The gospel for this Sunday has Jesus speaking these words;
"I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."
There are two other texts that contain a similar reference:
- Isaiah 14:12 - "How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations!
- Revelation 12:7 - The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
It may surprise us to realize that the call to Evangelization is a call to warfare, to a spiritual warfare, to be fought here and now in our daily lives. This may be hard to get our heads around given that we are being anesthetized by a growing secularism in our society that has lost all sense of the reality of the spiritual. 'Follow your dream, whatever makes you happy, that's all that matters. Truth is subjective', so it goes.
It's like we are sitting in our rec-room sipping a coffee and munching a cookie, watching T.V. while in and out of our house stretcher bearers are bringing in the wounded on stretchers, as a fierce war rages on outside, and we take no notice, oblivious, continuing watching our program.
The casualties I refer to are those who are loose their faith, their connection with the spiritual life, their connection with the communion they had with their spiritual home; loosing their union in the Spirit with the Father and Jesus - this especially true of the younger generation. They are being dragged down into a world without God.
I recommend you read chapter 12: of the Book of Revelation; its imagery helping us to see what Jesus is seeing.
... a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.
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The Church the Body of Christ.
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... She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.
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The Body of Jesus dying on the cross.
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Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.
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Originally the seven hills of pagan Rome - now the cities of the world, contaminated by atheism, imposing a secular world view.
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The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.
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Mary the first Church and Jesus her son now born into the world.
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And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days. (the days remaining until the Second coming)
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The ascension of Jesus and the Church dispersed to all the world; under the protection of divine providence, never to be destroyed.
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Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.
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And so the Church lives on in this ongoing struggle with the Deceiver and his cleaver lies. "Roaming the world, seeking souls to devour." (Prayer to St. Michael)
Are you in?
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 host, by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan and the other evil spirits who prowl about the world for
the ruin of souls. Amen.
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