Meditations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhaCjUGamjk By Joseph Pronechen , NC Register In 1947, Archbishop Fulton Sheen forewarned what no one thought possible for these times. Setting the Stage Far-seeing Archbishop Sheen said that the anti-Christ will not be called by that name, “otherwise he would have no followers.” Same for the way he, the devil, is depicted such as in cartoons because he “will wear no red tights, nor vomit sulphur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrow tail as the Mephistopheles in Faust.” Nowhere does Scripture give us this idea of his appearance, Sheen emphasized. But it twists into an unlikely instrument. “This masquerade has helped the devil convince men that he does not exist,” Sheen revealed, setting the stage. The devil “knows that he is never so strong as when men believe that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises.  God has defined Himself as I am Who am and the devil as ‘I am who am not.’” Has the masquerade worked since 1947? Let’s look at what the Center for Research on the Apostolate (CARA) noted in 2017 by looking over past and then current studies. CARA reported that in 1968 Gallup asked adults if they believe there is or is not a devil. 60% believed, 35% didn’t, and 5% weren’t sure. By 1982, Gallup carried on the survey at CARA’s request. Then 70% believed. Same for 2007. But CARA asked what they believed, and a survey four years later shockingly found that overall, 69% of all who believed in God believed the devil was only a symbol, while breakdowns showed even more shockingly that it appeared 83% of Catholics thought Satan was a symbol. (Of Catholics considered conservatives, 53% believed the devil was real, while of Catholics considered moderates only 49% thought so.) In a 2017 newspaper interview in Spain, the new superior general of the Society of Jesus said, “We have formed symbolic figures such as the devil to express evil. Social conditioning can also represent this figure, since there are people who act [in an evil way] because they are in an environment where it is difficult to act to the contrary.” But Sheen knew the devil is not a symbol. “Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, and as ‘“the Prince of this world’ whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world,” he said, referring to Scripture. “His logic is simple:  if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgement then evil is good and good is evil.” Stepping aside for a moment, we should also remember Our Lord’s words. Jesus made it perfectly clear when he described him: He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies. Sheen then reminded that Our Lord told us that this devil, the anti-Christ, “will be so much like Himself, that he would deceive even the elect — and certainly no devil we have ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect.” St. Paul wasn’t fooled either. He warned the Corinthians about those false ones infiltrating their numbers that (2, 11:14) “even Satan masquerades as an angel of light.” So how might the anti-Christ look and get followers to his “anti-religion”? False Front “He will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves,” Bishop Sheen warned. “He will write books on the new idea of God to suit the way people live; induce faith in astrology so as to make not the will but the stars responsible for sins; he will explain guilt away psychologically as inhibited eroticism, make men shrink in shame if their fellowmen say they are not broadminded and liberal; he will be so broadminded as to identify tolerance with indifference to right and wrong, truth and error; he will spread the lie that men will never be better until they make society better and thus have selfishness to provide fuel for the next revolution; he will foster science but only to have armament makers use one marvel of science to destroy another; he will foster more divorces under the disguise that another partner is ‘vital’; he will increase love for love and decrease love for person; he will invoke religion to destroy religion; he will even speak of Christ and say that he was the greatest man who ever lived; his mission he will say will be to liberate men from the servitudes of superstition and Fascism, which he will never define.” Much sounds familiar today, doesn’t it? That word “tolerance” blankets society. Pew Research reported last October that, by denomination, that 33% of Catholics believed in astrology, 36% in reincarnation, 46% in psychics. Also last October Pew reported that 76% of Catholics wanted the Church to allow birth control, 61% wanted to allow cohabiting couples to receive Communion, 62% to allow those divorced and remarried without an annulment to receive Communion, 46% to recognize gay/lesbian marriages. Love has deteriorated to Hollywood-record-television definitions. Match them up with what Sheen just described. Same Old Temptations Far-sighted Bishop Sheen showed how we servants are like the Master as he described the anti-Christ’s using the three temptations with which he tried to tempt Christ in the desert. By the way, Jesus was not tempted in the desert by a symbolic figure as some have come to believe. First, “the temptation to turn stones into bread as an earthly Messiah will become the temptation to sell freedom for security, as bread became a political weapon, and only those who think his way may eat.” Some dictatorships have laid the groundwork with this. Or, we…