Spiritual Warfare - What is expected of us?

 


I ran across the article from a link with the National Catholic Register.  It spoke volumes to me and thought I needed to pass it on.  You will find this and many enlightening articles at www.onepeterfive.com

Spiritual Warfare: 

Why We Are Losing

by Father Richard Heilman

In recent decades, we have seen Satan engage the world as never before. In all of human history we have never witnessed evil promoted so effectively, while virtue, character, and morals are roundly mocked and rejected. Meanwhile, it could be said that the Mystical Body — the Church — has never been so unprepared for and unengaged in the challenging mission of spiritual warfare. It is obvious that Satan’s forces are well trained and well organized, while ours clearly are not. At the very beginnings of our great nation, Sir Edmund Burke warned, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Recognizing the widespread spiritual lethargy of our times - the emergent detachment from the Divine Life - Pope John Paul II’s master plan for the new millennium was one that asked us to set aside our disconnected busyness, and to start fresh by contemplating the face of Christ.   It is clear that the Holy Father was encouraging us to place our emphasis on reconnecting to the Divine Life of God, which is classically referred to as the unum necessarium, the one thing necessary.

"Mary has chosen the better part..."

The one thing necessary constitutes the essential foundation for the interior life and stems from the story of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42), where we first see that, amazingly, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity was sitting right in their living room. Even so, Martha remains busy with the good and noble protocol of hospitality, while Mary sits at the feet of Jesus, her eyes locked on His Holy Face, peering into His soul, hanging on His every word. Mary is actually in adoration, soaking in everything our Lord wants to give her. I like to say that she is “Mary-nating” — soaking in the gusher of God’s graces. Mary had come to understand what St. Augustine once said: “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” Remarkable!

Mary is Listening to Christ, Martha is too busy

When Martha objects to Mary’s lack of activity, Jesus tells Martha that she remains anxious and upset about many things while Mary has chosen the better portion, the one thing necessary. Mary was the one who was making the guest truly feel welcomed, while Martha remained detached, going through the motions of the demands of protocol. God is light and love and truth Who brings order and meaning and serenity to our lives. While we remain disconnected from our Source, we remain easily agitated, frustrated, and feeble in our disordered and chaotic existence as we continue to walk in darkness.

The disconnection is seen, first and foremost, in the Martha-like indifference to the presence of the Divine in so many of our present-day liturgies, compared with a more Mary-like contemplative way of worshiping. Contemplative awe and veneration have always been the distinctive way Catholics worshiped, until recent decades. In awe and wonder, we would worship Him and soak in the supernatural graces necessary to stand firm against the tactics of the devil (Eph. 6:11) and to grow in the way of sanctity.

The consequence of the modern initiative to push for a very busy and more insouciant way of worshiping that is performance-oriented and man-centered has led to an epidemic of detachment from the Divine, facilitating the modern prevalence of spiritual sloth (indifference toward the Divine Life). Like Martha, God is “right there in our midst,” but we act as though He is not — or if He is, what’s the big deal? We have become the spiritually impotent.

This is why Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger) stated that any real effort at renewal in the Church must begin with a new liturgical movement:

Pope Benedict XVI

“I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy, which at times has even come to be conceived of etsi Deus non daretur (as though God were not there): in that it is a matter of indifference whether or not God exists and whether or not He speaks to us and hears us.”

Grow in Holiness

In this ubiquitous spiritual warfare, we are being overpowered as we allow ourselves to become detached from our True Power Source, the only way to combat the supernatural powers of evil and grow in holiness. “With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matt. 19:26) Spiritually speaking, the devil is doing all that he can to catch us isolated and unarmed on the battlefield — no spiritual armor, no spiritual weapons, and no comrades in the heavenly realm to fight alongside of us. 

In other words, 

the reason evil is promoted 

so effectively today is because 

we’re ignoring God’s offer of 

supernatural strength and power. 

We are, in essence, bringing a knife 

to a gunfight, and we are getting slaughtered!

The time is now to prepare an elite fighting force, surrendering to God and then allowing His grace to invade every aspect of our lives. “Grace,” wrote Thomas à Kempis, “is the mistress of truth, the light of the heart, the comforter of affliction, the banisher of sorrow, the expeller of fears, the matrix of devotion, the producer of tears. What am I without it but a piece of dry wood and an unprofitable stock, fit for nothing but to be cast away.”

Here are the three essential approaches for receiving the abundance of God’s grace, the unum necessarium:

Sacrament of Confession

1) Go to Confession (frequently): 

St. Augustine tells us: “The whole power of the Sacrament of Penance consists in restoring us to God’s grace and joining us with Him in an intimate friendship. This very moment I may, if I desire, become the friend of God.” Go to Confession at least once a month, and immediately after any grave sin. Never receive Holy Communion with serious sin on your soul.

2) Go to Mass (frequently): 

St. Peter Julian Eymard tells us to “hear Mass daily; it will prosper the whole day. All your duties will be performed the better for it, and your soul will be stronger to bear its daily cross. The Mass is the most holy act of religion; you can do nothing that can give greater glory to God or be more profitable for your soul than to hear Mass both frequently and devoutly. It is the favorite devotion of the saints.” Do your best to find a parish that is working to offer due reverence to God in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, especially if you have the responsibility of the salvation of family members.

3) Consecrate yourself to Jesus through Mary: 

Once St. Maximilian Kolbe learned about St. Louis de Montfort’s consecration to Mary, called the “surest, easiest, shortest, and the most perfect means” to becoming a saint, he called it a “secret weapon for the world,” a “shortcut to holiness.” Mary crushes the head of the serpent. Always keep Mary at your six (your back)!

