GOD’S PROTECTIVE LOVE

I know a woman who has been struggling for some time with what I would call demonic harassment. She is not possessed. At least, that is my untrained opinion, based on a modicum of study and experiences over the years in work and apostolate. Several recognizable things emerge that are clear marks of activity not from God. But there is one noticeable thing that consistently appears in the fray:  discouragement and a loss of hope that things will be different. 

A very simple tendency in us allows that kind of spirit to take root. In the simplest terms, it is taking our eyes off Christ and trying to understand and defeat the enemy on our own. We are easily overwhelmed by a superior intelligence that knows how to capture our attention and keep it locked on distractions so that we even come sometimes to completely focus on everything but God.  We may even come to think God doesn’t care when His intervention doesn’t seem apparent.

 

Our response instead should be one of drawing even closer to Christ in faith and deepening our reliance on Him.  The mere thought of Him, the sound of His Name, and His prevailing presence are enough to make even the most malicious spirits leave and tenacious attacks dissipate.  Beyond that, the Church provides additional formal help if the situation warrants it.

But the simple answer is to be like St. Peter walking on the water in the midst of a wild storm.  So long as he kept his eyes on Jesus and not on the waves, he stood above even the laws of nature.  But only in Jesus.  

The enemy likes to remain hidden, but if he knows we are on to him, he will work to keep us fearful, bewildered, and separated from God. He will distract us from developing and relying on our relationship with God by confusing our thoughts and creating various ruckus around us. All of that can pull us away from turning to and trusting in God. 

The truth is we should be far more interested in a real relationship with Our Lord than curious about the dark forces that manifest around us at times. This was the strength of the Apostles.  They encountered the Kingdom of Darkness often in their ministry.  But they kept Christ as their center and moved from His light and grace and strength, in the gifts He had given them (and gives us, by the way) to resist the devil and cause him to take flight.  They did not allow the devil to take center stage.  They neutralized him and went about their work evangelizing people into genuine relationships with Christ. 

The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd has a particularly acute insight into this dynamic and how important it is for growing in a healthy and well-ordered relationship with God.  The first step is to understand that God loves us with a protective love.  He is the Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 and goes in search of the one missing.  It’s a consoling truth that when we are lost, Jesus is actually looking for us and finding ways to bring us back.  This has universal appeal to the smallest of children who intuitively know that this is the way God loves us, that is if the adults around them haven’t squashed it out of them with their own pessimism or distorted views of God.

When we arrive in eternity, we will know and understand many things.  One of the astounding discoveries will be to see how many times Jesus, the angels, saints, etc., saved us from dangers we weren’t even aware of.  How many times have they saved us, even from untimely death, so that the purposes of our lives could be fulfilled?  How many times have we judged something to be bad when, in fact, it was sent as a great blessing for our lives and saved us from unforeseen evils?  God’s providence never violates our free will, but it is one of the most prominent ways He intervenes in our lives for our own blessing and benefit.

Try to create an interior “room” within yourself that is for you and Jesus alone.  Spend time there with Him, and let Him help you surrender to His infinite love for you.  When you come to perfection in this, all your interest and attention will become rightly ordered, and all fear, even in the face of the greatest evils, will be cast out.  (1 John 4:18)

1.   Has Jesus ever asked you to walk on water? (do something that seems impossible for you and that demanded real faith in Him?). How did you fare?

 

2.    When unexpected challenges come, who is the first one you turn to, whether it be for help or to share?

 

3.   How can you grow in reorienting yourself to the Lord so that turning to Him is your immediate and first response in all things?

 

4.    Have you ever experienced Jesus “finding” you after difficulties that may have separated or distanced you from Him?

 

 

 

Sr. Anne Marie 

 

Christian Resistance to Evil

CHRISTIAN RESISTANCE TO EVIL – Session 66

The ordinary Christian knows something the unbeliever does not.  When Christians, especially Catholics, look at the state of the world, they know the primary source of evil is not cultural, political, or sociological.  It’s spiritual.  “For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground.”  Eph 6:12-13

As Catholics, we do not believe that anyone is born evil.  God creates us good.  We are, however, born wounded in the integrity of our nature because of the first sin.  The original harmony and unity between us and God, between us and others, between us and creation, and finally, the harmony within ourselves was lost as a consequence of this first sin.  And the battle between good and evil in our lives was directly engaged from that moment on. 

This leads us to reflect that if the grand conflicts in life, in our time, are spiritual, then the answers to resolving them must likewise be spiritual.  What would be some of the ways then that we, as believers, can offer effective resistance to evil? 

The Holy Father gives us a good place to start.  He recently shared a reflection on a German religious sister who died in the Auschwitz concentration camp, Angela Autsh. “Even before being arrested, when the evil looming over the world was already evident, she invited her nephews, who were approaching Holy Communion for the first time. She invited her relatives who had strayed a little, and she also invited those who had remained devout to rebel against that evil with simple and, in some places, dangerous gestures, to come as close as possible to the Sacrament of the altar, to rebel through Communion.  For her, to urge frequent communion, especially in prayer for the Pope and the Church, which was persecuted at that time, meant finding in the Eucharist a bond that strengthens the vigor of the Church herself, a bond that strengthens this vigor between her members and with God, and for her, it meant to “organize” the fabric of a resistance that the enemy cannot unravel because it does not respond to a human plan” -Pope  Francis

Read that again!  Are fervent communions a source of resistance to evil?  What a powerful insight into the workings of grace and into the real needs of those who have fallen sway to the enemy.  Fervent Communions, something the enemy loathes, actually disarm the enemy; they make him powerless. So, he constantly seeks to keep us from the Mass and worthy Communions because it is indeed one of the most powerful weapons we have precisely because it is the “source and summit” of our whole lives of union with the Lord.

