, amounts to an offense against Him, is not a matter to be lightly dismissed.

As I recounted in my third chapter, dissent from Humanae Vitae’s proscription against artificial contraception originated a crisis of faith in the Church. The dissent that ensued after Pope Paul VI’s visionary encyclical set the stage for pervasive dismissal of the Vicar of Christ's authority in faith and morals. Given this, Satan, famous for his “non serviam,” was allowed to slip in little snippets of spiritual rebellion here and there, depending on the naiveté of his hearers. In Professor James Hitchcock’s The History ofthe Catholic Church, as the noted historian takes up twentieth- century modernism and the aftermath of the 1960s, he recounts the story of the unmaking of the Immaculate Heart Sisters of Los Angeles, whose program of aggiornamento was guided by the prestigious (now deceased) psychologist Carl Rogers, a one-time student for the Protestant ministry who had developed a negative attitude toward religion. Sadly, the Immaculate Heart “renewal” was a paradigm for many others that followed: many religious, having abandoned both traditional spiritualties and traditional ministries, created vacuums waiting to be filled by new absolutes—left-wing politics, environmentalism, and above all feminism, which produced a drastic decline in vocations to religious life.

Tragically, it was nuns dedicated to Mary, shedding their habits and often their vows, who were the innovators of developments quite removed from service of Mary’s Immaculate Heart. The surest weapon against the onslaughts of Satan, as many saints have taught us, is confidence in, imitation of, and devotion to the Queen of the Angels (see Genesis 3:15), who is far ahead of the strategies and nefarious designs of the fallen angels. This weapon still offers us the best hope for the defeat of the subtle moves of a supremely evil Mastermind.

Comments

Being Catholic is ALWAYS Fun

“ F ive years ago, I would have been afraid of saying anything like what the pope said in his [recent] interview,” the Rev. Tom Reese told Sally Quin . “I’m ecstatic. I haven’t been this hopeful about the church in decades....” “It’s fun to be a religion reporter again. For a while it felt like being on the crime beat. It’s fun to be Catholic again.” George Weigel has raised the question of whether or not Fr. Tom has been paying attention throughout the last quarter of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st. Among his findings on the legacies of Pope Francis' predecessors: Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J. millions of adults have been baptized as or entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. new forms of campus ministry in the mold of JPII's "New Evangelization" have developed across the United States. Catholic-studies programs have bloomed on genuinely Catholic campuses across the U.S. the Church has produced the most c...

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D: This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

"The Spirit of Vatican II"

My advice to one confronted with doubt sown by those who make reference to “correct interpretations of Vatican II” is to reflect closely upon the words of John Paul II: With the Council, the Church first had an experience of faith, as she abandoned herself to God without reserve, as one who trusts and is certain of being loved. It is precisely this act of abandonment to God which stands out from an objective examination of the Acts. Anyone who wished to approach the Council without considering this interpretive key would be unable to penetrate its depths. Only from a faith perspective can we see the Council event as a gift whose still hidden wealth we must know how to mine . In short, it is this abandonment, this interpretive faith perspective that is woefully lacking in many who would offer to explain what the Council taught in “the spirit of Vatican II.” Watch here to see what abandonment looks like!

From "The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God"

….At the close of Vatican II, Pope Paul VI remarked that Christianity, the religion of God-Incarnate, had encountered the religion of man-made God. He was of the opinion that much of the Council was given over to demonstrating the compatibility of Enlightenment belief with Catholicism. Several years hence, on June 29, 1972, Paul delivered another assessment of the state of the Roman Catholic Church since the close of Vatican II. As Cardinal Silvio Oddi recalled it (in an article first published on March 17, 1990, in Il Sabato magazine in Rome) the Holy Father told a congregation: We have the impression that through some cracks in the wall the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: it is doubt, uncertainty, questioning, dissatisfaction, confrontation. And how did this come about? We will confide to you the thought that may be, we ourselves admit in free discussion, that may be unfounded, and that is that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the...

Neomodernism's Attack on Religious Life- (continued).

