Catholic Bible 101

OVERCOMING SATAN

If you watch TV a lot, you will notice that evil in the world is not only increasing exponentiallyand it is also being called normal and good. Homosexuality, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, assisted suicide, etc., are all now seen as being human rights, and if you oppose them, then YOU are the evil one. This upside-down thinking in the world is the direct result of the work of satan and his demons, which are apparently running wild in America these days, confusing the minds of the worldly. The multiplication of sin in the world through pornography, adultery, love of money, fornication, masturbation, homosexuality, human pride, etc., is the reason that evil is increasing at an ever-increasing rate. It's a simple equation: more and more personal sin equals more and more demons being released from hell, equals more and more evil in the world! Just the other day, I read that witches were going to cast a spell on President Trump to remove him from office. For sure, the hidden agenda of the evil one is now out in the open.

Stop Sinning

So how does the average Christian fight back against this onslaught of demonic influence? Well, for starters, we all have to stop sinning. An analogy would be that before you can head for the North Pole, you have to stop walking south! In order to do this, the initial cause of all sin - evil, lustful, and prideful thoughts - must be controlled. This can be accomplished if we instead fill our minds with the words and ideas of sacred scripture. Reading the bible for an hour each day, with subsequent meditation on what it all means, is a great way to begin this process. The Bible is God's love letter to us, and His Word has the power to transform our bodies from being Satan's saloon of illicit pleasure into being a temple of the Holy Spirit, our original intended purpose. In addition, avoiding sexual and graphic images on the internet is also a must. All it takes for some people is to see one lustful image, and then they are on the road to personal sin. If clicking on certain websites causes you to sin, simply avoid unknown and questionable websites! Instead, click on Catholic websites to learn more about the faith of the saints! If you want to sanctify the world, you have to start with yourself. And just like a small lit match lights up the darkest room of a cave, your sanctity will help to show others the way out of their darkness!

Praising and Thanking God

Praising God and thanking Him during idle times in our day is another great way to invoke Him and to chase away Satan. St. Faustina, the nun of Divine Mercy, writes the following in her Diary:

“Praise God's goodness and Mercy!! No more bad dreams, for the Lord of mercy is here. When a soul praises My goodness, Satan trembles before it and flees to the very bottom of hell.”

Here we see that the simple act of praising God's goodness causes Satan to leave you! Jesus left us two commandments: To love God with our whole heart, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. If we don't praise God and thank Him during the day on a regular basis, then we have to ask ourselves if we are actively loving God with our whole heart, mind, and strength. Most people, I believe, ignore God during daytime. The Liturgy of the Hours is a fantastic way to praise God during the day. By actively praising Him and thanking Him often during the day, you are calling down His blessings on you, your family, and your work, while at the same time you are sending Satan to hell. And what could be better than that!

Prayer and Fasting

Prayer and fasting on a regular basis is another way to get the demons to leave you. Jesus said in Mark 9:29 that certain demons can only be driven out through prayer and fasting. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once said that fasting detaches you from this world, while prayer reattaches you to to the next world. While prayer alone is great, because talking to God and meditating on His goodness always calls down His grace, fasting is the way that prayer is turbocharged. Fasting doesn't necessarily mean going completely without food. One can fast on bread and water only several days during the week, or by just skipping a meal occasionally. Fasting frees us from the deadly sin of gluttony, and cleanses not only our body, but our mind and our soul as well. I have no clue how all of this works; I just know that it does. It's hard to start a fast, but once begun, the effort becomes less and less strenuous.

Leading a Sacramental Life

One of the best ways to overcome the demons is to lead a sacramental life. This means going to confession on a regular basis, and attending daily Mass as often as possible. It's important to remember that the Confessional is a lot like the tomb of Jesus: we go into it dead with our sins, and we come out alive with God's forgiveness and grace. Jesus Himself instituted the sacrament of Confession in John 20:21-23, when He told his apostles:

“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

The Eucharist, which is Greek for “Thanksgiving,” is The Word made flesh, which dwells among us. By partaking of the Eucharist on a frequent basis, we are telling Satan that we hate Him and that we love Christ instead. If you can find an unlocked church during the day, falling down on your knees in front of the Blessed Sacrament (which is Jesus Himself) in humble adoration tells God that you love Him, and that you want Him to take control over your life. The Eucharist is the most powerful force on earth, as well as in the universe, because it is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. By ingesting the Eucharist in the state of grace, we become like the Blessed Virgin Mary, who also had Christ inside of her (for nine months). We become living tabernacles of the Lord, surrounded by adoring saints and angels, until the host is digested. The Eucharist is the heavenly food that leads to eternal life (John 6:27). Just as Adam ate food that led to man's damnation, Jesus, the new Adam, gives us food (Himself) which leads to our salvation. St. Thomas Aquinas said of the Eucharist:

