Last Sunday the liturgy led us into a low desert where we beheld Jesus in His Human Nature.

Today, we are led up to a high mountain where we are allowed to catch a faint glimpse of Jesus in His Divine Nature (Gospel). By this vision of Divinity on Thabor, Jesus wished to prepare the Apostles and us for the daily crucifixion of our humanity on the Calvery of Life. This lesson is our incentive against discouragement or failure.

The Epistle indicates that the Christian life is not so much a series of commandments. Rather, it is a walking in the presence of God. “Your sanctification” is interior, “possessing the vessel” of your soul and body free from pride and lust. It is social too to the extent of helping one’s neighbour, for “The Lord is the avenger” of deception among men.

Our lives are never without temptations. The devils are always ready and waiting for the opportune moment to make us fall. If we ever perceive that we are not being tempted then we should truly begin to worry. The devils have no need to entice those who are already fallen and are not struggling to rise again. We do not say these things to lead us into despair or hopelessness, but rather to encourage us. Being tempted is a sign that we are doing something right or well; and that is very upsetting to the devils. The greater our love for God grows, the greater the assaults from Hell become.

We have not only the example of Jesus in today’s Gospel, but our Holy Mother the Church presents us with the lives of so many Saints. St. John Marie Vianney, the Curé of Ars, gives us a wonderful insight into the workings of the demons. The greater the assaults of the devils were against this humble priest the more he would rejoice. The demonic attacks meant to the Curé that he would soon recall a great sinner to the path of virtue. He would often tease the devils when their attacks became the most violent saying that he welcomed them knowing that he would soon catch a big fish (sinner).

The Desert Fathers speak of a vision a man had where he saw a single demon perched over the city, but there were swarms of devils all about the monastery. This vision was explained in that it only took one demon to keep all the people in the city on the path to Hell. In fact, this one demon, more often than not, had absolutely nothing to do. On the other hand, in the monastery where men were constantly seeking to please God and to increase their love for God there were never enough demons to deter them. The harder we strive and the closer we draw to God the greater become the attacks of the demons. The further we wander from God the less the demons tempt or attack. We can in a sense then, gauge our spiritual life by the temptations that we suffer. The greater and the more that we suffer the closer we are to God and the less that we suffer the further we are from Him.

There are three parts to the Mystical Body of Christ: The Church Triumphant, the Church Suffering, and the Church Militant. We belong to the last, the Church Militant. We are engaged in a constant warfare. The battle is for our souls; the love and affections of our hearts. God wants and demands all our love and the devils only need to get us to turn away from God in some little way. It does not matter to the demons if they get us to worship devils, men, ourselves or any other creature. They succeed if they can get us to put anything above God.

Our days here on this earth are numbered, so the demons only have a short window of opportunity to destroy us. Very often as our days on this earth are drawing to a close their attacks become the most vicious because, they hate the thought of another soul entering into the eternal happiness of Heaven. As our bodies grow old and become weaker all too often the demonic attacks increase. If we have spent our lives well, we have grown accustomed to subduing these assaults so that it becomes second nature to us, and there is little that the devils can do other than intensify their attacks. We can then say with St. Paul that we have fought the good fight. Sadly though, there are few that have spent their lives well, and so the assaults in these last moments often are more than they can or are willing to resist.

In this life long battle, we must always fight. If we find that we have nothing to fight then we should really begin to question our love of God. Do we really love Him with all our heart, mind and soul? Temptations are one of the daily crosses that Jesus invites us to take up. He would have us fight this battle every day. We may find that we fall very often. Let us not grow weary or despondent, but rather look to Jesus when He fell on the way to Calvary, and get up and start all over again. It is only hopeless for those who are already in Hell. If we are not in Hell then we may still hope and we may still succeed. God is ever ready with His grace, if we will call upon Him and make use of the tools (sacraments, penances, prayers, etc.) that He has placed at our disposal.

This season of Lent let us; train, retrain, or strengthen ourselves for these battles. We must remind ourselves that we are in the greatest of all wars and we must be prepared to fight even to our dying breath. It is not all gloom and doom in this war, because if we fight for God, He is on our side. Who can oppose us or overcome us if we are with God?! Even if all the devils in Hell attack, they are helpless and are as nothing in the face of God. We must also remind ourselves that God will never allow us to be tempted beyond our strength. He always gives us the necessary grace and means to successfully fight off every single attack. We only need to call on Him and make use of the spiritual weapons He has given us.

