Having purified our hearts, beloved Father, we can dare even more to undertake great things without neglecting the small ones. Did not St. Paul give good witness to the faith before the great ones of this world (cf. Acts 26)? Did not Elijah and John the Baptist fearlessly denounce the evil deeds of kings (1 Kings 18:17–18; Matthew 14:3–4)? And did not the apostles give courageous witness to Your beloved Son before the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:1–20)? Who made them capable of this, if not You? You communicated to them the spirit of fortitude. And that same spirit is what we need today to resist the machinations of evil spirits and of people who, consciously or unconsciously, cooperate with them.
Today, beloved Father, we have a special need for Your strength, because an anti‑Christian spirit has taken control to a great extent, both in the world and even in the Church.
The more You purify our hearts, the more Your spirit of fortitude will be able to act in them, opposing these machinations. Then our passions will be more restrained and at the service of true peace.
The more the power of Your love acts in us, and the more we restrain—or even greatly overcome—our evil inclinations, the more this love, in all its purity, will be able to counteract the influence of the anti‑Christian spirit. The more the heart is purified and healed of its blindness, the more quickly it will be able to detect and reject this impure spirit.
Beloved Father, help us to work on our hearts and grant us a new heart, a pure heart that loves You above all else. Make it willing to defend the true faith in the army of the Lamb and to fight to weaken those forces that seek to drag humanity toward perdition.