The Devil Went Down To Georgia (And Louisiana And Oklahoma And….)

Mandeville, LA – What fun would it be for grown men to stack a alphabet blocks in the correct order or dunk a basketball on a 4 foot high goal? Not much unless you are playing with your kids aznd claiming victories you couldn’t when you were there age (cheater!). In a similar manner, what fun is it for Moloch and Ba’al to pick off the souls of Tinder users, the stars of Trainspotting II or Rosie O’Donnell? The real game worth pursuing are those few souls who have try and escape the diabolical sewage we call a culture and pursue the Narrow Gate Christ told us of. Pick off one of those and you get to mount that carcass on the wall of your demon cave next to the Fathead™ of Christopher Hitchens.

There’s no such thing as Tuesday darkness, there is just darkness. And there is no such thing as Tuesday candle light, there is just candle light.

I write this as prelude to those devout souls including my friends D. & R. (names withheld) and xthe proprietor of the website One Peter Five, Steve Skojec. My friends are trying to lead by example and are constantly told by “friends” and some in authority that they must abandon the Magisterium, their rightful position to object to false doctrines and much more. I’ve seen the result of this pressure and it drops me to my knees in both awe of their piety and sympathy for their pain. We can read of Skojec’s similar pain in his “Stand Fast” essay.

I don’t know about all of you, but lately I’ve not been in a very good state of mind. Everything feels harder than it used to. The battle, which was always fought uphill, has begun to appear almost futile. Trials and difficulties have seeped into all the various facets of life — work, family, expenses, the lived experience of the faith — making each burden feel heavier than it would have felt alone. I have the sense — and I know that I am not alone — that chaos and discord are being intentionally sown right in the midst of the people I hold most dear, all while something cruel and defiant whispers in my ear that none of it matters. Nothing matters. Just give up.

And then there’s this:

“Why are we still fighting this fight?” I wonder. “Does it even matter anymore? What more could we say that hasn’t already been said? What could we expose that lies hidden?” Deep down, I know the truth: it does matter, and doesn’t, and really, it’s both things at the same time. It’s not as though God needs me to help Him carry out His work. But He seems to have wanted me to. Does He still?

In both cases I see the work of Moloch, seething with lust for these souls, knowing that failure will bring the rebuke of Uncle Screwtape. I wager there are more than a few of you, dealing with these same assaults, I am in that number. To all I say “congratulations, you’ve gotten the enemy’s attention and that’s precisely what we’re supposed to do as members of The Church Militant. In correspondence to my friend’s I wrote the following and offer it to Mr. Skojec et al.

“You’re over the target and the enemy won’t have it. You’re in the fight with the Church Militant just as it should be, the pall of darkness covering Holy Church is just that: darkness-an absence of the Light-when your power goes out at midnight, what do you do? Light candles and turn on flashlights that you had placed around the house for such an occasion. The Light of the Church, the teaching Light, the spotless bride, is still here and it shines in your kids and your apostolate, nay, your CRUSADES; and just like the candle and the flashlight, it is there TO be used when needed. As Chesterton might say, the buyer of candles expects the guarantee of darkness to be a guarantee tonight AND tomorrow night; there’s no such thing as Tuesday darkness, there is just darkness. And there is no such thing as Tuesday candle light, there is just candle light.

If that doesn’t work, my cousin Patrick always tells me: ‘Dude, this too shall pass.'”

Our Lord himself told us this would happen so why are we anything but happy when it does? It means the Devil has come over to where you are, in fear and hatred of your success which the pious know is actually His success. When the attacks stop it could be that Moloch has moved on to other prey or that a new assault is being planned over diabolically inspired Stratego pieces. Recall the advice of Cornelius Lapide (h/t Brother André Marie).

“The strong man then, in this passage, is the devil; the house is the world; the vessels are his arms; his goods, his instruments. The arms of the devil are frauds, deceits and allurements by which he entices men to sin; his arms are wealth, honours, riches. They are also inferior demons and wicked men, says S. Chrysostom. These the devil uses against us, to tempt and vex us. His goods are the souls of sinners, and the bodies of the possessed; also the souls of the Fathers detained in Limbo before Christ. All these Christ wrested and snatched away from the devil, and bound him in hell.”

These trials come to us because the pride of Satan is swelling with his unprecedented success in the age of apostasy if not outright blasphemy in which we live. Friends, give thanks the enemy has found you and pray for your number to increase.

“The Devil went down to Georgia,

he was lookin’ for a soul to steal;

He was in a bind, ’cause he was way behind,

and was willin’ to make a deal”

TheKingDude

Host of the Mike Church Show on The Veritas Radio Network's CRUSADE Channel & Founder of the Veritas Radio Network. Formerly, of Sirius/XM's Patriot channel 125. The show began in March of 2003 exclusively on Sirius and remains "the longest running radio talk show in satellite radio history".

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