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“Pray always in the Spirit” (Eph 6:18).

We are coming to the end of St Paul’s advice for spiritual warfare. Surely all believers know how essential prayer is, without which there can be no spiritual life. If we neglect prayer, we are always in danger that temptations will overcome us more easily, that distractions will increase and that the temptations of the world will have a greater influence on us. We will also be weaker and more vulnerable when it comes to fighting the battle that has been entrusted to us with the appropriate weapons.

On the other hand, if we take advantage of the Lord’s opportunities to pray, our souls will be prepared and docile to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Through prayer we will be able to conquer strongholds with the Lord.

Yesterday I ended the meditation by quoting part of a Starez’s exhortation on the prayer of Jesus. He was clear that this prayer is a special weapon against the power of the devil. The full quote is:

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“Besides all these, taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one.” (Eph 6:16).

The Lord’s training of His faithful to be able to resist in battle continues today with the allusion to the shield of faith. It is important that we immediately and swiftly repel the darts of the Evil One, even when they want to penetrate us through our thoughts. The more vigilant we are, the less evil or wrong thoughts will be able to pierce and hurt us. The same applies to useless words, whether spoken or written. Read More

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Before entering into the theme, let us briefly review the Lenten meditations: the spirit of discernment (discretio) urges us to enter consciously into a spiritual battle. Those who follow Christ know this struggle well. There are, however, two particular circumstances that we must always keep in mind, so that we “do not box as one beating the air” (cf. 1 Cor 9:26):

1. The enemy is not only attacking from outside the Church, but also from within, and he has wide areas under his influence.
2. He has penetrated right into the hierarchy, and from the very top he is trying to impose his pernicious course on the whole Church.

With this in mind, let us continue to listen to St Paul’s instructions to be prepared for battle:

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Let us recall the central theme of our Lenten meditations: to become better disciples of the Lord.

In the light of the discernment of spirits (discretio), we have analysed the existential crisis of the Church and pointed out the serious aberrations of the world. Consequently, we have noted that in this “emergency situation” the faithful must assume in a special way their responsibility to follow the Lord and thus to serve the Bride of Christ and her mission. This inevitably leads us into a spiritual battle which does not only concern our personal sphere, but is our contribution to the “battle of the Lamb” in which we are called to take our place in His army under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

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The aim of our Lenten meditations is to become better disciples of the Lord, especially as we contemplate His infinite love, manifested in a unique way in His Passion and Death on the cross for our salvation.  May our hearts yearn ardently for each person to encounter the love of our heavenly Father and thus find the sure path to eternity, where he or she will live forever in union with God and His own, filled with inexpressible joys.

To be better disciples means to adhere more closely to the will of our Lord, to fulfil with fervour the task He has given us and to understand it more deeply in the light of God. Above all, it means growing in love, which is the supreme good and which, as we will come to understand more and more, is capable of conquering everything.

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‘Discretion’ has led us to recognise the present crisis in the Church as a danger to the faithful, to perceive how her witness to the world has been obscured, and to see, beyond the human realm, the “principalities and powers” who plot evil against “the Lord and His anointed”, and who often pull the strings of all that usurps glory from God and harms men.

To get a more comprehensive picture in the sense of discernment of spirits, it is also worthwhile to take a look at the present situation in the world. It is not difficult to see that whole nations are under the dominion of darkness. Even formerly Christian countries have opened the door to great evils by introducing abstruse policies such as abortion, gender ideology and others. As a result, the powers of evil have made these states, with a few exceptions, part of the kingdoms over which Satan rules. If we add to this the wars and the injustices associated with them, we are faced with a sea of horror, full of corruption and impurity.

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In the sense of ‘discretio’ it is inescapable to face the current crisis in the Church, for how else would we draw the right conclusions to face it as disciples of the Lord? If we ignore it, we will continue to behave as if nothing has changed, and we will end up becoming carriers of modernist errors ourselves. If we even agree with such errors, then, without realising it, we are working on the side of those who want to destroy the Church or transform it into a humanitarian institution, as the philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand so aptly described it. If we remain silent when we see errors, we should take to heart the words of Pope Felix III: “Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it”.

On the other hand, the realisation that the ecclesiastical hierarchy has embarked on a wrong course should not shake us or confuse us to the point of leading us to resignation or to leave the Church and join another denomination. That would be the wrong conclusion. The Catholic Church remains the Church founded by Christ, even when attacked from within and without.

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In yesterday’s meditation, as we delved into the discernment of spirits, we pointed out some drifts of the ecclesiastical hierarchy which can concretely affect the lives of the faithful. But what is even more tragic is the fact that the face of the Church is being distorted in such a way that, instead of being a beacon of the Gospel for the nations, in many areas it is adapting itself to the spirit of the world.

We need to be constantly reminded that the primary task of the Church is to bring people the salvation that the Heavenly Father offers them. In other words, evangelisation, as it has been understood until now, is about the salvation of souls. Man is not able to save himself from his misery, but needs God’s grace, which is offered to him in Jesus Christ. Once he has accepted faith, the Church accompanies the believer with all the means that God has entrusted to her.

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Applying ‘discretion’ as it is understood in ecclesiastical terminology, we have first of all turned our attention to the current situation in the Church. Yesterday’s meditation concluded with some reflections by the philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand, characterised by his gift for discernment. Without adopting extreme positions, he did observe with great precision the harmful tendencies in the Church, especially after the Second Vatican Council.

Hildebrand and others pointed out that the profusion of negative post-conciliar developments could not be explained simply as isolated errors, but that the enemies of the Church set out to destroy it from within or to transform it into a kind of humanitarian institution. The latter is particularly dangerous, because it may not be immediately noticed, thinking that it is a Christian humanism, as in the case of the encyclical Fratelli tutti, which is capable of confusing the faithful.

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The aim of our Lenten meditations is to become better disciples of the Lord, disciples who, with great conviction, bear witness to the love of our Father in these difficult times. His love has been revealed to us in a unique way in His Son Jesus Christ.

Thanks to the Desert Fathers, we have come to know the term “discretion”, which has a broad meaning related to “discernment of spirits”. Discretion thus helps us to distinguish prudently between the good and the bad, the true and the false, the authentic and the artificial. Later we will apply this concept to the spiritual life as well, when we look at how we can live our spiritual life wisely so that it bears much fruit.

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