Throughout the history of salvation we learn of a reality called the false prophet. These are those who tell the people peace and security when the true prophet tells them that unless they repent they will suffer from war and unrest. The false prophet is there to lead people to embrace the leadership of those who reject God and who seek to lead people to a human concept of political expediency and peace. Yet, it always turns out to be a house built on sand.

Probably, the best example is found in prophets of Ba’al sworn to the most evil queen in history: Jezebel, a woman so evil her name means evil. In each case the false prophets tried to undermine the power of God and even lead people astray from it.

Recently, we learn of a group of people who spent millions of dollars in an attempt to accomplish in present day Catholics what the false prophets always worked to do in the old testament. The report from St. Michael’s Media outlines an attempt to stage a coup of the Catholic Church seeking to change Catholic loyalty in favor of less than Catholic political agendas.

What does this reality teach us but to ask ourselves: Who are we? Who are we that there is a movement to change our hearts and our loyalties in light of how we live the gospel so that we are against Christ and His Church. That is a key question, because, by default, it leads us to realize that we are a unique group of people, so unique that certain members of the super rich elite sought to buy our loyalties. Their attempt, which failed, cost millions and millions of dollars. Let this be an important lesson, you and I are not just extras on the world stage. We are baptized Catholics whose very existence affects this world.

Let us look at the gospel. Jesus sends out the seventy-two disciples and when they return they learn of the great power they have in Jesus’ name. This is a common theme throughout the New Testament.  In fact, in the Acts of the Apostles, this is a story of some religious leaders who try to cast our demons in their own name and they are beaten to a pulp because they did not act in Jesus’ name, who alone is sovereign.

The seventy-two disciples realize that in Jesus’ name they have the power to heal, the power to cast out demons, but they also have to discover the most important power they have, the power to change hearts from those filled with sin, to humble repentant hearts. These are great powers available to the disciples of Christ. Further, notice that Jesus tells the seventy-two that if they are rejected, then they have the power to issue a curse upon those who reject them. They are to warn them if they don’t repent, their fate is worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrah. By the way, priests have a form of this power in confession for the unrepentant sinner, when they tell him they will not give absolution, it is amazing how powerful that statement is in the life of an unrepentant sinner.

Therefore, do not take your faith for granted. The minute you were baptized, you received a power that makes you a representative of the Kingdom of God and that makes you an agent in the plan of salvation. However that same power, makes you a target by all who seek to separate the human race from God. Whether they be heretical forces, secular forces, political forces or even demonic forces, these forces hate you, and will do whatever it takes to undermine your ability to serve God, save for divine intervention. This means that everything you are, you represent and live as a faithful Catholic is powerful.

Peter Maurin used to call the teaching of the Catholic Church the most powerful form of dynamite there is, one that is of greater power than any other political force on Earth. So it should not surprise us that there are those who spend millions upon millions of dollars to silence our voice.

Therefore, what is important here is to know just who you are by virtue of your baptism. There is power in your prayer, there is power in your faithfulness, there is power in your receiving of absolution, there is power in your bible study, there is power in your obedience to Catholic teaching, there is power in your devotion to Mary, there is power to your attending mass, receiving the Eucharist, there is power in your testifying to your faith and to Christ’s resurrection. That power scares people who seek to silence us. However, remember the words of the book of Genesis where God warns that the woman will crush the serpent’s head while the serpent strikes at her heal. Those forces seeking to destroy us, may strike at our heal, but they will not survive, for they cannot over come us. The power that we live, just as in the case of the seventy-two, comes from Christ. In him we breath, move and have our being.

Do not be surprised that there are forces in this world seeking to kidnap your heart and to lead you astray. Embrace that power available to you by embracing Christ, live in that power by living Christ and know that the ends of that power are not the defeat of our enemies, but a change of their hearts that they may repent and find salvation. For if they defeat us, they do not win, they lose. It is when we defeat those forces to whom they pledge allegiance, those forces that seek our destruction and then that of our persecutors that we all win and we can only do that by embracing Christ, as did the seventy-two.

God Bless You,
Fr. Robert J Carr

Photo Credits:
All Photos via BigStockPhoto.com

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Middle: Judwick

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Fr. Carr is an alliance member of the New Song Community (Canção Nova). He is the pastor of St. Benedict Parish in Somerville, MA is the editor of this blog.