"...they will crush the head of Satan with their heel.."

It was St. Louis Marie de Montfort who explained in his classic work True Devotion to Mary that: "..Mary's power over the evil spirits will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lie in wait for her heel, that is, for her humble servants and her poor children whom she will rouse to fight against him...They will be great and exalted before God in holiness. They will be superior to all creatures by their great zeal and so strongly will they be supported by divine assistance that, in union with Mary, they will crush the head of Satan with their heel, that is, their humility, and bring victory to Jesus Christ." (TD, No. 54).

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the earliest translations of the sentence in question was most widely translated as "it": "And I will put enmity between you and the woman [widely perceived to be the Virgin Mary], and between your offspring and hers; it will crush your head"

According to Montfort, the greatest of the Marian Saints, this "it" is the faithful remnant, consecrated to the Virgin, who will crush the Devil's head (the head representing the intellect and therefore Satan's pride). The heel by contrast represents the lowest part of the body. In other words, those of us who are consecrated to the Immaculata and who are despised by the world because of our lack of wordly "sophistication" and "intelligence." But the wisdom of this world is foolishness (1 Corinthians 1: 18-25). In time, Satan's cohort will come to understand this.

For me it is significant that the Apostle John, in his first vision as described in the book of Revelation, saw "..one like a son of man, wearing an ankle-length robe, with a gold sash around his chest. The hair of his head was as white as white wool or as snow, and his eyes were like a fiery flame. His feet were like burnished bronze refined in a furnace." (Revelation 1: 13-15)

The Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. That the Apostle John saw Our Lord's feet as burnished bronze seems rather significant to me. Why is this? Because, as the Apostle Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 12: 21-21-25 that, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I do not need you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I do not need you.' Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety, whereas our more presentable parts do not need this. But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another.."

The faithful remnant consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary represent, in the thinking of Montfort, the heel which will defeat the Adversary. This burnished bronze which is refined in a furnace (1 Corinthians 3: 10-15) will produce a quality of work which is deserving of a wage. But this only because it was accomplished through the Immaculate Heart of Mary and because it rests on the only foundation which is Christ Jesus.

Wanted: Little children consecrated to Mary who will form her "heel"

Our world is in a mess isn't it?  We need holy men and women who are on fire for the Lord Jesus and who recognize their poverty, their smallness. What we need is children of Mary - the same children (despised by this proud world) whom Saint Louis de Montfort says, "..will become, in Mary's powerful hands, like sharp arrows, with which she will transfix her enemies." (True Devotion, No. 56), It is such prayer-warriors who "..will be like thunder-clouds flying through the air at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at nothing, troubled at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God's word and of eternal life. They will thunder against sin, they will storm against the world, they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life and for death, they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God's word all those against whom they are sent by almighty God." (True Devotion, No. 57).

This isn't a time for hand-wringing. Neither is it a time to look to so-called "experts," intellectual frauds who rely on their own intelligence. Fools. Now is the time to have recourse to Mary. The victory has been promised to the simple sandalled maiden. This is something the proud cannot understand or accept. Our Lady will crush the Devil's head - the seat of his intellect - and she will accomplish this without an academic degree or countless meetings. She will accomplish what the proud cannot. And she will do this through her children, her heel, those little souls consecrated to her who are despised by the world.

And so, remembering the words of the Cure of Ars St. Jean Vianney (the Patron Saint of parish priests): "Humility is to the various virtues what the chain is to the Rosary; take away the chain and the beads are scattered, remove humility and all virtues vanish," we pray:


O Lord,

all our powers of body and spirit,

every gift both natural and supernatural,

outward and inward,

comes as a blessing from You

and reveals Your goodness,

generosity, and love,

for You have given us all that is good.

You know what is best to give each one;

and since it is clear

to You what each one's merits are,

it is for You and not for us to decide

why one has less and another more.

And so, O Lord God,

I can even consider it a great blessing

if I do not have much to bring me

praise and glory from man;

for when one does not have much,

he can look at his poverty and worthlessness,

and far from being burdened and sorrowful and dejected,

he can feel comforted and glad,

for it is the poor and humble

and despised in the eyes of the world

that You have chosen,

O god, to be familiar members

of Your household.


For when I am weak, it is then that I am strong.  We must not rely on ourselves.  When David and Goliath faced off in battle, Goliath relied on his strength and his natural abilities.  David relied on God; on His supernatural strength.  The rest is history.

Won't you join me in offering a Rosary and intercessory prayer each and every day for the needs of the Church and for our broken, hurting world - a world crippled by sin?

The Episcopal Church: The fruit of building with Satan's blueprints...

