“The Devil fears the Virgin Mary more, not only than men and angels but, in a certain sense, than God himself. It is not that the wrath, the power and the hatred of God are not infinitely greater than those of the Blessed Virgin, since Mary’s perfections are limited: it is because, in the first place, Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being overcome and punished by the little, humble servant of God, her humility humiliating him more than the divine power; and secondly, because God has given Mary such great power over devils that, as they have often been obliged to admit, in spite of themselves, through the mouths of possessed persons, they are more afraid of one of her sighs of grief over some poor soul, than of the prayers of the saints, and more daunted by a single threat from her than by all their other torments”
(Resource – Evidence of Satan in the Modern World by Monsignor Leon Cristiani, Roman Catholic Priest
Spiritual Warfare; perhaps one of the most least understood aspect of our Catholic faith yet it is experienced by everyone...engaged by few. What i mean is everyone is harassed by Satan on some level, yet not everyone actually engages, or sees the attack for what it is and then responds as one should. I have done it myself because it is easy to get caught up in the perpetual rationalizing of thinking "this is just a bad day". It is easy to simply call someone stubborn or ignorant for not understanding of accepting the faith and we never consider the work of evil. It seems the only time people think something just might be evil is in a full blow possession, and even then they are only thinking of some movie they saw making Satan look more powerful then God and his Priest. The truth is much different, and even has a kind of rational to it all, unlike what most people may assume. For example, Spiritual warfare does have a certain order, such as how i mentioned harassment. Harassment the first of three stages of spiritual attack. Such things as those seemingly small events that frustrate our lives and somehow lead us to not thinking of God but about self. The loss of keys that simply seems to anger us and even lead to a entire day of feeling disordered; or maybe those lost keys lead to being late for something else and then blowing up at someone. There could be the way in which someone says something to us that we take as some kind of attack ( maybe touching an inner wound in our hearts) from them, when in reality those moments are arrows shot from the bow of the evil one. Then there is oppression, often compared to a foot hold on a beachhead. This could take the form of depression, though not always. Generally it is a spiritual heaviness, or even spiritual blindness. There is allot of oppression in the world now a-days due to the climate of the culture today and its rejection of God. Then there is Possession, the one Hollywood seems to be obsessed with falsely portraying.....by the way obsession is another way of saying oppression... the words are interchangeable on this list. I could go on, and maybe i will at a later date. The point is, know your faith and what it teaching about this thing called Warfare because we all experience it, and the only way to not become a POW is to know how to respond to it. Know thy enemy...which simply means know his tactics, and actively engage in the combat..but not alone...as in all things we must maintain our relationship with Jesus. After all destroying our relationship with Jesus is the whole point of Satan's attacks. Stay strong, ask the Saints for back up, and remember, We are the resistance, Usque Ad Mortem (Even unto Death)
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