Tag Archives: Church Militant

Jumpstarting Reform

Devils, Eucharist, Fasting, Spiritual Life, Spiritual Warfare, , , , , , ,

In the opening chapter of his short book, Letter to a Suffering Church, Bishop Robert Barron calls the scandal within the Church “a diabolical masterpiece”.  The Bishop’s point is that everything that has happened within the Church over the last half century has been clearly and methodically planned out such that the sulfuric stench cannot be overlooked.  Bishop Barron only mentions this insight in passing as he attempts to instill hope in those who have suffered greatly as a result of the latest scandal. It is befitting, however, if we are to fully come up with a plan of reform, that we linger just a while longer on this fact.

First, we must admit that as ghastly as the abuse crisis has been, from within the satanic strategy, it is but a means to the devil’s overall plan to destroy the Church.  What this means is that if we focus only on the abuse crisis then we will be putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.  This is not to say that we do nothing about it or that we do not address it directly—band aids are necessary treating wounds, but only after the source of the wound is treated.  And the source of this wound in the Church is exacerbated by the fact that we deny that someone is actively working to destroy the Church.  It is the steady refusal over the last half century to admit of the Church’s militancy.  The Church is not a field hospital, but an army.  It may have field hospitals, but it is not the Red Cross.  It is an army because it is at war and its battleground is dominion of human souls.

Breeding Soft Soldiers

This repeated refusal to admit of the Church’s militancy has not changed the fact that she is Militia Christi, but it has made the soldiers soft.  The Church may be feminine, but she is not effeminate.  There is no more visible sign of effeminacy than sexual vice, especially of the kind that many clerics are accused.  But this softness affects not just the clergy but the laity as well.  We are the “soft generation” that is doomed to be the “lost generation” if we do not tighten up formation.

Notice that I did not say the softest generation, for there are far too many generations in the Church who have fallen prey to softness.  Church historian Roberto De Mattei describes the story of the Sack of Rome in 1527 as a “merciful chastisement” because reform in the Church had stalled and it served to jumpstart it. “The pleasure-seeking Rome of the Renaissance turned into the austere and penitent Rome of the Counter-Reformation.”  His point, although only implicitly made, is that chastening, either divinely or self-inflicted, is always a necessary pre-cursor to reform.  Softness must be rooted out one way or the other.

Like any army, once the enemy is clearly identified, a battle plan must be drawn up.  Since this is first and foremost a spiritual battle, we must use spiritual weapons.  Every renewal in the Church has come on the heels of a small remnant that committed to using these weapons and specifically aiming them at the enemies of the Church.  When the Church becomes soft, it is these three weapons, prayer, penance and mortification that are eschewed.  So, if we are to re-enter the fray, we must grasp the hilt of these three swords and wield them against our enemies.

Prayer

The mention of prayer is not meant to insinuate that people are not praying.  It is to direct our prayers towards a very specific intention—to strengthen and protect the Church from her enemies.  This intention is best fulfilled by praying with the Church in her two “official” prayers—the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.

I have written many other times about the necessity of regularly, that is daily and not just weekly, participating in Mass so I won’t belabor the point yet again but lead with a simple question: what sacrifice in your life do you need to make so that you can become a part of Christ’s saving mission begun at Calvary and continuing at the altar of your local parish?  The Eucharist is an infinite source of grace that Christ is just waiting to pour out upon those who offer it with Him.

The second form of prayer is one that I have not discussed much in the past and that is the Divine Office.  Commonly called the Liturgy of the Hours, it is the prayer of the Church that is offered seven times a day.  Seven is no arbitrary number, but the Church’s answer to the fact that “though the just man falls seven times a day, he will get up” (Proverbs 24:16).  This getting up and returning whole-heartedly to God by singing to Him His songs of praise in the Psalms and Canticles and recalling His saving acts throughout history.  The Liturgy of the Hours are by their very nature penitential and thus perfectly suited to our times.

Those in the clerical state are required to pray the Liturgy of the Hours under the pain of sin.  Many unfaithful priests do not.  The laity can pick up the standard voluntarily and run with it, keeping those unfaithful priests, many of whom are directly responsible for the sad state of the Church, in their intentions.  And because it is a free gift and not required it is most pleasing to God, even if due to our state in life it requires a great sacrifice to pray seven times.  Desperate times call for heroic sacrifice.  If it seems daunting find someone who can pray it with you or teach you, or read one of the recent books written to draw the laity into the Divine Office.

Penance and Mortification

These two terms, penance and mortification, are often used interchangeably.  Grasping the distinction is important only insofar as it relates to our intention.  Penance is reparation for sins committed, mortification is like pre-pentence in that it is aimed at rooting out the weaknesses that cause us to sin and have to do penance.  In practice they should go hand in hand.

Sins of the flesh and the demons who specialize in them are specifically targeted by fleshly penance and mortification.  “These can come out only with prayer and fasting”.  Fasting is the “fleshly” penance par excellence because it trains the Christian soldier to control all of his fleshly appetites.  It is the antidote to the softness that has hamstrung the Church.  It is no wonder that we no longer hear about it from the pulpit or that the Church does not require it more often than twice a year.  We need to be giving more and offer it in reparation for the Church’s soft sins.  The upcoming battle will require tremendous sacrifice and only those who have trained themselves to forego what is necessary in favor of the “one thing that is necessary” that will persevere.

