Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Dear readers,

I will be taking a break from my blogging until the new year. I pray you have a blessed Christmas and that the season of Christmas brings you the peace that only the Christ Child can bring.

Much love,

Sandy

Devotion for today: but deliver us from evil…the Good News

Romans 8:31-39:  What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”Psalm 44:22

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Yesterday we looked at the final petition of The Our Father and identified the singular evil that is at the heart of all evils in the world, and the biggest threat to our holiness. Today we look at the Good News, the salvation won for us by Christ Jesus. “If God is for us, who can be against?” We see in today’s commentary that Jesus is with us always, and no power on earth or under the earth or anywhere can harm us as long as we fill ourselves with Him and Him alone. Who could ask for anything more?

Catechism of the Catholic Church: 2853 Victory over the "prince of this world" was won once for all at the Hour when Jesus freely gave himself up to death to give us his life. This is the judgment of this world, and the prince of this world is "cast out." "He pursued the woman" but had no hold on her: the new Eve, "full of grace" of the Holy Spirit, is preserved from sin and the corruption of death (the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Most Holy Mother of God, Mary, ever virgin). "Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring." Therefore the Spirit and the Church pray: "Come, Lord Jesus," since his coming will deliver us from the Evil One.

Pope Benedict XVI (Jesus of Nazareth, Ignatius Press, 2007): Today, on the other hand, there is also the ideology of success, of well-being that tells us, “God is just a fiction. He only robs us of our time and our enjoyment of life. Don’t bother with him! Just try to squeeze as much out of life as you can.”  These temptations seem irresistible…. The Our Father in general and this petition in particular are trying to tell us that it is only when you have lost God that you have lost yourself; then you are nothing more than a random product of evolution. Then the “dragon” really has won. So long as the dragon cannot wrest God from you, your deepest being remains unharmed, even in the midst of all the evils that threaten you…. This then is why we pray from the depths of our souls not to be robbed of our faith, which enables us to see God, which binds us with Christ. This is why we pray that, in our concern for goods, we may not lose the Good itself; that even faced with the loss of goods, we may not also lose the Good, which is God; that we ourselves may not be lost: Deliver us from evil!

 Cyprian, the martyr bishop… finds a marvelous way of putting all of this: “When we say ‘deliver us from evil’ then there is nothing further left for us to ask for. Once we have asked for and obtained protection against evil, we are safely sheltered against anything the devil and the world can contrive. What could the world make you fear if you are protected in the world by God Himself? (de dominica oration 19; CSEL III, 27, p. 287)

Catechism of the Catholic Church: 2854: When we ask to be delivered from the Evil One, we pray as well to be freed from all evils, present, past, and future, of which he is the author or instigator. In this final petition, the Church brings before the Father all the distress of the world. Along with deliverance from the evils that overwhelm humanity, she implores the precious gift of peace and the grace of perseverance in expectation of Christ's return By praying in this way, she anticipates in humility of faith the gathering together of everyone and everything in him who has "the keys of Death and Hades," who "is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." Deliver us, Lord, we beseech you, from every evil and grant us peace in our day, so that aided by your mercy we might be ever free from sin and protected from all anxiety, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. For the kingdom, the power and the glory are Yours, now and forever. Amen.

Devotion for today: but deliver us from evil

John 17:15. "I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one."

John 8:40-44: As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.  You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Romans 8:31: If God is for us, who is against us?

Catechism of the Catholic Church: 2851: In this petition, evil is not an abstraction, but refers to a person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God. The devil (dia-bolos) is the one who "throws himself across" God's plan and his work of salvation accomplished in Christ.

2852: "A murderer from the beginning, . . . a liar and the father of lies," Satan is "the deceiver of the whole world." Through him sin and death entered the world and by his definitive defeat all creation will be "freed from the corruption of sin and death." Now "we know that anyone born of God does not sin, but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one."

The Lord who has taken away your sin and pardoned your faults also protects you and keeps you from the wiles of your adversary the devil, so that the enemy, who is accustomed to leading into sin, may not surprise you. One who entrusts himself to God does not dread the devil…

We now come to the last petition in the Our Father. In it we find Jesus addressing the presence of the devil within our lives and within the world. As we look at the words Jesus uses, we see that He has us pray in the plural as He does throughout the prayer. We are reminded that the evil one attacks every human being on the face of the earth. We note that we need to be delivered from this evil, that we cannot do it ourselves, and that we need God to fill us with His grace to fight the master of lies and deception. We need to pray for all our brothers and sisters to be delivered from their personal sins as well. As we have noted time and again in this blog, it is not enough to get ourselves to heaven, but it is necessary to bring as many people with us as possible.

 This is very difficult today. It is not “correct” to even mention the reality of sin, the possibility that actions accepted by the world are unacceptable to God. It is not “correct” to call a sin “a sin” and to remind people that the devil exists, he is real, as are his minions, and that they wreak havoc on the beautiful souls of the beloved children God created in His image. 

The world has always succumbed to the dance of the devil in the acceptance of inhumane practices such as euthanasia, human trafficking, abortion, sexual abuse, oppression of human rights and the indifference of the rich towards the sick, the elderly, and the poor. We cannot help but picture the devil sitting in a chair, puffing on a fine Cuban cigar, wearing an Alexander Amosu suit and fine leather shoes, smirking as he watches countless souls buy his lie. He must love it every time someone clicks on a pornographic image, or fights for abortion rights, buys another expensive unnecessary gadget and chooses to play games with strangers on the internet instead of joining an organization to mentor youth, offer financial support and personal time to help women in unwanted pregnancies, or assist in programs which are designed to give the unemployed the skills they need to get a job. Why does this make him happy? Because, it causes us to put ourselves and our own desires ahead of the needs of others. We then become easy targets for any action, even sin that will make us happy. We have become immune to the feeling of shame in sinful thoughts, words, and deeds because we have locked our consciences in a box and thrown away the key. 

Not a single person in the world, now or in the past, or in the days to come can escape the evil one. The best we can do is tell ourselves He doesn’t exist, or blame the evil in the world on everyone else, or waste our time asking “Where was God” when horrible crime happens. Horrible crimes happen when horrible people commit them. Horrible people exist because they threw God away, or never had the chance to meet Him. This has been true throughout history: once societies decided they were better off keeping God away from the people, stopped using the instruction manual God created for the world, and came up with their own gods and laws, evil was unleashed. For us today our freedom truly can be defined as “nothing left to lose.” We have to be monitored everywhere by cameras because we can no longer be trusted to respect our fellow man. We have to be stopped from living our faiths in society because we cannot be tolerated as marching to a different drummer.

 The evil one, my friends, laughs all the way to hell, taking as many hapless souls with him as he can. Remember Jesus’ words: deliver us from evil. We must believe that Jesus is present in the Eucharist and receive Him often. We must believe that the Bible holds the truth about living and follow its commands. We must study Jesus, and live the way He lived. And we must frequent confession. Once we are too proud to admit that we have sinned, and too proud to get down on our knees and ask forgiveness, do penance and begin again, we will have a tough time avoiding the temptations of the evil one.

 A child might not believe you when you tell him that fire is hot, but once he sticks his finger in a burning candle he knows the laws of physics and the truth of a wise parent. My friends, the fire exists, and it will burn you.

Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy. Amen (prayer given to the children at Fatima by the Blessed Virgin Mary, to be prayed after each decade of the rosary)

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