The Gospels stories show how Jesus touched people in ways that made them question the direction of their lives. Some turned away because His challenge seemed to be too hard. But many others were so moved by His mission and ministry that they were compelled to search for a more perfect way of living and being.

Where do YOU stand? 

Are you ready to put it all on the line? 

This means nothing less than to do 
what God is calling you, 

from the depths of your being, to do — 

to rouse yourself to action on behalf of the kingdom. 

Are you ready to say “YES” to the call 

to become His champion?

St. Chromatius, Bishop --- Shine with the Light of Truth

From a treatise on the Gospel of

Saint Matthew

by Saint Chromatius, bishop

You are the light of the world

You are the light of the world.  A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Not do men light a lamp only to put it under a bushel basket; they put it on a stand where it gives light to all in the house.  The Lord called his disciples the sale of the earth because they seasoned with heavenly wisdom the hearts of men rendered insipid by the devil.  Now he calls them the light of the world as well, because they have been enlightened by him, the true and everlasting light, and have themselves become a light in the darkness.

Since he is the Sun of Justice, he fittingly calls his disciples the lights of the world.  The reason for this is that through them, as through shining rays, he has poured out the light of the knowledge of himself upon the entire world.  For by manifesting the light of truth, they have dispelled the darkness of error form the hearts of men.

Morever, we too have been enlightened by them.  We have been made light out of darkness as the Apostle says: For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light.  He says another time: For you are not sons of the night and of darkness, but you are all sons of light and of the day.

Saint John also rightly asserts in his letter: God is light, and whoever abides in God is in the light just as God himself is in the light. Therefore, because we rejoice in having been freed from the darkness of error, we should always walk in the light as children of light.  This is why the Apostle says: Among them you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.

If we fail to live in the lights, we shall, to our condemnation and that of others, be veiling over and obscuring by our infidelity the light men so desperately need.  As we know from Scripture, the man who received the talent should have made it produce a heavenly profit, but instead he preferred to hide it away rather than put it to work and was punished as he deserved.

Consequently, that brilliant lamp which was lit for the sake of our salvation should always shine in us.  For we have the lamp of the heavenly commandment and spiritual grace, to which David referred: Your law is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.  Solomon also ways this about it: For the command of the law is a lamp.

Therefore, we must not hide this lamp of law and faith.  Rather, we must set it up in the Church, as a lamp-stand, for the salvation of many, so that we may enjoy the light of truth itself and all believers may be enlightened.

Taken from Liturgy of the Hours, June 11

 

Who was St. Chromatius???

Chromatius was born in Aquileia in about 345 A.D. He was ordained a deacon, then a priest; finally, he was appointed Bishop of that Church (388). After receiving episcopal ordination from Bishop Ambrose he dedicated himself courageously and energetically to an immense task because of the vast territory entrusted to his pastoral care: the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Aquileia, in fact, stretched from the present-day territories of Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria and Slovenia, as far as Hungary.

St Chromatius of Aquileia exercised his ministry in the ancient Church of Aquileia, a fervent centre of Christian life located in the Roman Empire's Decima regione, the Venetia et Histria. In 388 A.D., when Chromatius assumed the Episcopal throne of the city, the local Christian communities had already developed a glorious history of Gospel fidelity.

Martyrs of the Christian Faith

Between the middle of the third century and the early years of the fourth, the persecution of Decius, Valerian and Diocletian had taken a heavy toll of martyrs. Furthermore, the Church of Aquileia, like so many other Churches of that time, had had to contend with the threat of the Arian heresy. Athanasius himself - a standard-bearer of Nicene orthodoxy whom the Arians had banished to exile - had for some time been in Aquileia, where he had taken refuge. Under the guidance of its Bishops, the Christian community withstood the snares of the heresy and reinforced their own attachment to the Catholic faith.

Trinitarian Mystery

Chromatius was a wise teacher and a zealous pastor. His first and main commitment was to listen to the Word, to be able to subsequently proclaim it: he always bases his teaching on the Word of God and constantly returns to it. Certain subjects are particularly dear to him: first of all, the Trinitarian mystery, which he contemplated in its revelation throughout the history of salvation.

Then, the theme of the Holy Spirit: Chromatius constantly reminds the faithful of the presence and action in the life of the Church of the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity. But the holy Bishop returns with special insistence to the mystery of Christ. The Incarnate Word is true God and true man: he took on humanity in its totality to endow it with his own divinity. These truths, which he also reaffirmed explicitly in order to counter Arianism, were to end up about 50 years later in the definition of the Council of Chalcedon.

Virgin Mary by Lyubomir Kanelov

The heavy emphasis on Christ's human nature led Chromatius to speak of the Virgin Mary. His Mariological doctrine is clear and precise. To him we owe evocative descriptions of the Virgin Most Holy: Mary is the "evangelical Virgin capable of accepting God"; she is the "immaculate and inviolate ewe lamb" who conceived the "Lamb clad in purple" (cf. Sermo XXIII, 3: Scrittori dell'area santambrosiana 3/1, p. 134). The Bishop of Aquileia often compares the Virgin with the Church: both, in fact, are "virgins" and "mothers".

Chromatius developed his ecclesiology above all in his commentary on Matthew. These are some of the recurring concepts: the Church is one, she is born from the Blood of Christ; she is a precious garment woven by the Holy Spirit; the Church is where the fact that Christ was born of a Virgin is proclaimed, where brotherhood and harmony flourish.

Ship in a Storm

One image of which Chromatius is especially fond is that of the ship in a storm - and his were stormy times, as we have heard: "There is no doubt", the Holy Bishop says, "that this ship represents the Church" (cf. Tractatus XLII, 5: Scrittori dell'area santambrosiana 3/2, p. 260).

Read the whole article on St. Chromatius http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20071205_en.html