inzet viii

In the book of the Apocalypse...

St John speaks of the abyss of which Satan is king [Ap. 9:11]

because he holds the keys to it [ivi 9:1]; when he opened the gates to unleash his henchmen [handlangers] on the world “smoke rose from the shaft as smoke rises from a great furnace, until the sun and the air were darkened.” [ivi 9:2] Demons and infernal vapours arose from hell, spread throughout the earth, penetrated the temple of God. The smoke of Satan anaesthetised, before producing death.

And yet the gates of hell will not prevail, because the gates of Heaven will also be thrown wide, and from them will emerge torrents of grace which purify the air and awaken the sleeping, giving them the strength to fight. The strength of grace reaches us through the sacraments, through the Blessed Virgin Mary, and through the innumerable actual graces we receive and to which we are equal.

From the gates of Heaven also now pour out onto the earth legions of angels in combat with demons. While it is true, as declared by St Thomas, that “all physical things are governed by the Angels”, this means that everything which surrounds us, everything which happens, is governed by the Angels, present at every moment and in every place, protagonist of the divine plans, guides in the struggle against the devil, the world and the flesh in which we engage every day.

The two cities, made up of Angels and men, are always and everywhere close on earth and their clash is therefore continuous and universal. Between them there is no possible compromise. For as long as blood continues to flow, we believe we are at peace. In reality, we are at war.

The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius remind us of the militant attitude of the Christian, called upon to choose from two banners, simply the two cities referred to by St Augustine. St Ignatius and St Augustine merely expound the Gospel maxim that “no-one can serve two masters or he will hate the one and love the other, or vice versa” [Mt 6:24; Lk 16:13].

Our lives are but a moment in this struggle, the story of a relentless war between the servants of the order of God and the followers of infernal chaos. However, St Hildegard of Bingham properly writes that rationality, the highest prerogative of spiritual souls “consists in the possibility of choosing between two sides, embracing the side chosen and rejecting its opposite, because one cannot, in one choice, embrace two conflicting things at the same time.”


~bron~