Top Three Ways Satan Undermines Us
The primary ways that Satan undermines us and our pursuit of virtue and holiness are actually the more subtle and less dramatic, at least when it comes to “undermining” us in our spiritual pursuits.
Distraction: Satan seeks to lure us away from God, and from a focus on God, by simply offering us lots of earthly or lesser goods. The more we follow them, the less we follow God. Eventually, if we follow the earthly and lesser goods for long enough, we grow uninterested in the higher goods. The lesser goods are easier to attain and provide a quick though short-lived pleasure. The greater goods take work, dedication, and sacrifice to attain. The joy and pleasure they bring are less intense and often delayed in arriving. However, those joys and pleasures endure for much longer, even eternally.
By distracting us, we miss our chance to develop the virtues necessary to persevere in faith and achieve our salvation. Instead, we develop vices, which can quite possibly ruin us eternally. Even if this is a mild, and rather ordinary, diabolical attack, the end will be the same: if we grow cold in faith, and stay cold in faith for long enough, we will never recover. In the end, we will lose all fervor and, when the great test comes, we will fail miserably. Then the devil’s mild offensive will achieve its desired end: our damnation or, at the minimum, the reduction of the glory we could have attained in Heaven.
Disrupting Family Life: If Satan can disrupt the home, he can, with high likelihood, ruin the children and the parents for the foreseeable future. The home is the domestic Church, where the children are brought into the world, into the life of grace, into the path of salvation, and into an understanding of how to live a truly good life. If the devil can break up these pillars of the home life, he can remove, or block, or spoil those things which are at the core of the strength of the soul.
He has done this so well today, with the surrender of the intellectual formation of the children to the black box which runs most homes today. The indoctrination of an “anti-culture,” an ideology of undoing, of desacralizing, is infused into most movies, television, and popular entertainment. It then brings a message of sin, of self-will and pride, and of materialism and worldliness. If parents surrender the responsibility to raise their children well, Satan will have gained a great and enduring victory over the children. This will also impact the parents, whose obligations not being fulfilled will place them on a path away from maintaining a life of grace.
Marrying the Wrong Person: Since most people are called to married life, as the natural vocation, distinct from the supernatural vocations of Priesthood and the Religious Life, the selection of a spouse is a key decision which will create a new foundation in the person’s life, establishing a pillar upon which the life of the soul will rest. If this foundation is rotten, or if this pillar is weak, the person’s life could be set up, from that point forward, for a disastrous ruin.
Regarding the spouses themselves, the purpose of marriage is to join your life to someone else’s in order to aid, and find aid, in the pursuit of perfection and salvation. If you marry someone who is not Catholic, or who is not virtuous, or who is not seeking Heaven, then you will risk dragging yourself down from the spiritual heights which you should be pursuing. Married life is a shared culture, a shared perspective, shared habits, shared goals, shared dreams, and shared consequences. Each person will influence the other according to what they each hold dear and desire to attain in life.
Critical elements to focus on are the formation of the individual in faith and virtue, and the instruction and prudence of the individual such that they know how to make the right decision when the time comes. Far too many people are raised without virtue, wisdom, Truth, prudence, and self-discipline, and look for a spouse that makes them feel good, not one who will help them be good.
Distraction: Satan seeks to lure us away from God, and from a focus on God, by simply offering us lots of earthly or lesser goods. The more we follow them, the less we follow God. Eventually, if we follow the earthly and lesser goods for long enough, we grow uninterested in the higher goods. The lesser goods are easier to attain and provide a quick though short-lived pleasure. The greater goods take work, dedication, and sacrifice to attain. The joy and pleasure they bring are less intense and often delayed in arriving. However, those joys and pleasures endure for much longer, even eternally.
By distracting us, we miss our chance to develop the virtues necessary to persevere in faith and achieve our salvation. Instead, we develop vices, which can quite possibly ruin us eternally. Even if this is a mild, and rather ordinary, diabolical attack, the end will be the same: if we grow cold in faith, and stay cold in faith for long enough, we will never recover. In the end, we will lose all fervor and, when the great test comes, we will fail miserably. Then the devil’s mild offensive will achieve its desired end: our damnation or, at the minimum, the reduction of the glory we could have attained in Heaven.
Disrupting Family Life: If Satan can disrupt the home, he can, with high likelihood, ruin the children and the parents for the foreseeable future. The home is the domestic Church, where the children are brought into the world, into the life of grace, into the path of salvation, and into an understanding of how to live a truly good life. If the devil can break up these pillars of the home life, he can remove, or block, or spoil those things which are at the core of the strength of the soul.
He has done this so well today, with the surrender of the intellectual formation of the children to the black box which runs most homes today. The indoctrination of an “anti-culture,” an ideology of undoing, of desacralizing, is infused into most movies, television, and popular entertainment. It then brings a message of sin, of self-will and pride, and of materialism and worldliness. If parents surrender the responsibility to raise their children well, Satan will have gained a great and enduring victory over the children. This will also impact the parents, whose obligations not being fulfilled will place them on a path away from maintaining a life of grace.
Marrying the Wrong Person: Since most people are called to married life, as the natural vocation, distinct from the supernatural vocations of Priesthood and the Religious Life, the selection of a spouse is a key decision which will create a new foundation in the person’s life, establishing a pillar upon which the life of the soul will rest. If this foundation is rotten, or if this pillar is weak, the person’s life could be set up, from that point forward, for a disastrous ruin.
Regarding the spouses themselves, the purpose of marriage is to join your life to someone else’s in order to aid, and find aid, in the pursuit of perfection and salvation. If you marry someone who is not Catholic, or who is not virtuous, or who is not seeking Heaven, then you will risk dragging yourself down from the spiritual heights which you should be pursuing. Married life is a shared culture, a shared perspective, shared habits, shared goals, shared dreams, and shared consequences. Each person will influence the other according to what they each hold dear and desire to attain in life.
Critical elements to focus on are the formation of the individual in faith and virtue, and the instruction and prudence of the individual such that they know how to make the right decision when the time comes. Far too many people are raised without virtue, wisdom, Truth, prudence, and self-discipline, and look for a spouse that makes them feel good, not one who will help them be good.
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