Who’s that on page 180 of that book? This is Sister Mary Benjamin, IHM. Sister Mary Benjamin got involved with us in the summer of ‘66, and became the victim of a lesbian seduction. An older nun in the group, “freeing herself to he more expressive of who she really was internally,” decided that she wanted to make love with Sister Mary Benjamin. Well, Sister Mary Benjamin engaged in this; and then she was stricken with guilt, and wondered, to quote from her book, “Was I doing something wrong, was I doing something terrible? I talked to a priest—” Unfortunately, we had talked to him first. “I talked to a priest,” she says, “who refused to pass judgment on my actions. He said it was up to me to decide if they were right or wrong. He opened a door, and I walked through the door, realizing I was on my own.” This is her liberation? How excited they were, to be delivering someone into God’s hands! Well, instead they delivered her into the hands of nondirective psychology. ...

Do Not Be Ashamed

T he demeaning and of Pope Benedict is quickening in combination with the growing exaltation of Pope Francis in the secular world and among the "progressive" dissidents within the Church. Thus I believe a little review of his Pontificate is in order, as the signs of the times required him to shoulder a heavy cross and suffer a quiet type of crucifixion due to his exceptional faith and courageous writings and actions. Pope Benedict took strong, long overdue and very necessary actions against moral corruption within the clergy, the religious orders and within Catholic aid agencies. He appointed many bishops faithful to the true Vatican II, and removed many who were a cause of scandal to the Church. He took actions on the liturgy and other issues that were not popular, but which he saw as essential to preserving Catholicism and Christian culture much as laid down in his The Spirit of the Liturgy. The full story of his papacy remains to be told. “And blessed is he who ...

Satan makes his way to us through the libido!

Let us take a great civilization historically devoid of pornography, and examine what happens once the door is opened a crack, for smoke to enter:

Popes are not Presidents...

John Allen of the Globe has opined today that there are two key words that capture why many church officials believe it’s so important to avoid what they regard as false expectations of swift change to the church’s ban on divorced and remarried Catholics receiving communion and the other sacraments: Humanae Vitae, Paul VI's 1968 document reasserting the church’s traditional ban on birth control. It rocked the world, Allen writes, "in part because the reforming energies of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) had led people to suspect change was just around the corner, in part because the pope himself had created a commission to study the issue." The o utcome of the Pope’s evential reassertion of the ban “soured public opinion on Pope Paul, in some ways inflicting a blow from which his papacy never really recovered. ” On matters related to marriage and the family, the Church has always seen the fertility of the husband and wife as a gift from God and the end ( telos...

My Intended Audience

I have written for those Catholics born and perhaps catechized before Vatican II or immediately thereafter who as yet are unaware of the true teaching of the Council. It should not surprise the reader that there are Catholics whose lifestyles do not differentiate them all that much from those who are not Catholic and/or Christian. Moreover, many Catholics of the “baby-boom” generation are alienated from the Church all together because their only exposure has been to a superficial, cultural Catholicism, impotent in the face of an American culture increasingly without faith. Conversely, many others have left the Church – hungrier, as they say, for a more “biblically-based church.” The book is also intended for young people of the “JP II” generation of Catholics, born long after the council but perhaps not fully aware of the turmoil spawned by dissent in the Church which, though on the wane, is still with us today. These young people, especially those in authentically Catholic college...

Parent Trap? No, Cohabitation Trap!

And here I thought people were wising up to the fact that living together in sin before marriage wasn't leading to human fulfillment and bliss, and then to come across Mr. Johnston'e piece: The Co-Habitation Trap GEORGE SIM JOHNSTON There's no such thing as a trial marriage. Recently, a college classmate told me that her 25-year-old son has a girlfriend about whom he can't make up his mind. The couple have been going together for two years. He is serious about the girl, thinks she'd make a good wife, but tells his mother that he's not sure about taking the plunge. Should he propose? Should he take more time to think about it? Maybe date other girls to gain perspective? The son is at a loss. My friend is generally a sensible person, and she gave her son what she thinks is good advice: why not move in with her and see how it goes? In other words, do a trial marriage. If the sharing of bed and board goes smoothly, then tie t...

Search This Blog