Jesus confirms in the Sermon on the Mt that resistance to evil is not what we think. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” Mt 5:44-45

What are other ways the Christian is called to resist evil?  Fervent prayer, of course.  Fasting, considered a form of exorcism by the early Church, is especially powerful, as Our Lady tells us it can suspend the laws of nature and even end wars.  Simply refusing to comply with evil in the midst of those who embrace it, even if it leads to Martyrdom is another compelling way in which evil is resisted, and the faith is spread exponentially.  

But these are not the normal, vengeance-based responses that most people make to evil. Ours should follow the direction of St. Paul, wherein we repay evil with good instead of evil for evil. “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head” (Rms 12:20). That’s the way of God with us and it should be our way with others as well.

1.    Normally speaking, what is your first reaction to evil?

2.    How have you experienced evil in your own life?  

 

3.     Most of the time, we are not aware of the spiritual significance of our behavior and how it will play out in time.  How do you understand the consequences of the way we respond to evil in our lives?

4.     Can you think of other ways to resist evil that Jesus would approve of?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

The Burden of the Age
 
Life’s burdens come in many forms.  What is a burden for one may not be a burden for another.  But what is certain is that everyone either carries or has had to carry burdens in their lifetime.  
 
Of all the possible burdens that may come to us, it is wise to consider which are the heaviest, the most debilitating, and really the most unnecessary.  There is a difference between those that are essential in our lives and those holding us back from the life we were meant to live.
 
Essential burdens revolve around commitments and responsibilities necessary for growth, development, maturity, and our humanity in general, such as family and community demands, personal obligations, charitable outreach, care in times of illness, etc.
 
A story from the life of St. Jerome illustrates a kind of burden that is the opposite, that holds us back from the future that Jesus has for us.  
 
St. Jerome had just finished decades of work on translating the Bible from Hebrew to Latin.    It was around Christmas time, and Baby Jesus appeared to him and asked him what gift he would give to Him for his birthday.  Jerome responded by offering Him the work he had just completed.  Jesus was pleased but told Jerome He wanted more.  Jerome then offered Him his life, his heart, his prayer.  But each time, Baby Jesus asked for more.  Finally, Jerome asked Him, “What else can I give you?”  Jesus smiled and said: “Jerome, give me your sins!”
 
This is probably the heaviest burden people bear today: the sins, guilt, and regret of things chosen and done in their lifetimes.  This can be true even of those who regularly go to Confession.  We come out again, not really understanding our sins are gone. We confess like Protestants who believe only that their sins are covered over.  Catholics do not believe this.  We believe that once our sins are confessed, they are gone forever.  God remembers them no more; even the devil can no longer access them to accuse us.  
 
While penance and reparation are good and necessary, they are meant to strengthen us in our resolve and, in the grace of repentance, not become a new burden to carry.  Jesus does not stay stuck in our sins the way we do.  He does not constantly revisit them the way we do.  He wills to remember them no more.  They are gone.  Instead, Jesus beckons us to follow Him into the future.  It does us no good to stay back, clutching our forgiven sins as though they are still there.  And it is even more deleterious not to confess at all.  Unconfessed guilt can make us sick and so unbalanced psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually that we become incapable of building and living the kind of life that would make us and those around us happy. 
 
The movie The Mission illustrates this dynamic well.  Captain Mendoza, one of the main characters, a mercenary involved in the slave trade, kills his brother in a duel after finding him with his fiancé.  His regret is so powerful that it becomes a force for his own conversion, even bringing him to the point where he joins the Jesuits as a missionary to the native peoples.  His self-imposed punishment/penance is to drag a large net full of heavy armor and the tools of his mercenary life as they travel through the jungles to establish a mission among the people who live there.  At times on the journey, his brothers try to free him of his burden by cutting the rope that continually drags him backward.  But he doesn’t believe he is forgiven until finally, the native people he has exploited demonstrate forgiveness by cutting the rope that binds him to the past.
 
Rather than dragging the burden of sin into the new year, we also can be done with it once and for all. In the Confessional, the Priest who hears our Confession “in persona Christi,” in the Person of Christ, takes the sword of the Spirit and severs the sin, the regret, and the guilt of it from our lives.  This causes great rejoicing in heaven and, at the same time, fills our souls with the energy, hope, and joy in which Jesus can begin fulfilling His promises in us.
 

1.     What are some of the common burdens people carry today?

 

2.     What do you think is meant by “Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ?” Galatians 6:2 

 

3.     What might be some unnecessary burdens we place on ourselves that actually hinder us in our relationship with God and with others?

 

4.     What are some ways we can lighten another’s load?