Who Dares Wins

 

The recent Ukrainian ‘Operation Spider web’ which targeted airbases and military hardware across Russia in a simultaneous drone attack over several time zones deep behind enemy lines without loss of life was a sharp contrast with how the rest of the war was being waged in the trench warfare in eastern Ukraine aka ‘the meat-grinder’ where every foot of territory gained is measured in lives lost. 

It’s reminiscent of the way in which the allies turned around the desert war in North Africa with the creation of the SAS and its first synchronised raids on German and Italian airbases, a new methodology comprising meticulous attention to detail, covert manoeuvring, split second timing. All the damage was done before the adversary knew what was happening. 

We can certainly draw parallels here too with how humanity handles itself in dealing with the spiritual world around us. If situational awareness of the world we live in is absent then people are essentially walking into machine gun fire, like the trench warfare, being constantly taken out by the enemy of our souls with temptations, weaknesses, and misunderstanding of every kind. This results in helpless victims of an unseen war raging around them. And the world is becoming more broken, damaged and deranged as a consequence. 

There is however another way. Perhaps best demonstrated by our own version of the SAS; the contemplative monks and nuns all over the world and across the centuries know their enemy; their lives and prayer and intercession for us is targeted to do great violence to the enemy camp. They succeed in disrupting his plans and dismantling the apparatus he builds, by applying the power and authority of Jesus. 

Perhaps we are at a stage in human history though, where we cannot leave everything up to the few specialists behind the monastery walls and the heavenly angelic armies. The days we are living in, require something of us too; firstly to be aware of what we are up against or to be more precise who we are up against and to engage in the struggle ourselves too. We need to push in to prayer rather than simply being dismayed by what we see unravelling in our world… to be part of the solution. Put aside the enticing distractions or what gives relief and exchange them for intercessory prayer for what is needed instead. And this will surely tip the balance or move the needle in the right direction. 

Who Prays Wins!

Eventually someone would come..

An English missionary to China in the 1900’s, Gladys Aylward, came to understand the real power of the word of God one afternoon, in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in northern China. She and her companion, a Chinese doctor were exhausted from walking and knelt down on the grass and prayed, she prayed for food and shelter ,  her companion prayed ‘O God, send us the one you want us to tell about Jesus’ They then broke into songs of praise. At that point a man appeared on the brow of a hill; he was a llama (Buddhist monk). He beckoned them and took them to his monastery way up on top of a mountain.


They were taken to see the abbot and he showed them a scrap of paper, that one of the monks brought back years before from a town where they sold their crops, it read ‘For God so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’ (Jn3:16). That was all, but they learned from that short passage that there was a God who loved and they all read and re-read that passage and wanted to know who the God who loved was.


They sent monks out to towns and villages to try and find out. One heard that Jesus had commanded his disciples to ‘go out into the whole world, and proclaim the good news’ The abbot reasoned that if the first passage was true, the second was too and that eventually someone would come and tell them the rest of the story.


Gladys and her companion stayed on for many days and laid out the Gospel story for them. Every night after they finished, there would be a queue outside their rooms of Buddhists wanting to know more...

A Walking Weapon

Whilst praying the Rosary this morning, I had an unexpected insight.

I had been reading an article on the Israeli self-defense system Krav Maga and a phrase had stayed with me that a ‘well-trained practitioner of Krav Maga is basically a walking human weapon” My insight was that praying the Rosary was our equivalent in the realm of the spiritual life.

Many of the traditional martial arts are primarily defensive; derived from a philosophy or observations in nature and tend to take many years to master; it becomes a way of life. They also tend to be quite precise and elegant in movement. Transplanting them to western culture it becomes competitive with tournaments and grades and so on.

Krav Maga on the other hand was developed out of necessity by a Jewish chap in Slovakia to protect their communities from fascist anti-Semitic thugs who attacked them in the run-up to the second world war. It is the ‘blunt force trauma’ of martial arts, which has only one objective- to neutralize an attack (with multiple attackers in mind) and render them unable to continue. It is easily learned and improved with practice. 

Within the church we do have our own experts in the martial arts of prayer; like the desert fathers who spent their whole lives in fasting and contemplation and today’s monks and religious sisters whose life of prayer is derived from that and continue to hold the world together by their intercession and holiness and inflict great violence on the enemy. 

For the ordinary man in the street though; we have the Rosary, our means to weaponise our prayer life; to neutralize the attacks of the evil one on our own lives on a daily basis. The reality is that we are all in this fight, like it or not, acknowledge it or not, and to protect ourselves and our families is essential. Particularly for men; the heads of families need to enter into this. Let your sons see you praying the Rosary so they will learn it too and become “well trained practitioners; walking weapons.”