Catholic requirement to fight evil!!! Put on the armor of salvation!!

overcome_evil_with_good

“Finally, let the mighty strength of the Lord make you strong.   Put on all the armor that God gives, so you can defend yourself against the devil’s tricks.   We are not fighting against humans. We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world.   So put on all the armor that God gives. Then when that evil day comes, you will be able to defend yourself. And when the battle is over, you will still be standing firm.

Be ready! Let the truth be like a belt around your waist, and let God’s justice protect you like armor.   Your desire to tell the good news about peace should be like shoes on your feet.   Let your faith be like a shield, and you will be able to stop all the flaming arrows of the evil one.   Let God’s saving power be like a helmet, and for a sword use God’s message that comes from the Spirit.

 Never stop praying, especially for others. Always pray by the power of the Spirit. Stay alert and keep praying for God’s people.   Pray that I will be given the message to speak and that I may fearlessly explain the mystery about the good news.   I was sent to do this work, and that’s the reason I am in jail. So pray that I will be brave and will speak as I should.”

-Eph 6:10-20

Trains of thought are a lovely thing!  I LOVE where they take me, perhaps even if those who love me most are not as enthralled?  🙂  Please especially pray for Kelly, Mara, and Nora.  Bless them.  🙂

Asking questions is one of the characteristically Catholic things I love MOST about being Catholic!  Maybe you have noticed?  No?  It is.  It’s true.  I do.

“There’s a deeper war we must fight, all of us! This deep war against evil!” – Pope Francis

The Holy Father’s Angelus address for Sept 8
September 08, 2013 01:51 EST
-Catherine Harmon

“Below is the partial text of Pope Francis’ Angelus address for September 8, delivered this morning in Rome to the assembled crowd in St. Peter’s Square, the morning after the Holy Father led a prayer vigil for peace in Syria in that same space. Translation via Vatican Radio.

***

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

In the Gospel for today, Jesus reiterates the conditions for being His disciples: not putting anything before your love for Him, carrying your cross, and following Him. Many people came up to Jesus, wanted to be one of His followers; and this would happen especially in the wake of some prodigious dream, that indicated Him as the Messiah, the King of Israel. But Jesus doesn’t want to create illusions for anyone. He knows full well what awaits Him in Jerusalem, the road that the Father is asking Him to take: it’s the road of the cross, of sacrificing Himself for the redemption of our sins. Following Jesus doesn’t mean taking part in a triumphal parade! It means sharing in His merciful love, becoming part of His great mission of mercy towards each and every man. The mission of Jesus is precisely a mission of mercy, of forgiveness, of love! Jesus is so merciful! And this universal forgiveness, this mercy, comes through the cross.

Jesus doesn’t want to carry out this mission alone: He wants to involve us too, in the mission that the Father entrusted to Him. After the resurrection, He will say to His disciples. “As the Father sent me, so am I sending you… If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven” (John 20, 21.22). A disciple of Jesus gives up all his or her goods, because he or she has found in Him the greatest Good, within which every other good receives its true worth and meaning: family relations, other relationships, work, cultural and economic wealth, and so forth… A Christian detaches from everything, and then finds everything in the logic of the Gospel, the logic of love and service.

To explain this requirement, Jesus uses two parables: the one of the tower to be built, and the one of the king who goes to war. The second parable goes like this: “What king, marching to war against another king, would not first sit down and consider whether with ten thousand men he could stand up to the other, who was advancing against him with twenty thousand? If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoys to sue for peace” (Luke 14, 31-32). Here Jesus doesn’t want to discuss war, it’s only a parable. But at this moment in time, when we’re strongly praying for peace, this Word of the Lord affects us closely, and fundamentally it says: there’s a deeper war we must fight, all of us! It’s the strong and brave decision to renounce evil and its seductions, and to choose good, fully prepared to pay personally: that’s following Christ, that’s taking up our cross! This deep war against evil!

What’s the point of fighting wars, many wars, if you’re not capable of fighting this deep war against evil? There’s no point! It’s no good… This means, among other things, this war against evil means saying no to fratricidal hatred, and to the lies that it uses; saying no to violence in all its forms; saying no to the proliferation of arms and their sale on the black market. There are so many of them! There are so many of them! And the doubt always remains: this war over there, this other war over there – because there are wars everywhere – is it really a war over problems, or is it a commercial war, to sell these arms on the black market? These are the enemies we must fight, united and coherent, following no other interests but those of peace and of the common good…”

“His will be done; His Kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven!”

St_Michael_the_Archangel

St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou,
O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan,
and all the evil spirits,
who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

O glorious prince St. Michael,
chief and commander of the heavenly hosts,
guardian of souls, vanquisher of rebel spirits,
servant in the house of the Divine King
and our admirable conductor,
you who shine with excellence
and superhuman virtue deliver us from all evil,
who turn to you with confidence
and enable us by your gracious protection
to serve God more and more faithfully every day.

Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.
-1 Peter 5:8–9

“‘Spiritual combat’ is another element of life which needs to be taught anew and proposed once more to all Christians today. It is a secret and interior art, an invisible struggle in which we engage every day against the temptations, the evil suggestions that the demon tries to plant in our hearts.”
-Saint Pope John Paul II, May 25, 2002

“This generation, and many others, have been led to believe that the devil is a myth, a figure, an idea, the idea of evil… But the devil exists and we must fight against him.”
-Pope Francis, Halloween 2014

Love,
Matthew