According to a conservative magazine, in an article which may be found here, the pro-life movement is "trapped" and "waiting for a leader." As I explained in a previous Blog post, abortion will only be defeated through prayer and fasting. We already have a leader as pro-lifers: "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work" (1 John 3: 8). Anyone who believes that an ordinary man would be able to lead the pro-life movement to victory over the culture of death is a fool.
The evil which weighs down upon the human race (and abortion is part of that evil) is a force so powerful that we are unable to successfully overcome it without grace, without God's help. Evil in the world has a satanic origin: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6: 12). Do we suppose that St. Paul was joking? Or that he was unstable and preaching nonsense? Since the greatest of the Apostles speaks the truth as given to him by the Holy Spirit, why do we think for one moment that an ordinary man can lead those of us in the pro-life movement (or in the Church in general) to victory? Enough nonsense! Let's instead put our faith, hope and trust in Him Who teaches with an authority so great that He even gives orders to the evil spirits and they obey Him (Mark 1: 26-28).
I have grappled with the Evil One and the evil spirits many times. Some years ago, while attending a Bible study at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary parish in Gardner, Massachusetts, I encountered a group of people who were denigrating devotion to Our Lady and attempting to introduce strange ideas about our Mother to the others present for the study. Over several weeks, I refuted their ideas using the Magisterial teaching of the Church and quoting most extensively from the Popes and various Doctors of the Church. But they only hardened. When I took the matter to prayer (and fasting) - praying many rosaries and invoking Our Lady to drive the evil out and to restore fidelity to Church teaching at this Bible study, a curious thing happened. When I returned the next week, the woman who had been serving as the "leader" of this small group arrived wearing dark sunglasses (the Bible study took place in the evening) and sat across from me with a stare which was nothing short of menacing. She said nothing. However, as I prayerfully defended the Church's teaching once more, the light fixture above the table where we all sat began to flicker on and off. Eventually it went out altogether. I continued to pray as the group disbanded.
The next week I was told that the pastor had spoken to those who had been attacking devotion to Our Lady (in a Church dedicated to her!) and that they had agreed not to do so in the future. Additionally, several of these agreed to no longer visit a local fundamentalist church where they had obtained their ideas. Prayer and fasting!
In the shortest Gospel, the Gospel of Mark, there are thirteen references to a personified Satan or to casting out demons. Among these are four exorcisms worked by Jesus. Let's recall how Jesus became angry when His disciples were unable to free the epileptic demoniac and rebuked them for their failure: "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?" (Mark 9: 19).
May we not find ourselves similarly rebuked for being without faith!
The evil which weighs down upon the human race (and abortion is part of that evil) is a force so powerful that we are unable to successfully overcome it without grace, without God's help. Evil in the world has a satanic origin: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6: 12). Do we suppose that St. Paul was joking? Or that he was unstable and preaching nonsense? Since the greatest of the Apostles speaks the truth as given to him by the Holy Spirit, why do we think for one moment that an ordinary man can lead those of us in the pro-life movement (or in the Church in general) to victory? Enough nonsense! Let's instead put our faith, hope and trust in Him Who teaches with an authority so great that He even gives orders to the evil spirits and they obey Him (Mark 1: 26-28).
I have grappled with the Evil One and the evil spirits many times. Some years ago, while attending a Bible study at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary parish in Gardner, Massachusetts, I encountered a group of people who were denigrating devotion to Our Lady and attempting to introduce strange ideas about our Mother to the others present for the study. Over several weeks, I refuted their ideas using the Magisterial teaching of the Church and quoting most extensively from the Popes and various Doctors of the Church. But they only hardened. When I took the matter to prayer (and fasting) - praying many rosaries and invoking Our Lady to drive the evil out and to restore fidelity to Church teaching at this Bible study, a curious thing happened. When I returned the next week, the woman who had been serving as the "leader" of this small group arrived wearing dark sunglasses (the Bible study took place in the evening) and sat across from me with a stare which was nothing short of menacing. She said nothing. However, as I prayerfully defended the Church's teaching once more, the light fixture above the table where we all sat began to flicker on and off. Eventually it went out altogether. I continued to pray as the group disbanded.
The next week I was told that the pastor had spoken to those who had been attacking devotion to Our Lady (in a Church dedicated to her!) and that they had agreed not to do so in the future. Additionally, several of these agreed to no longer visit a local fundamentalist church where they had obtained their ideas. Prayer and fasting!
In the shortest Gospel, the Gospel of Mark, there are thirteen references to a personified Satan or to casting out demons. Among these are four exorcisms worked by Jesus. Let's recall how Jesus became angry when His disciples were unable to free the epileptic demoniac and rebuked them for their failure: "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?" (Mark 9: 19).
May we not find ourselves similarly rebuked for being without faith!
4 comments:
Not knowong who will be the secular leader of the pro-life movement, the Catholic Church is taking the position as the moral leader--especially from the top, as seen by a recent statement from an American churchman in Rome near the top:
Bishops required by canon law to refuse Communion to pro-abortion politicians: Vatican official
Catholic World News
February 05, 2009
Archbishop Raymond Burke has repeated his argument that bishops are obligated by canon law to withhold Communion from public officials who support legal abortion. "The Church's law is very clear," the archbishop told LifeSite News in an exclusive interview. Archbishop Burke, formerly of the St. Louis archdiocese, speaks with considerable authority on matters of canon law, since he is now the head of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church's top canonical court. LifeSite reports:
Archbishop Burke called "nonsense" the accusation, regularly made by some bishops, that refusing Holy Communion "makes the Communion rail a [political] battle ground."
We need more deliverance ministry in the Church. And the laity need to recognize their role in intercessory prayer. Only an ordained priest may perform an exorcism and only with the Church's permission. But some authority is given directly by God to unordained persons to pray with much effect while others seem to obtain their authority with their ordained office. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says that different Christians manifest a variety of spiritual gifts for building up the Body of Christ - which is the Church.
All of us - priests and laity - need to offer up deliverance prayers to put an end to the evil of abortion.
The Church in the United Staes - and elsewhere - is often managed as a big corporation with Bishops acting like CEO's rather than successors to the Apostles. Secularism has infected the Church and pushed out the supernatural dimension. As a result, evil has spread like a cancer. The clerical sexual abuse crisis is but one example. We need to renounce our own pride and return to the Living God. We cannot do it on our own. Haven't we failed enough to satisfy ourselves on this point. Closed churches, empty confessionals, and a vocations crisis should have convinced us by now. How slow we are to learn.
We do have a leader in Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer, exorcist. Fr. Euteneuer is President of Human Life International.
Take a look:
http://catholicvoiceindesert.blogspot.com/2009/01/ending-abortion.html AND http://catholicvoiceindesert.blogspot.com/2009/01/demonic-abortion-industry.html
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