In light of all that’s been happening in our country, I’d like to share my reflections
One of our founding fathers, John Adams, has a quote where he said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In other words, even our own foundation of a nation of self-governance by its own citizens, within a Democratic Republic, will not work without a virtuous, God-fearing society.
We have strayed far away from those ideals. St. Paul is quoted in the Bible as saying our battle is not with flesh and blood, but with powers and principalities. What does that mean? It means we are in a spiritual battle with the Devil, who Jesus said is the “father of lies.” He wants to sow division, doubt and anything that is in opposition to God’s will and His plan. His teachings and laws are meant to be guardrails for His children.
I’d like to share a few excerpts from an article from the First Things website, written by Williams Doino Jr on 10/28/13 that I believe is pertinent for today …
”1972, on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Pope Paul VI delivered a sermon that startled the world. Describing the chaos then consuming the post-conciliar Church, he lamented: ‘From some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.’
”Neither, as we’ve come to learn, is Pope Francis — by “modern” we mean an abandonment of the supernatural, and a flight from Christianity’s most challenging teachings. Like his venerable predecessor Pope Benedict, Francis has made it a point to draw the world’s attention to the wiles of the devil. But whereas Paul waited nearly ten years to speak so dramatically about Satan, Francis took only a day.
”Within twenty-four hours of being elected, the new pope declared : “When one does not profess Jesus Christ—I recall the phrase of Leon Bloy—‘Whoever does not pray to God, prays to the devil.’” The following day, Francis continued : “Let us never give in to pessimism, to that bitterness that the devil tempts us with every day.” In his homily for Palm Sunday , he spoke of problems which appear insurmountable: “In this moment the enemy, the devil, comes, often disguised as an angel, and slyly speaks his word to us. Do not listen to him!”
”And in early October, Francis powerfully rebuked those who deny the existence of Satan, warning against relativism, deceit, and ‘the seduction of evil.’
”Striking as his words are, they are not surprising. During his formation as a Jesuit, Jorge Bergoglio adopted the intense spirituality of St. Ignatius , who always recognized the reality of spiritual warfare. In On Heaven and Earth , his 2010 book with his friend, Rabbi Abraham Skorka, the then Cardinal Bergoglio spoke of the devil in the starkest terms: “He is the tempter, the one that looks to destroy the work of God, he that brings us to self-sufficiency, to pride. Jesus defines him as the father of lies.”
”At stake is the total rejection of God’s law engraved in our hearts. Let us not be naïve: this is not simply a political struggle, but it is an attempt to destroy God’s plan. It is…a “move” of the father of lies who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.”
So many people have bought into the distortion and redefinition of our basic beliefs because of peer pressure and threats of cancellation. Only those who stand firm, amidst the hatred will be those who are blessed.
The attempted assassination of former President Trump this past Saturday, and his reaction to it, is a prime example of a portrait in courage. We pray for him, along with the innocent rally attendees who were injured or killed. We even will pray for the obviously troubled shooter, and any others like him, whose morals and mental stability have been infiltrated by the “smoke of Satan.”