“The sacrament of the Body of the Lord puts the demons to flight, defends us against the incentives to vice and concupiscence, cleanses the soul from sin, quiets the anger of God, enlightens the understanding to know God, inflames the will and the affections with the love of God, fills the memory with spiritual sweetness, confirms the entire man in good, frees us from eternal death, multiplies the merits of a good life, leads us to our everlasting home, and re-animates the body to eternal life.”

So now that you know these things, what could possibly be keeping you from partaking of the Holy Eucharist more frequently? St. Peter said in 2 Peter 1:4 that we can escape from the corruption of the world by partaking in the divine nature of Christ, and that is accomplished by eating and drinking His Precious Body and Blood. Remember, St. Peter also said that the devil goes around as a roaring lion seeking to devour us; but thank God that Jesus, the Lion of Judah, asks us to devour Him instead in order to prevent Satan's attacks on us. Jesus Himself said that the Eucharist is the Blood of the New Covenant, so by partaking of the Eucharist, you are in a covenant (family bond) relationship with Jesus Christ. In the old Covenant, you had to be descended from a particular tribe to be part of that tribe. But in the New Covenant, you have the blood of Christ flowing in your veins after Holy Communion, which automatically makes you an heir to His Kingdom, his son or daughter (prince or princess to the King of Kings).

Devotion to The Blessed Virgin Mary

There is no one human in the history of the entire world that Satan hates more than Mary. Genesis 3:15 says:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Eve was certainly not the woman at enmity with Satan. Rather, she was in full accord with him, because of her sin. No, this first prophecy of scripture (the protoevangelium) must be referring to a future woman with a seed who will have a lifelong hatred (enmity) with the devil. The word for “seed” used here has the connotation of “semen,” so this has to be one special woman, because women have eggs, not semen. In other words, God was going to fix the problem caused by the immaculately created virgin, Eve, with another immaculately created virgin, namely the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose seed (Jesus) did indeed bruise the head of Satan at Golgotha, the Place of the Skull. Satan hates her so much because she is the one human ever created whom he had no control over (because of her immaculate conception), AND, she leads so many people away from him to her Son.

Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary does not mean that we invoke her as some kind of goddess; rather, it means loving her as our mother and asking for her intercession with her Son Jesus. Jesus, from the cross, in his last will and testament, gave us, his heirs, his most valuable possession, His mother, when He said, “Behold YOUR Mother.” So many people mistakenly think that Mary is “dead.” But Jesus said in Luke 20:38 that God is the God of the living, not the dead. James 5:16 says that the prayers of a righteous person are very powerful, and no one is more righteous than someone who is in heaven. St. Paul exhorts us to use intercessory prayer, and a prayer to Mary is just that! 2 Maccabees 15:14 says that the dead Jeremiah prays much for the people of Israel, so we know that people in the afterlife pray. Additionally, in Revelation 5:8 and Revelation 8:3, we see that our prayers are presented to God by the saints and angels in the form of incense, so we know that Mary does present our prayers to God.

The absolute best way to invoke Mary as our mother and to be shielded from Satan under her heavenly mantle is by saying the Rosary every day! By doing this, you will escape many future traps Satan has set for you!

A Lifelong Battle

The battle with Satan is a lifelong war. The key to victory is to use the graces that Jesus gives us through His Church, to sacrifice for others, to love and forgive everyone, and to never, ever give up in this battle against pure evil. Remember, you will lose to Satan every time if you use your intellect, because he has a superior brain, and he can therefore confuse the smartest people. But if you use your heart, you will beat him every time, because he doesn't have one!

Other Prayers to be Said Daily

The St. Michael Prayer

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.  May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen..

August Queen of Heaven Prayer

August Queen of the Heavens, heavenly sovereign of the Angels, Thou who from the beginning received from God the power and the mission to crush the head of Satan, we humbly beseech Thee to send Your holy Legions, so that under Thy command and through Thy power, they may pursue the demons and combat them everywhere, suppress their boldness, and drive them back into the abyss. Who is like God? O good and tender Mother, Thou will always be our love and hope! O Divine Mother, send Thy Holy Angels to defend me and to drive far away from me the cruel enemy. Holy Angels and Archangels, defend us, guard us. Amen.

Spiritual Warfare Prayers