A society that revolves around comfort and transitory pleasures is only too eager to deny the existence of the devil who likewise despises the very idea of penance or mortification. It is the devil's first line of defense to convince the world he doesn't exist. In the darkness of our blind disregard, the devil goes about his work in human affairs doing all he can to lead souls away from God and to the service of creatures. Let us give heed to the warning of St. Peter the Apostle: "Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour."
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
For man it is natural to believe. As a child, he naturally trusts his parents and teachers. The idea of doubting what they transmit to him does not even enter his mind. The first tool of knowledge which any man uses to open himself to the world is a simple act of natural faith in the authority of those who teach him.
This act of faith is the foundation of his intellectual life; if it is missing, the garden of knowledge remains forever closed to him.
On becoming an adult, faith does not fade away, but remains of paramount importance. This is particularly true in our times, when communication occupies so much of our lives. Throughout the day, without even noticing it, man multiplies acts of faith – when reading the news, or when asserting his own filiation, or when affirming the existence of God...
There is, however, an area that seems to escape this universality. Man, naturally inclined to believe, has difficulty affirming that he believes in Satan’s existence and interference in human affairs. Out of a misplaced shame, he seems afraid of being mocked.
But what is more surprising is that this kind of repugnance to affirm belief in the devil is found particularly among Catholics, who should know better than anyone that the devil hides in the dark, seeking someone to devour, as St. Peter teaches us.
This kind of shame is, in fact, the first attack of the devil, a leaden weight on the shoulders of he who believes that the devil exists and that he interferes with man’s will to make the sons of Adam fall. Having lost his role of assistant of God, carrying and bringing to us the divine light, he fell into the darkness of hatred and cannot show himself to men as he is without scaring them away.
He must therefore remain hidden and takes special care to make himself be forgotten, to the point of hiding his existence. In the shadows, he can then lay his snares, hatch his plans and enslave souls by distilling the poison of his errors, hiding behind the masks of freemasonry or other back rooms in his pay, where secrecy is always carefully cultivated. Misled by these smokescreens, man is far from suspecting that the devil, prompted by his savage hatred of God and all that carries the sign of God’s love, is at work.
If we were attentive to detect the signs of his presence, we could see his mark in the hedonism that reigns in our world, where man seems to have only one ambition: “to profit”. This world, exalting the search for comforts, constantly and at all costs, carries the mark of Satan, who hates any kind of renouncement and sacrifice.
But the devil is mainly at work in the area of public affairs. With undeniable brilliance, there he deploys all his demonic ability. Modern history, made of successive revolutions, can be understood only if we refer to his poison. He was the soul of the French revolution, which proclaimed the rights of man without any regard for those of God. Refusal to serve God inspired the revolt of those men who followed him closely in his hatred of any form of authority. The same refusal inspires all other such revolts before and after the French revolution.
Infecting politics, he subdues a large number of souls and perverts them by means of iniquitous laws. His foul-smelling breath inspires the laws of death that attack the inviolable laws of life.
Without respite, the devil launches his invisible, but quite real, nets and thus keeps men enslaved. Let us be vigilant: the devil is not a dream, but a living being who, in his hatred of all that carries the name of God, attacks the Church and souls. Our Christian life is a life of combat.
Let us take the weapon of the Rosary, so that Our Lady of Victories may tear off the mask of the devil and bring him down just when, in his foolish pride, he is already celebrating what he believes is his victory.
In Christo Sacerdote et Maria,
Fr. Yves le Roux