Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels

Prayer Prompt before reading JN 1:47-51: Come, Holy Spirit, teach me how to pray, interpret the Scriptures for me so that I may know the Truth about who God the Father is and God the Son so that I may know who I am.

“AMEN, AMEN, I SAY TO YOU, YOU WILL SEE HEAVEN OPENED AND THE ANGELS OF GOD ASCENDING AND DESCENDING ON THE SON OF MAN.” JN 1:47-51

Humbly submit your will to God (Thy Will be done) and consecrate yourself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Mary and Joseph.

“Saint Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into Hell, Satan and all the other evil spirits, who prowl throughout the world, seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.”

Exactly 33 years to the day prior to the great Miracle of the Sun in Fatima, that is, on October 13, 1884, Pope Leo XIII had a remarkable vision. When the aged Pontiff had finished celebrating Mass in his private Vatican Chapel, attended by a few Cardinals and members of the Vatican staff, he suddenly stopped at the foot of the altar.

He stood there for about 10 minutes, as if in a trance, his face ashen white. Then, going immediately from the Chapel to his office, he composed the above prayer to St. Michael, with instructions it be said after all Low Masses everywhere.
http://www.michaeljournal.org/visionleo.asp

Do angels exist?  Jesus said they will be ascending and descending on the Son of Man.  The book of revelation speaks of the battle of St. Michael and the Devil.  At Mass, when heaven and earth clash we join the angels to praise and glorify God during the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy).  Yes, they do exist and we each have our own guardian angel.  The angel of God prayer is not just for young children to pray but adults too.  

We are fighting Satan a fallen angel who is very intelligent and deceitful.  It will benefit us to know the enemy like an opponent in sports, how to beat him, and know where he is at.  He is constantly in our thoughts trying to persuade us from God.  When we think God is trying to take away our fun, it’s the devil.

When we think negative thoughts about ourselves and others, it is the devil in our thoughts. Whenever we rationalize our sin and don’t think it is that bad, it is the devil in our thoughts. When we think God or the Mass is boring, it is the devil in our head.  

Don’t allow the power of the cross to die in your mind.  Battle Satan with the St. Michael prayer, God’s grace in the sacraments, constant prayer, and talk to Jesus developing a personal relationship.  Practice doing these things daily to win the battle versus Satan. Below I added my notes after reading C.S. Lewis’s “Screwtape Letters” on characteristics of the Devil. Educate yourself on the opponent of our soul reaching heaven.

Today’s challenge: Start reflecting on times when your thoughts have been against God. Next time it happens be ready to say the St. Michael prayer.  Continue to say the Angel of God and ask the angels in heaven to protect you from Satan.  Ask Mary to wrap you in her mantle and St. Joseph his cloak each day to keep Satan away from you and your family.  Ask St. Joseph to protect you and your family from Satan.  Storm heaven, the Devil is relentless!

Be a servant, become a saint!
#Christian YOLO

​Heart, Fight, Trust

Characteristics of the Devil in the book “Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis

Other books I have read that helped me understand the schemes of the Devil are “Ordinary Lives Extraordinary Mission” by John R. Wood, “Searching for and Maintaining Peace” by Fr. Jacques Philippe, and Peter Kreeft’s “Heaven: the Heart’s Greatest Longing”.

