7 Spiritual Weapons - St. Catherine of Bologna

These notes are contained in her one written work, the "Treatise on the Seven Spiritual Weapons" in which Catherine teaches that to combat evil it is necessary:

"(1) to be careful always to do good;
(2) to believe that we can never achieve anything truly good by ourselves;
(3) to trust in God and, for His love, never to fear the battle against evil, either in the world or in ourselves;
(4) to meditate frequently on the events and words of Jesus' life, especially His passion and death;
(5) to remember that we must die;
(6) to keep the benefits of heaven firmly in our minds,
(7) to be familiar with Holy Scripture, keeping it in our hearts to guide all our thoughts and actions".

Vatican Information Service: CATHERINE OF BOLOGNA: SPIRITUAL WEAPONS AGAINST EVIL

International Pro-Obama "Catholic" Comment

The following comment was in my mailbox for approval. This one needs a public response.

"I write to you from London, Canada and as a practising Catholic. I am praying Mr. Obama becomes your next President. No one, not even Bishops, can enter into the territory of who will be the ones to be judged and going to hell because of how they voted. Frankly, I am astounded by this suggestion. Haven't we and countless clergy heard over and over again not to judge least we be judged. Who knows the mind of God?

Surely you aren't one of those neanderthals who believe Our Lord was a Republican.

Yes, abortion is a grave concern but no more than your capital punishment, the slaughter of so many due to an immoral war and the blind refusal of some to even listen to proper health care for the many who are dying without it. No, I pray Mr. Obama is your next President and I do not fear Judgment Day.

Linda Sadlowski"

It's tragic that someone who is a Catholic is praying that an advocate of death will be a neighboring country's next president.

We Catholics and other people of faith are praying for this upcoming election. We are praying that the United States be protected against evil. We pray that a president who will protect the unborn will be elected. We pray that the Holy Spirit guides us when we enter the voting booth. We are not invoking God to help make any specific candidate the next president.

We pray that we do God's will.

As for judging. You would have done well to have watched Fr. John Corapi's special election talk from 2004 last evening. It is our duty to follow the corporal and spiritual acts of mercy. One of these acts is instructing the ignorant. If a Catholic doesn't understand the gravity of sin in voting for a pro-death candidate and we do not enlighten them to this fact, we are culpable in their sin as much as they are.

As Fr. Corapi has said over and over, this nation (the United States of America) is no longer guilty of murder, our nation is guilty of genocide! The mass killing of innocents.

Abortion is more than a "grave concern". It is a matter of life or death for an innocent child...a helpless baby. You cannot compare the heinous crime of abortion with punishing a guilty adult of murder! Even the church does not condemn the death penalty.

...and I will pray that the Blessed Mother under her title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, protectress of the unborn and the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the United States, cover this nation with her mantle and protect us from further evil, especially on November 4th, election day.

PRAYER TO DEFEAT THE WORK OF SATAN

O Divine Eternal Father, in union with your Divine Son and the Holy Spirit, and through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg You to destroy the power of your greatest enemy -- the evil spirits. Cast them in to the deepest recesses of hell and chain them there forever! Take possession of Your Kingdom, which You have created and which is rightfully Yours.

Heavenly Father, give us the reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I repeat this prayer out of pure love for You with every beat of my heart and with every breath that I take. Amen.

Imprimatur, March 1973, +Richard H. Ackerman
Bishop of Covington

Shared by Sue

Spiritual Warfare - The Occult Has Demonic Influence

If you recall, yesterday I posted that sacramentals are part of the Church's arsenal. Well, arsenal against what you may ask? It is against the devil, demons and all kinds of evil ready to attack humans and have them lose their souls forever.

The following article is on Catholic Culture and was written by Bishop Donald Montrose, D.D.

By the "occult," we are speaking of some supra-human or supernatural influence that is not from God. We commonly associate the occult with that which has demonic influence.

In the United States today the occult has become much more popular than it was twenty years ago. Today, there is popular Satanic music, Satanic street gangs, an increase in Satanic worship, a more widespread use of the horoscope and study of the signs of the zodiac, and Satanic games that can be purchased. In spite of this, many people do not take the occult seriously. They laugh off the notion of the Power of Evil as actually being a part of the "real" world in which we live.

