Ancient Weaponry

I live in the Philippines, one of the few citadels of Christendom that has not as yet ‘flung wide its gates’ to every evil; for example abortion is still illegal here.

Perhaps the reason it remains relatively strong is the realisation that on earth we are living in enemy occupied territory, there is a great confidence and reliance on prayer not only for help and defence but also for offence as I re-discovered last week.

I was in the shopping mall, a bit distracted and irritated, (I hate shopping) and at noon, over the loudspeaker a bell rang, and everyone in the place stopped dead in their tracks, like someone pressed pause on the remote. And we began to pray the Angelus together.

A few minutes and suddenly the atmosphere had changed, people were noticeably calmer, whatever was bugging me had gone too. Had we all just refocused our hearts heavenward or had the demons fled?  Both I believe.

I noticed the same thing on another day, this time at 6pm in the grounds of a Catholic University in Manila. Again as the bells rang out over the loudspeaker, everyone stopped, even the cars stopped and the security men at the gates bowed their heads and those few thousand souls, (together with those in every Catholic school in the entire country), as one, knowingly or unknowingly, went into battle together. 

What a great victory it must have been to eliminate this ancient weapon from everyday life in Europe, the sophistication or complexity of society makes the supernatural seem remote, irrelevant or unnecessary in the age of reason, but look at the continent now.

The funny thing is that it would be quite easy to reinstate this practice in all the Catholic schools and offices in the country; the benefits would be greatly felt.

A samurai warrior (Miyamoto Musashi) was onto something when he said “This is a truth: when you sacrifice your life, you must make fullest use of your weaponry. It is false not to do so, and to die with a weapon yet undrawn”.