Fierce, but without power

I have noticed lately that in movies there is an increasing fascination with the supernatural and of the eternal  battle between good and evil with a multitude of special effects to add to the drama and portray the horror of the evil one. It’s usually depicted as being a close run thing though, as if there is something close to equality between the two sides, but nothing could be further from the truth.

I had a peculiar illustration of this recently following the long awaited opening of our parish’s adoration chapel. I try to visit most days and from that first day, each time I went, I was set upon by a vicious stray dog that came hurtling across the park snarling and barking stopping just short of the range of my umbrella.

This may sound trivial but it was every day, sometimes accompanied by a few other dogs that surrounded me as I approached the chapel. As days turned to weeks I was getting quite weary of this daily ritual, I even prayed for Moriarty (that’s the dog’s name).

During this time I was also reading a book about the life of St Anthony, the Egyptian hermit, and this was very insightful as being attacked by the devil in various guises, from packs of dogs, to serpents and insects was his bus ride to work. However he soon discovered one important fact …they had no power. The devil even had to ask permission from God before he could do anything as in the trials of Job. In reality he was very much afraid of Anthony.

So one morning, approaching the chapel from a different road, I caught Moriarty unawares as he sat in the alley. He immediately recognized me and started barking and snarling but I just walked towards him and he started to run, turning occasionally to growl, but in retreat and I realized that it was all a ruse, that really he was afraid of me.

As the darkness of our world seems to be ever increasing it’s worth noting that compared to God, the devil and his fallen angels are mere creatures, already a defeated enemy. The only way they have any power over us is if we give it to them, yielding to them usually through sin or fear. But as praying Christians, in a state of grace, we have nothing to fear, quite the contrary, we are conquerors and can apply Christ’s victory with every moment or subject of prayer, ushering in the Kingdom of God and dispelling the darkness of evil.

Holy Russia

In 1977, as a schoolboy, I had the opportunity to visit the Soviet Union. I had little appreciation of faith in those days but did attempt to attend Mass on Sunday. Arriving at the one church that was still open we met with the news, from a few grandmothers, that there would be no Mass as the priest was ill. Sixty years after the revolution the youngest priest must have been in his mid-eighties. The lights must have almost gone out on the church in Russia in those days.

And yet perhaps it was from amongst those grandmothers (orthodox and catholic) that the countries future return to faith lay. Both Mikhail Gorbachev and Vladimir Putin were secretly baptized as infants, a spirit lying dormant for many years as they grew up atheists & part of the communist party machine.

Now Putin seems to be the standard bearer for a new Russia that, astonishingly but correctly, pointed out how Godless America and the west had become whereas Russia upholds the traditional family and teaches the Christian faith in state schools, a freedom now curtailed in the USA. The high ground has shifted so perhaps it’s fitting that the Russians are the ones to lead in the fight against ISIS in Syria. 

At the beginning of the air strikes, on TV, I noticed a Russian MIG pilot entering his jet with an icon in his hand, showing an understanding of what alliance he and his comrades needed for this particular fight. 

Whilst Putin may never be the poster boy for tactful foreign policy, in this instance he is the only leader with the backbone to tackle ISIS which is certainly the world’s priority at present. 

Defining a just war in our days is difficult but perhaps defining the adversary leads to the conclusion. I searched for an apt description of ISIS on Wikipedia and these extracts look close:-‘no ability to feel pity, compassion, or remorse’... ‘soon came to view themselves as the supreme race and began a conquest of domination and extermination’. ..’having had every emotion removed except hate’

Actually the definitions above are found under the heading ‘Daleks’; same psychological profile and modus operandi as ISIS though.

What is Hell like ? (from St Faustina's diary)

Today, I was led by an Angel to the chasms of hell. It is a place of great torture; how awesomely large and extensive it is! The kinds of tortures I saw: the first torture that constitutes hell is the loss of God; the second is perpetual remorse of conscience; the third is that one‟s condition will never change; the fourth is the fire that will penetrate the soul without destroying it – a terrible suffering, since it is purely spiritual fire, lit by God‟s anger; the fifth torture is continual darkness and a terrible suffocating smell, and despite the darkness, the devils and the souls of the damned see each other and all the evil, both of others and their own; the sixth torture is the constant company of Satan; the seventh torture is horrible despair, hatred of God, vile words, curses and blasphemies. These are the tortures suffered by all the damned together, but that is not the end of the sufferings. There are special tortures destined for particular souls. These are the torments of the senses. Each soul undergoes terrible and indescribable sufferings, related to the manner in which it has sinned. There are caverns and pits of torture where one form of agony differs from another. I would have died at the very sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of God had not supported me. Let the sinner know that he will be tortured throughout all eternity, in those senses which he made use of to sin. I am writing this at the command of God, so that no soul may find an excuse by saying there is no hell, or that nobody has ever been there, and so no one can say what it is like.


I, Sister Faustina, by the order of God, have visited the abysses of hell so that I might tell souls about it and testify to its existence. I cannot speak about it now; but I have received a command from God to leave it in writing. The devils were full of hatred for me, but they had to obey me at the command of God. What I have written is but a pale shadow of the things I saw. But I noticed one thing: that most of the souls there are those who disbelieved that there is a hell. When I came to, I could hardly recover from the fright. How terribly souls suffer there! Consequently, I pray even more fervently for the conversion of sinners. I incessantly plead God‟s mercy upon them. O my Jesus, I would rather be in agony until the end of the world, amidst the greatest sufferings, than offend You by the least sin.