I hope you take the time to read the article in its entirety. It is extremely informative and something that I recommend everyone should read, regardless of their religion.

...The Evil One can tempt us, but he cannot touch us directly unless we open the door for him. We should not fear Satan nor should we be constantly looking for him in the ordinary happenings of our life...

In his article Bishop Montrose covers many aspects of the occult and its many kinds of practices. I would like to share with you the following on Santeria. Those of you who are Hispanic may be familiar with this blend of Catholicism and voodoo-like healing popular in some Caribbean islands.

CURING SICKNESS THROUGH SUPERSTITION ("CURANDEROS" AND "SANTEROS")

It doesn't matter if there are statues, holy water, crucifixes, prayers to Jesus, Mary and the saints, if there is any superstitious practice it is evil. These are some examples:

--using charms or a tomato to wash one's body, putting the remainder under the bed,

--cleaning one's body with eggs or lemons and burning the materials with charcoal,

--using rose water and alcohol for healing. (In one case this was prepared by placing a skeleton in the water for six hours, followed by singing and praying over the water.)

Sometimes a "curandero" gives a special vitamin to take or even prescribes "Catholic" prayers to be said. None of these "prayers" should be said in these circumstances because they were prepared under the influence of evil.

Other examples include:

--taking a special bath prepared with wine, flowers, bread, cinnamon, black sugar, and water from a river.

--wrapping a person in a special bandage, cutting off piece by piece, and burying it in a recent grave in the cemetery.

These are just a few of the superstitions used, but there are many more.

Sometimes people pray to God and to the saints and then go off seeking relief through the kingdom of darkness. Many times God does not heal through prayer or doctors because He wants the soul to be healed first of hatred, jealousy, or some other sin. God knows what He is doing. We have to choose either the power of God or the power of evil. If you have any objects used in these false cures, destroy them. Renounce Satan, renounce this sin, ask God's forgiveness and confess your sin to a priest.

My husband and I know from personal experience how getting involved with New Age healers can lead to an unsettling of one's spirit and sometimes even death. Someone we knew and who was in a lot of physical and chronic pain, got involved with a Reiki Master healer. He ultimately killed himself thereby devastating his family.

If only people would realize how dangerous it is to get involved in even perceived harmless little things like reading the daily horoscopes, or any little superstitions. The devil just needs a little crack in the door to one's soul and he will gleefully accept that tiny invitation.

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host -
by the Divine Power of God -
cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,
who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen.

- Pope Leo XIII

Those Who Foster in the Hearts of Children Indifference for the BVM

Consider the Blasphemies of those who openly seek to foster in the hearts of children indifference or contempt, and even hatred for our Immaculate Mother.

With all the power at his command, the Archfiend wants to deny the Virgin the opportunity to use her children as agents of grace. To achieve this end, he would first render her maternal womb infertile, barren, robbing her of those future conduits of grace, performing, in effect, a spiritual abortion. What he would like to do is completely deprive the Holy Spirit of any future means of sanctifying the Chosen by corrupting the children and turning them away from her, and even against her. This is the terrible iniquity which is the fourth sin and the fourth stage in this conflict between Mary and Lucifer announced in Genesis, “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed;” (Gen. 3:15).

Removing little ones from her side before they can be nurtured into fully-developed enlistees in her cause, the Devil would strip her of her Motherhood and deprive the Holy Ghost of this conduit of grace. By negation, this crime confirms the truth of our Faith whereby we believe that the Sanctifier does indeed save souls through the spiritual maternity of His Immaculate Spouse.

St. Maximilian Kolbe affirmed this belief in his typically concise manner: “Till the end of the world it will be the task of the Holy Ghost to form the new members predestined to glory in the Mystical Body of Christ”. As St. de Montfort shows, “this task is carried to completion with Mary, in Mary and through Mary.”

How many souls will be cast into Hell in the future because of this sin?

By Sue

Three Ways to Fight the Devil

According to Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, one can fight the Devil with the following three ways. It is because the Devil hates them!

1. The Holy Name of Jesus -
Picture source: Moniales - Dominican Nuns


2. The Precious Blood of Jesus -

and the


3. Through our Blessed Mother of God -