Using the right weapons in the battle against evil

Sister Lúcia, one of the visionaries of Fatima, is reported to have said in an interview that “the final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family.” She calls this “the decisive issue” in the struggle against evil. 

In military parlance, a decisive battle is a strategic engagement which not only determines the outcome of the war, but has lasting social, political, and religious import beyond the battlefield.

When historians discuss impactful battles in world history, the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 generally tops the list. The fate of Europe rested in the balance. Pope Pius V asked Catholics around the world to pray the Rosary and beseech Our Lady for victory. Although outnumbered nearly 2-to-1 by the Muslim fleet, the more disciplined crews of the Holy League defeated the invading Turks by superior use of both tactics and technology, not to mention favorable winds. They deployed new, more maneuverable ships that shot cannon balls rather than followed traditional tactics of archery and ram-and-board. 

The strategy worked. So miraculous was the Christian defeat of the numerically superior enemy that this battle was called “the greatest naval victory since Pharaoh’s army was drowned in the Red Sea.”

News of victory reached King Philip on All Souls Day. The king, who was at prayer, immediately ordered the choir to sing the Te Deum, an ancient chant of praise and thanksgiving to God. Notice the spiritual armaments deployed: Rosary and liturgy. 

The final words of the Holy League commander before going into battle ring true today. “Gentlemen,” he is reported to have said, “this is the time for combat, not for counsel.” We are living in a time where the attack on marriage and family is more than a philosophical debate about ideologies. This battle is deliberate and decisive. The late Jesuit writer and theologian Fr. John Hardon, perhaps prophetically for our day, said that the “the demonic zeal of Marxism” is the root cause of the decline of the family. Victory, he believed, requires “Catholic families living up to the teachings of Christ and His Church.” That is, the best spiritual armor is a return to tradition in both orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right practice). 

Those Catholic families who survive this present battle, cautioned Fr. Hardon, “must be extraordinary” and “heroic.” Ordinary Catholic families, he said, “are no match for the devil as he uses the media of communication to secularize and desacralize modern society.” By extraordinary, he means holy. Holiness is the cannonball of the spiritual battle. Outnumbered, we must learn to outmaneuver. 

The family is the domestic church, and as the family goes, so also the Church. According to Fr. Hardon, “where the Christian family — the Catholic Christian family — is strong, the Catholic Church is strong.” He explains:

The only Catholic families that will remain alive and thriving . . . are the families of martyrs. Father, mother and children must be willing to die for their God-given convictions. What the world most needs today is families of martyrs, who will reproduce themselves in spirit in spite of the diabolical hatred against family life by the enemies of Christ and His Church in our day.

When the Blessed Mother gave the Rosary to St. Dominic 200 years before Lepanto, she used martial language. “Do you know what weapon,” she said, “the Most Holy Trinity wants to use to reform the world?” She explained that “in this kind of warfare the battering ram has always been the Angelic Psalter, which is the cornerstone of the New Testament. So, if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them to God, preach my Psalter!” 

We fight an ancient enemy, and the ancient weapons are best.