"That if gold rust, what shall iron do?/ For if a priest be foul, in whom we trust,/ No wonder is a lewd man to rust." - Geoffrey Chaucer.

Remember V. Gene Robinson, New Hampshire's Episcopal "Bishop" who said that the Vatican's ban on ordaining men with a homosexual inclination was "vile" and represented an "act of violence"?  As I noted back in 2009, Mr. Robinson once opined that "the Episcopal Church and its proclamation of God's inclusive love" was something which appealed to young people who want to be part of a church "in which there truly are no outcasts."

I responded thusly:

"Of course, such a 'church' would not be Christian. The God of both Old and New Testaments loves all but has been known to be exclusive. Remember the Ark which saved Noah and his family? Outside there was wailing and gnashing of teeth.


When Jesus began His public ministry, He did so with the word 'repent' (Matthew 4:17). And He advised the woman caught in adultery to 'sin no more' (John 8:11). Likewise, in the case of the man cured at the Pool of Bethesda, Jesus advised him to 'sin no more lest something worse befall thee' (John 5:14). When queried on the subject of how many would be saved, Jesus replied 'few' because the 'gate' to Heaven is 'narrow' (Matthew 7:13-14). And while no one can pinpoint the precise meaning of the word 'few,' still, it is sobering that Jesus chose the image of a narrow gate.

Jesus is likened in the gospel to a stern master who has lazy servants flogged and murderous ones put to death (Matthew 21:41; Luke 12:47). And while it is true that Jesus is Mercy, He is also Justice. And for every parable illustrative of His mercy, there are three or four threatening divine retribution. The Judgment Day is always described as a day of wrath and never as a day of rejoicing (Proverbs 11:4; Zephaniah 1:15; Sirach 5:10; Romans 2:5; Revelation 6:17).

Just as some were excluded - almost all in fact - (because of their own sinfulness) from that salvation which was found in Noah's Ark [a figure of the Church], so too some will be excluded from the Heavenly Kingdom because they preferred their own will to God's: 'The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.' (Matthew 13: 41,42)."

In a post at his Blog Canterbury Tales from the Fringe, Gene Robinson boldly stated that, "My sense is that the place of the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion is not in danger. Strained and tense, sometimes, yes. But actually threatened, no. Are we in the same place regarding the issue of homosexuality -- of course not. But the bonds of affection are strong and deep, and God will see us through this difficult time. This is a strong belief exhibited by all the primates and bishops visiting this Convention from across the Anglican Communion. It confirms my own belief that it is time for us to stand up and be the Church God is calling us to be, and trust that the Anglican Communion will not only survive, but be a blessing to all." (See here).

Mr. Robinson may have believed that all would be well in the Episcopal Church.  But as Pat Buchanan explains, "Today, the Episcopal Church is divided and disintegrating, having lost a million members since 2000.  It has been torn asunder over morality, the ordination of female and gay priests and bishops, and the legitimacy of same-sex unions.  The Church's share of the adult population has fallen to less than 1 percent...In Fairfax County, Virginia, nine parishes broke with the national Episcopal Church over the installation at Washington National Cathedral of Katharine Jefferts Schori as the 26th Presiding Bishop.  Schori had blessed same-sex unions and supported the consecration of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire, who had left his wife and daughters and entered a homosexual union.  Seven of 111 Episcopal dioceses refused to accept Schori's elevation."

The result of the Episcopal Church's apostasy from the Gospel?  Buchanan: "All the efforts by mainstream churches to accommodate modernity have gone hand in hand with what Newsweek sees as the decline and fall of Christianity in the United States.  Now ranked fifteenth in congregants, the Episcopal Church is losing members more rapidly than are the Presbyterians, Lutherans, or Methodists." (Suicide of a Superpower, pp. 56-57, 58),

The Episcopal Church has sought to become a church made in the image and likeness of man.  It has ignored the warning of the Psalmist, in clear dogmatic language, that "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it."  Fr. Vincent Miceli explains that, "This truth holds for the building of families, societies, nations, international communities and, above all, of Churches....building without the Lord is equivalent to building with the aid of Satan.  And any city that rises from Satan's blueprints can only end up a City of Hatred and Violent Death."

Or, as my mentor Gabriel Marcel put it, "When man becomes God, society becomes a termite colony and collapses from within."

The whole sorry story of the Episcopal Church provides us with a sobering warning: that without Jesus we can do nothing.  To the extent that churches stray from the Gospel, they disintegrate and become meaningless and irrelevant.

Related reading: Pastor Rick Warren and Barack Obama have welcomed Gene Robinson's message.