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| THE BATTLE IN HEAVEN -- Pieter Bruegel the Elder 16th century |
“And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels.... And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world; and he was cast unto the earth,and his angels were thrown down with him.” [Apocalypse 12]
Fortunately, servants of God also gather on the battlefield as St. Ignatius’ famous meditation on The Two Standards tells us. Jesus rallies his holy army on the plain. Can we doubt that his chief lieutenant is Our Lady, our twelve-star general, along with St. Michael? The devil’s greatest enemy after Jesus is Mary. She represents God’s instrument to target the pride of Lucifer. Turned to darkness, he focuses His rage on Mary, the humble young girl who bore the “Light of the world” and continuously mirrors and magnifies Our Lord. All women remind Satan of Mary: her virginity, her motherhood, and her position as queen of heaven and earth.
Angels are not equally gifted, any more than humans are. Lucifer, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, resided in the highest of the nine choirs, the Seraphim. So whom did God use to thrust him and his fellow rebels into hell? An archangel from one of the lowest orders, St. Michael, whose battle cry to Lucifer’s challenge echoes down through the millennia. “Who is like unto God?” No one! And the humble Michael thrust the angel of arrogance and his followers into hell and was raised as our great defender along with the Queen of Heaven and St. Joseph.
The role of Mary explains Satan’s hatred of all women especially in their virginity (consecrated nuns and virginal lay women), and in their motherhood, both physical and spiritual. Mary is the model for all women, our guide and inspiration to be what we are called to be. So Satan hates us! Can any serious Christian doubt that he instigated the cancel culture which eliminates women, replacing them with mock women like Bruce Jenner and Dylan Mulvaney? Mulvaney earned millions with his “woman-faced minstrel show” as described by Catholic commentator Matt Walsh. And, indeed, it appears the actor sold his male soul for a comedy act in face paint and heels laughing all the way to the bank. He is a one-man spoof with his mincing steps, smirking face, and little-girl voice.
Mulvaney implied his financial motives in an interview saying:
Let’s review the progression of evil as the battle has escalated in the past 100 years. Lust always featured in the devil’s arsenal but accelerated to warp speed in the 20th century. Satan’s first target was fertility through mass expansion of contraception. While man used methods to avoid pregnancy from the time of the patriarchs, technology and corruption of the medical profession magnified the assault on fertility. The 1930 Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Church was a crisis point. Margaret Sanger had spent the previous decade poisoning hearts and minds with her Birth Control Review. Lambeth showed her success. Prior to 1930, all Christian denominations opposed birth control. But once Lambeth lifted the ban for married couples for serious reasons, the dominoes rapidly fell. By 1968 and the release of Humanae Vitae, the Catholic Church stood alone defending human sexuality, but many of her children rebelled enabled by unfaithful priests. There was almost total silence from the pulpit.
Interestingly, the Comstock Laws banning the sale and dissemination of contraception, were passed by Protestant legislatures of the 19th century, not Catholics. Eventually they were overturned and most denominations fell like dominoes embracing the “planned parenthood” message. By the 1960s Catholics were champing at the bit to join. The 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae clearly described the evils that would result from contraception, but most Catholics were already on board using drugs and plugs to prevent new life. The feminist movement led the attack on their own nature and even advanced propaganda calling pregnancy a “sexually transmitted disease.” They labeled marriage “slavery,” especially if women remained at home to care full time for the children and create a stable home and family life.
Moving forward, the devil trained his sights on a new target. Preventing life before conception was just the beginning. Demonic blood lust demanded abortion of those babies who managed to be conceived. Having successfully attacked female fertility, motherhood was next and the ground was already laid. If your birth control method “failed,” obviously the answer was abortion.
Theologians believe that God showed the angels His plan for creating man, man’s fall, and humanity’s redemption through the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. The “Word made flesh” came to live, die, and rise among us. The angels. spiritual beings, would have to serve a God-Man. Not only that, but a man carried in the womb of a woman. How dare God raise a human with a body above a spirit! And so Lucifer, the glorious light-bearer, led the rebel band who all refused to serve. As we well know, ever since the devil has prowled the world as its prince seeking souls to devour and finding many human souls to assist him.
Fortunately, servants of God also gather on the battlefield as St. Ignatius’ famous meditation on The Two Standards tells us. Jesus rallies his holy army on the plain. Can we doubt that his chief lieutenant is Our Lady, our twelve-star general, along with St. Michael? The devil’s greatest enemy after Jesus is Mary. She represents God’s instrument to target the pride of Lucifer. Turned to darkness, he focuses His rage on Mary, the humble young girl who bore the “Light of the world” and continuously mirrors and magnifies Our Lord. All women remind Satan of Mary: her virginity, her motherhood, and her position as queen of heaven and earth.
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| St. Ignatius of Loyola |
The role of Mary explains Satan’s hatred of all women especially in their virginity (consecrated nuns and virginal lay women), and in their motherhood, both physical and spiritual. Mary is the model for all women, our guide and inspiration to be what we are called to be. So Satan hates us! Can any serious Christian doubt that he instigated the cancel culture which eliminates women, replacing them with mock women like Bruce Jenner and Dylan Mulvaney? Mulvaney earned millions with his “woman-faced minstrel show” as described by Catholic commentator Matt Walsh. And, indeed, it appears the actor sold his male soul for a comedy act in face paint and heels laughing all the way to the bank. He is a one-man spoof with his mincing steps, smirking face, and little-girl voice.
