Given the present turmoil, devout Christians can’t help but wonder whether the End is near. We are probably not alone in this consideration as history is replete with Saints and Sages who thought the same thing. Our Lord, on the other hand, sought to curb such speculation when he declared that “of that day and hour no one knows, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone” (Mt 24:36). The speculation is not without its fruit however. Wondering can lead to wakefulness—”Watch ye therefore, because ye know not what hour your Lord will come” (Mt 24:42). While we should close the door on conjecture, Our Lord wants us to always live as if the End is right around the corner.
Like the Apostles in the Garden, our battle is to stay awake. The Satanic Sandman wants to lull us to sleep. His battleplan is to make us woke so that we won’t be awake. Knowing how he does this will enable us to enter the fray with eyes wide open.
Staying Awake
In a very real sense we could say that it is of the nature of Man to be a warrior. When the Enemy entered the Garden and caused the Fall of Adam and Eve, the battle was begun. It may have been the Fall of Man but it also marked the battle lines by which Satan’s downfall would occur. Turning first to the Serpent, God said “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed” (Gn 3:15, DR translation). Just as God in creation separated the light and the dark, He made a permanent enmity between the Serpent and his offspring and the Woman and hers. The Woman of course is not the Eve of the Old Creation, but the Eve of the New Creation, Mary (c.f. John 2:4, 19:26-27 and this entry). Once having set the commanders in the two armies, God set forth the foot soldiers—Satan’s demonic and human minions and the blessed angels and Jesus’ beloved disciples.
In his True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis de Montfort offers and important reflection on what this enmity. He says it is the only enmity that God has made; He did not merely permit it, but positively created it. It would be total, indomitable and eternal. The great Marian Saint says:
God has never made or formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and develop even to the end. It is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil—between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and instruments of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies which God has set up against the devil is His holy Mother, Mary. He has inspired her, even since the days of the earthly Paradise, though she existed then only in His idea, with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much industry in unveiling the malice of that old serpent, with so much power to conquer, to overthrow, and to crush that proud impious rebel, that he fears her not only more than all Angels and men, but in some sense more than God Himself. It is not that the anger, the hatred, and the power of God are not infinitely greater than those of the Blessed Virgin, for the perfections of Mary are limited, but it is, first, because Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the Divine power; and, secondly, because God has given Mary such a great power against the devils, that, as they have often been obliged to confess, in spite of themselves, by the mouths of the possessed, they fear one of her sighs for a soul more than the prayers of all the Saints, and one of her menaces against them more than all other torments.
This battle isn’t just between Mary and the Devil, “but between the race of the holy Virgin and the race of the devil; that is to say, God has set enmities, antipathies, and secret hatreds between the true children and the servants of Mary, and the children and servants of the devil. They do not love each other mutually. They have no inward correspondence with each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing), have always up to this time persecuted those who belong to our Blessed Lady, and will in future persecute them more than ever…”
If we are to battle on God’s side, under the Standard of the Cross, we must submit to Christ and His Battle Commander. We must join Our Lady’s army, and because the war is total, we must do so through a total consecration. That is the only way because God has declared it as such. When John describes the War in Heaven (Rev 12), Our Lady once again leads her offspring into battle. For St. Louis de Montfort, this enrollment, especially in the End Times becomes crucial. These Apostles of the End Times will be the only ones who are able to remain faithful because “the devil, knowing that he has but little time, and now less than ever, to destroy souls, will every day redouble his efforts and his combats. He will presently raise up new persecutions, and will put terrible snares before the faithful servants and true children of Mary, whom it gives him more trouble to surmount than it does to conquer others.”
Living as if the End is Near
If we are to live then as Our Lord commanded, that is, as if the End is near, then we should live consecrated to Our Lady as part of her army. This consecration also enables us to see the weapons that Satan uses. Once we realize that this enmity is total, the war absolute, we realize that there can be no compromise between the two armies. We may actively pursue defectors from the Enemy’s camp, but they must come on Our Lady’s terms. We can make no compromises with the world or provision with the flesh (Romans 13:13-14) because those are the Enemy’s landmines. We must take upon ourselves the yoke of Our Lord from the hands of Our Lady.
The Devil’s battleplan is always the same and we would do well to know the diabolical rhythm. Before he unleashes hell on believers in total persecution, he denies the ontological character of the enmity. He creates structures and systems that promise a false peace; always false because it goes against reality as God has constructed it. “Peace” that consists in compromise with the devil, the world and the flesh. But “Christ must be all in all” and until His reign is complete we must continue the fight. We must reject the false messianic hopes of things like Marxism, One World Orders, and technocracy because they are diabolical landmines. This is his chosen tactic for now, that if we yield, will lead to total persecution. Those in Our Lady’s Army can never compromise. It is Our Lady sitting at Our Lord’s right hand (Ps 45:9) that will protect us and obtain for her children true wisdom that never yields to false promises.