1. The devil wants us to “do” without thinking or reasoning
2. He doesn’t want us to know the difference between real and not real or reality (Truth- what is or reality)
3. The devil wants to distract us from thinking.
4. He likes us to compare ourselves to others, especially other Christians.  Looking at others’ sins so we can keep ourselves above them.
5. He wants to keep us blind to our blind spots.  The things we bury with our ego that are weaknesses everyone can see in us right away.
6. Parrot talk when we are praying.
7. Prayer without our will and intelligence
8. Devil is best at not putting things into our mind, but keeping things out.
9. While praying, the devil will try to take our gaze off God and onto ourselves.  Keeping us watching our own minds and trying to produce feelings there by the action of our will.
10. The devil will try to keep our minds on a sacramental object instead of the Person we are praying to.
11. The devil does not want us to see our present fear as our appointed cross, but only the thing we are afraid of
12. The devil does not for the most part want us to believe he is real.
13. The devil wants to tempt us most with lust, drugs, bodily pleasures when we are tired, sad, or lonely.  He does not want us to see the good in our bodily pleasures God gave us when we use them for His intended purposes.
14. “An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula”.  “To get the man’s soul and give him nothing in return”.
15. Keep knowledge out of our minds.
16. The devil wants us to lose interest in our religion/faith.  He wants us to think our faith is just a phase in our life and “we’ve been through it all”.  He wants us to think it is a phase from our Adolescence.
17. The devil wants us to make friends with those who will influence our minds away from faith/religion.
18. He wants our faith to be in direct opposition to new friends who we enjoy and want to be friends with.
19. He wants us to turn into the thing we are pretending to be.  He wants us to live two parallel lives.  Act one way for a set of people and another way for another set of people, but never be our true self especially when it comes to living out our faith.
20. He wants us to do nothing at all for long periods or stay up late at night doing nothing important.  “I now see I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”-a soul entering hell
21. “The safest road to hell is the gradual one-the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turns, without milestones, without signposts.”  It doesn’t matter what sin takes us their, murder or cards whichever does the trick”
22. He doesn’t want us to read books we enjoy or give us knowledge.  He doesn’t want us to go on walks, enjoy nature, or sit and think in silence.  These all can lead us to reality and healthy pleasure.
23. The devil wants us to do nothing with new repentance.  He does not want us to act and repeat actions that build virtue.
24. The devil does not want us to be humble.  He wants us to think we are humble so it turns to pride.  True humility is giving up our wills for God’s will and others.  The devil wants us to think humility is not self-forgetfullness but a low opinion of our talents and gifts from God or thinking our gifts are less valuable than God knows they are. 
25. The devil wants us to value an opinion for a quality other than truth.
26. He wants to keep our minds endlessly revolving onto themselves in an effort to achieve the impossible.
27. The devil wants to live in tortured fear or stupid confidence.  He wants us to keep our mind off eternity and the Present.  The Present is where time meets eternity.  He wants us to focus on the future, the unrealities, fear, avarice, lust, and ambition.
28. He does not want us to be happy.
29. “Nothing matters at all except the tendency of a given state of mind, in given circumstances, to move a particular patient (us) at a particular moment nearer to God or the devil.”
30.  A tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him.  He wants us to think we own time and own our bodies.  Both are gifts meant to be given away and given out of self-love, controlled to be used for the benefit of God and others.  
31. He wants us to think we own God or control Him.  He wants us to think “mine”.
32. In the end we will not possess time, soul, or body  God made it  and truly owns it and the devil is trying to destroy or gain it. (a grounds for conquest)
33. He hates music and silence.  He loves noise.
34. He wants humans to think something is right, not because it is true but for some other reason.
35. God has balanced a love of change with a love of permanence and by this union of change and permanence, He has created rhythm.  The Devil wants to persuade us to think of the philosophy of the “same old thing” losing this rhythm of life. 

How much power do the devil and his demons have over our thoughts? Can they actually place thoughts into our minds?

Answer:

Demons can influence our thoughts much in the same way as other human beings can. The only difference is that other human beings can only observe our behavior and hear our words, but demons can see a bit deeper; namely, they can see our imagination and memory and the feelings that come from them. So they are able to tempt us more precisely, you might say, than another human being, since they can perceive the images we carry within.

Even so, demons cannot reach to our strictly spiritual faculties—that is, our reason and our will. These can be moved directly only by God and by ourselves. So when a demon tempts us, he is trying to assure himself that we will fall away from God, but the demon can never be sure that we have lost God’s grace or were fully guilty for the sin we fell into under temptation. We must remember that the demons are more desperate than they are powerful.

It is also essential to keep in mind that we have guardian angels who constantly work to move our imagination and memory and feelings toward God and away from sin. Since these good angels see us in the light of the vision of God that they possess, their work in us is much more effective and accurate than that of the demons, most especially if we invoke our guardian angels and open ourselves to their influence by seeking to do the will of God and avoid the occasions of sin.

by Fr. Hugh Barbour, O. Praem.