Mulvaney implied his financial motives in an interview saying:
When the pandemic hit, I was doing the Broadway musical Book of Mormon. I found myself jobless and without the creative means to do what I loved. I downloaded TikTok, assuming it was a kids' app. Once I came out as a woman, I made this 'day one of being a girl' comedic video. And it blew up.”
Now it’s his permanent schtick bringing him fame and fortune, proof positive that “Love of money is the root of all evils,” not to mention love of exhibitionism and attention.
In a 2017 interview, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra revealed a comment Sr. Lucia of Fatima made in a handwritten letter she sent him in the early 1980s. “Father,” she wrote, “a time will come when the decisive battle between the kingdom of Christ and Satan will be over marriage and the family. And those who will work for the good of the family will experience persecution and tribulation. But do not be afraid, because Our Lady has already crushed his head.”
Let’s review the progression of evil as the battle has escalated in the past 100 years. Lust always featured in the devil’s arsenal but accelerated to warp speed in the 20th century. Satan’s first target was fertility through mass expansion of contraception. While man used methods to avoid pregnancy from the time of the patriarchs, technology and corruption of the medical profession magnified the assault on fertility. The 1930 Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Church was a crisis point. Margaret Sanger had spent the previous decade poisoning hearts and minds with her Birth Control Review. Lambeth showed her success. Prior to 1930, all Christian denominations opposed birth control. But once Lambeth lifted the ban for married couples for serious reasons, the dominoes rapidly fell. By 1968 and the release of Humanae Vitae, the Catholic Church stood alone defending human sexuality, but many of her children rebelled enabled by unfaithful priests. There was almost total silence from the pulpit.
Interestingly, the Comstock Laws banning the sale and dissemination of contraception, were passed by Protestant legislatures of the 19th century, not Catholics. Eventually they were overturned and most denominations fell like dominoes embracing the “planned parenthood” message. By the 1960s Catholics were champing at the bit to join. The 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae clearly described the evils that would result from contraception, but most Catholics were already on board using drugs and plugs to prevent new life. The feminist movement led the attack on their own nature and even advanced propaganda calling pregnancy a “sexually transmitted disease.” They labeled marriage “slavery,” especially if women remained at home to care full time for the children and create a stable home and family life.
The battle against women’s fertility through widespread contraception was largely a victory for Satan. The ability to conceive was a curse and children a burden. Cheer for infertility and sterilization! It was the Biblical fulfillment of the prophecy that men would say one day, “Blessed are the barren.” But most contraceptives have consequences, some serious. Many women became victims of the lies about “safety.” They suffered injuries from the pill, the Dalkon Shield, the copper T, spermicides, NORPLANT, and other dangerous drugs and devices. You can almost hear Satan saying, “Take that, Mary and your Fiat!”
Moving forward, the devil trained his sights on a new target. Preventing life before conception was just the beginning. Demonic blood lust demanded abortion of those babies who managed to be conceived. Having successfully attacked female fertility, motherhood was next and the ground was already laid. If your birth control method “failed,” obviously the answer was abortion.
Again, abortion was nothing new. Since Adam and Eve were driven from the garden, the sin of lust has been a major temptation in the devil’s toolbox. He uses it (as well as infanticide) to further attack the family. Babies aren’t a blessing but a nuisance interfering with recreational sex. If you want one fine (not really) but if not the answer is abortion. Using responsible-sounding words like “planned parenthood” and “women’s reproductive health,” he attacked little ones in the womb with demonic zeal. According to WHO (World Health Organization), induced abortion kills 73 million babies worldwide every year, six in ten unintended pregnancies, (babies), end up trashed as medical waste. And that doesn’t count home abortion using over-the-counter drugs.
Having successfully devastated the world with the demonic bombs of “Little Boy” (contraception) and “Fat Man” (abortion), Satan prepared for MAD, the mutual assured destruction of humanity through the cancellation of women altogether.
It is a fact that some of the protestants who favored the Comstock law were motivated by their fear that the Papists, who refused to use contraception in those days, would out-populate the protestants and end up making the country Catholic, so the solution was to urge protestants to breed more. When that tactic failed, they turned to converting the Catholics to birth control and discouraging immigration from Catholic countries, which tactics succeeded marvelously.
ReplyDeleteJohn Belmont
John B, thank you for that (for me) long-forgotten reminder of the American fear of Papists taking over the country. Which remains a big reason still for favoring immigrants from non-Catholic or poorly-catechised countries.
ReplyDeleteHatred of women make sense, Pornography degrades women so that in itself proves its the work of Satan himself. My daily prayers include an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory be that St. Mary Magdalene intercedes that women involved in the porn industry realize the harm its doing to their own health of body, mind and soul and to get out of the industry as quickly as they can especially the younger women who are too naive to know better.
ReplyDelete