The Requiem for Pauline will be celebrated next MONDAY 19th FEBRUARY at 2.30pm at Ss Peter & Paul and St Philomena, Atherton Street, New Brighton. 

Refreshments in the Presbytery straight after Mass, since the Ceremony at the cemetery will take place hopefully the following week.

The Spring 2018 edition is now available and members should have had their copy this weekend.

Not a member? Well pick a copy up in many churches and cathedrals around the country!

In this issue:

• Caroline Shaw reports on the ICKSP Pilgrimage to Fatima led by Cardinal Burke
• Fr Christopher Basden remembers the late Fr Michael Clifton
• Canon Martin Edwards reports on a traditional pilgrimage to the Holy Land
• Alan Frost writes on the history of settings of the Stabat Mater
• Damian Barker reports on the Young Catholic Adults retreat at Douai Abbey
• Canon Amaury Montjean ICKSP welcomes the Sisters to Preston
• The Catholic Medical Association’s Committee for the New Evangelization introduce their forthcoming Conference.

And much, much, more. See HERE for details!

We are at the threshold of the Lenten season. This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. It is a time of prayer and penance.

St. Paul has laid out for us the attitude that we should have as we enter this season. We must enter with undying Charity. In Charity we receive the truth, and believe, and endure all things. Jesus was motivated by love for us as He freely and willingly went into Jerusalem to suffer and die so that we may live.

Our Holy Mother the Church will have us follow Jesus at least in spirit as we enter the season of Lent. It is a time for us to do penance, but not just penance tolerated, it should be penance embraced and lovingly sought after.

What Jesus went into Jerusalem to suffer was unimaginable and so it was that even though He spoke clearly the Apostles did not understand Him. This was hidden from their eyes until they were filled with God’s grace.

We too often find it incomprehensible that Jesus – the Son of God – had to suffer so much. As we consider the sufferings of Jesus we are brought to a reflection of the malice and evilness of our sins. It was for our sins that the suffering of Jesus was necessary. We are asked to strive for a complete hatred and detestation of our sins, as we come to understand the heinousness of them.

With this hatred for our sins we are asked to do penance for them. This hatred though is balanced by Charity. We are reminded that we must do penance for the love of God. The love of God goes hand in hand with the hatred for our sins. In this spirit we find it a pleasure to do penance because it gives us a means to join our sufferings with Jesus and attest to our hatred for our rebellion (sin) against God.

In our sins we are like the blind man sitting by the wayside begging. The sinner is truly blind to the truth and he lives his life in a virtual reality – imagining all is well in his sins. He is much to be pitied because unless his eyes are opened to his own real misfortune he will never seek to remove himself from his misfortune.

Thus it is necessary for us sinners to imitate the blind man in today’s Gospel. We must cry out in our prayers for Jesus the Son of David to have mercy upon us. In this prayer of ours we will discover the same difficulty that this blind man found. As the blind man cried out the people tried to silence him and his importunity. Likewise, our sins and the devils will attempt to silence our prayers to God. The evil within us and the evil outside us will all conspire to silence any and all prayers that we attempt to make.

It is necessary that at this juncture when our prayers are full of distractions or we are tempted to think that our prayers are useless or a waste of time that we renew our faith and imitation of this blind man; and cry out all the louder in our prayers.

It is this faith that encourages the blind man’s boldness and importunity. It is this man’s importunity that causes Jesus to stop His travels and have the blind man brought to Him, and hears his request and grants the miracle that he seeks.

This, I think, is the method that we must use to overcome so many obstacles in our prayers and penances. We must ignore and block out the “reasonableness” of the world and the devils. We must cry out louder and louder in our prayers and penances. Rather than to do less, we must do more.

Let us approach the Lenten season lovingly and willingly. Let us embrace penance for the love of God and hatred for our past sins. Let us increase our faith so that we will unashamedly pray and do penance with increasing fervor as the temptations increase to try and stop us.

May the blind man in today’s Gospel intercede for us so that we may receive the grace of loving perseverance and fortitude in all our prayers and penances.