There are many ways to fast and all are good.  The point is to start by making sacrifices at each meal and add from there.  You will find a method that fits with your state in life.  The method that St. Thomas recommends amounts to skipping one meal a day and that principle seems to work well although the combinations are endless.  One that works very well for the laity because it is the least disruptive to family life is from dinner to dinner.  You eat dinner on day 1 and then eat only two tiny meals during the day and then have a full meal at dinner the next evening.  The point is not to kill yourself but to offer something to Jesus.  When this intention is kept in mind, you will find that your desire to be generous with Jesus quells any hunger pains.   

There are other bodily mortifications and penances that are helpful, especially when we think about those practices that make us soft—cold showers, sitting upright in a chair with both feet on the floor, setting AC/heat at a level where you are slightly uncomfortable, rocks in shoes.  The point is to directly attack our need for comfort in a spirit of penance.

St. Paul was perhaps the greatest cultural reformer and a pillar of the Church.  One could argue that his success was attributed to the fact that he had a clear understanding of who he was fighting against and armed himself spiritually for the battle.  “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against…the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12).  If we want to jumpstart the reform of the Church, then we should likewise enter into the spiritual battle.

 

On Ghosts

Communion of Saints, Devils, Heaven, Last Things, Purgatory, , , , , , ,

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that almost 1/3 of all Americans have had some paranormal encounter with human spirits after they have died.  This, coupled with nearly half of all Americans admitting to “believing” in ghosts, makes the existence of ghosts a fairly common topic of discussion, especially in our increasingly superstitious culture.  What does the Church have to say about ghosts?

To begin, there are a few preliminary points that will serve as a foundation for the discussion.  First, when we use the term ghost, we are referring specifically to human spirits who have died as distinct from angels or demons.  Second, although Christians often dismiss the question as absurd, there are Scriptural reasons to believe that ghosts do exist.  The most well-known example is when King Saul conjured up the ghost of Samuel and spoke to him (1 Samuel 28:12-18).  Our Lord too spoke of ghosts during His earthly ministry, twice, in fact.  On both occasions (Mt 14:34, Lk 24:39) the Apostles thought He was a ghost.  Rather than saying “ghosts do not exist”, He reassures them that He is not a ghost because ghosts “do not have flesh and bones as I do.”  Our Lord tells us that ghosts not only exist, but that they are in a spiritual state in which they do not have material flesh and bones. 

Why There Are Ghosts

If ghosts are, at least theoretically, a possibility, then what practical purpose might their manifestation serve.  In short, they are meant to communicate some message to the living, although this statement needs to be seriously qualified.  For this, we can rely upon St. Thomas who himself was visited at least three times by ghosts in his lifetime.  We should not be surprised then that he treats this topic in his Summa Theologiae (Supp. Q.69, art. 3).

St. Thomas asks whether it is possible for souls in heaven or hell to be able to appear on earth.  His response is thorough enough that it enables us to come up with guidelines for understanding the purpose of these visitations.  First of all, we are judged immediately upon death.  This means souls are either in Heaven or in Hell, with some making a temporary stop in Purgatory before settling in to their final destination in God’s presence.  There is no such thing as a soul that is doomed to wander the earth or anything like that.  While this might make for a good Dean Koontz book, it is not rooted in reality. 

It is the natural state of these souls then to be cut-off from their communication with the living, but according to God’s will they may miraculously appear to men on earth.  This is also noteworthy because it helps us to understand the Biblical injunction about conjuring spirits of the dead in order to make inquiries of them (c.f. Lev 20:6, Deut 18:3).  It is only according to the designs of God’s Providence that these visitations might occur and not through human manipulation.  To try to invoke spirits of the dead is to usurp a power that only God, as the God of the living and dead, can use.

The saints in heaven can appear to the living whenever they will because their will is always aligned with the Divine will.  They appear so as to instruct men on earth in a similar manner to St. Paul appearing to St. Thomas when he was stuck in his interpretation of a particularly difficult passage in Romans.  The souls that are damned too can appear to men “for man’s instruction and intimidation,” although they would not do so willingly.  Those souls in Purgatory appear in order too seek prayers and suffrages.  St. Thomas was visited by his sister Gui from Purgatory and she asked him prayers and masses to be said in her memory.

The last group, those in Purgatory, bear further discussion.  These are probably the most common type of “ghosts” because they come as members of the Church Suffering in need of the help of the Church Militant.  Their appearance, at least according to most demonologists and exorcists, are usually gentle and they limit their communication to a request for spiritual help in the form of prayers and Masses.  For that reason they are also the easiest to discern their authenticity.  In fact it might be said that there is no discernment necessary—if one has a ghostly encounter then they should simply pray for the dead person and have seek no further interaction.

Ghost and Demons

The ghostly elephant in the room is the action of the demonic.  This is an area, especially because people are in an emotionally vulnerable place, that the devils are particularly active.  They are bullies that like to prey on the weak.  It is for that reason that we need to have our understanding clear about this.  Demonologist Adam Blai says that the demons usually come to places where souls have previously communicated with the living asking for prayers so that they might manipulate the living.  That is why we should never seek information from the dead other than the need for prayer.  Any messages we do receive we should submit to a thorough process of the discernment of spirits, including asking God to verify it in other ways. 

In truth, we should be very suspicious of paranormal communications to the point of rejecting them whole cloth.  This is not because we don’t believe in them, but because our capacity to be deceived is very high.  We can do no wrong in praying for the dead but can easily get pulled into something more through extended conversation.  Better to reject it out of humility and obedience, two virtues particularly pleasing to God, than to succumb to the tricks of demons.  Once we have opened the door for them and inviting them in, it can be very difficult to chase the legalistic demons away.  

Ghosts continue to remain a fascination for many of us.  There are good reasons for Christians to believe in their existence, but they should avoid encouraging any interaction with.