Che Francisco

On the flight between Cuba and the USA one of the journalists asked Pope Francis if his politics were leaning to the left. Perhaps his heart for the poor and criticism of the ‘unfettered pursuit of money’ once referred to as the ‘dung of Satan’ may have contributed to this misunderstanding.

Cuba was an interesting backdrop for such an enquiry. Pope Francis’s fellow Argentinian, Che Guevara, who famously helped free Cuba from dictatorship and installed the current communist government, was also a man whose principal motivation was compassion for those who were being horribly oppressed and exploited. It is true that both hate the sins that the rich and powerful commit against the poor.

But then their paths separate. The communist ideology requires hatred of the sinner too in order to defeat him, and so turns in on itself and of necessity becomes worse than its adversary. (James 1:20’ because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires’) The Pope’s way of course is more hopeful of the change of heart of those who currently do evil and happy to leave the battle and timing in God’s hands whilst proclaiming the truth in love and candor.

Pope Francis seeks a revolution too, a change of heart, individually and collectively, a turning outward, first to God and then, as a product of that, to each other and especially those in need.

It’s interesting that the Cuban leader, Raul Castro, when he met the Pope prior to his visit to Cuba, said "I read all the speeches of the Pope, and if he continues this way, I will go back to praying and go back to the church, and I'm not joking," Love conquers all!

The Helpless

There was an extraordinary photograph taken in 90’s of a vulture that landed near a Sudanese child on the verge of starvation, waiting for her to die so it could devour her.  When it was published it became a symbol of famine in Africa, moving many to outrage, others to pity and charity.

When I look at it though, I see something else. The child, weak and helpless, is quite unaware of the danger lurking behind it, it has other concerns. And most of the people on earth are very much like this helpless starving child, not through famine or lack of any means of preserving their physical life but because they are starved of the means to strengthen themselves against their very real and dangerous enemy

As our societies become increasingly godless, the people are easy prey for the enemy of their souls. They don’t know they have an enemy, they don’t know how to strengthen themselves to combat his wiles. They simply fall into every trap he lays. And yet we have been given everything we need to put the enemy to flight;- a prayer life, the sacramental life of the church, a community of believers and so on.

The photographer, Kevin Carter, won a Pulitzer prize but was always haunted by the event because whilst he had shooed away the vulture afterwards, he failed to intervene to save the child.

As Christians how can we intervene to rescue from death those around us, who whilst they may appear happy, successful and productive are devoid of the true life in God, spiritually emaciated and living in the shadow of a merciless creature, lying in wait to take possession of them at death. We too may be haunted by what we fail to do to prevent that. Perhaps prayer and bold witness to what we believe would be a start.

Planned Parenthood .. sale of baby organs and tissue

In the early days after abortion was legalized in the UK (for special cases), some entrepreneurs started to look at ways to cash in on this fledgling industry. They used the baby fat to make soap.

At the time this was a bit shocking; the only previously recorded incident, highlighted during the Nuremberg trials, was at the Danzig institute where the corpses from Nazi concentration camps had been processed and made into soap; a small scale operation in its day. Nowadays of course many beauty products contain fetal material in some form or another.

A recent covert investigation into the American abortion giant, Planned Parenthood, revealed even more shocking news: harvesting of fetal organs and tissue for sale to research companies. The abortionists explained (whilst being secretly filmed) how they can modify the abortion procedure to keep intact the more valuable or saleable body parts, like liver, heart, lungs etc., to make up the orders from the company. 

Of course that’s not the end of the tale. What these biotech companies use this tissue and parts for, is much more disturbing! I have a limited understanding of the science, but essentially, they use the tissue in the development of new flavorings for foodstuffs and soft drinks in addition to its use in the production of vaccines and medicines. In other words, aborted babies have entered the human food chain. 

Who could have imagined that in less than 50 years we would have arrived at something like this? Indeed it is not the only piece of 60’s legislation or decriminalization that has set us on a path to a new age of deprivation…

The Icing on the Cake

A recent court ruling in America ordered a Christian baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple to pay $135,000 in compensation to the couple for ‘emotional distress’. Photographers and florists have also been penalized for refusing their services to homosexual weddings. 

Much of the Western world now considers itself to be in a ‘Post-Christian’ era of development and this has big implications for all Christians and their countries. To understand where we are heading, and what can be done, we must consider how we arrived at this juncture.

Sodomy has been considered a criminal act for millennia; the first recorded laws concerning it were 1075BC. In England the 1533 Buggery act was introduced with the death penalty for acts of sodomy against other men, animals or children. The last two, at the time of writing, remain illegal. The law was altered in the 1800’s but still considered a serious offence up until 1967 when it was decriminalized.

At first I was a bit puzzled as to why homosexuals wanted to get married as there is no tendancy toward monogomy and relationships tend to be rather short-lived.

There are other factors at play though, same-sex adoption particularly and a new era of education in schools. This is perhaps the most insidious development. In some public schools children as young as 4 year old are being taught that same sex marriage is normal. Some of the books on offer to facilitate this include fairly explicit texts describing how a boy wants to change his gender; others describe families with two dads or two mums, others about boys who want to wear dresses. All innocently disguised in the language of children. The consequences of indoctrinating children in this way will be horrendous for future society. They will be lost in a web of deceit. 

One ray of hope is the witness of those who do not consider their ‘rights’ as important as the ‘wrongs’. In a blog posting I read a most encouraging story from a celibate homosexual man who understood his dignity as a child of God, first and foremost and, although not without difficulty, was living in communion with church teachings. His desire to walk the path of holiness was truly inspiring. He understood that all are made for heaven, called to be saints. 

We must continue to speak the truth in love to all who will listen. Changing the law does not alter the consequences.