Quis ut Deus

by Cima de Conegliano

Picture Source

Who is like God?

According to Father Charles Arminjon, the above was the war-cry uttered in heaven at the very beginning of time. This was cried out right from the moment when Lucifer the most "dazzling and radiant of the archangels" rebelled against God and became the ugliest and basest of the devils.

"There was then a great battle, in which truth and justice triumphed. The archangel Michael drew attention to the excellence and dignity of the Most High God. He reminded the good angels of the beneficence of Him who had created them... he kept them in fidelity and submission by saying to them, 'Quis ut Deus? Who is like God?'"...

At the time Father wrote his book The End of the Present World, (that is to say in 1881) he enjoined Christians to utter that battle-cry in order to awake the complacent and those blinded to the growing evils in the world. He wrote:

"Modern society today, in the face of heaven and earth, has proclaimed the most audacious boast every conceived by human pride; it declares that it will exclude God from laws and institutions, creating a social order and felicity completely independent of Him; and, confronted with this satanic design, it is our duty to protest loudly, saying, with the archangel, Quis ut Deus?

The foregoing could have been written in the present! We see our society more and more accepting of sin and evil and those who oppose it are maligned as the enemy. But take heart! Good will triumph over evil! It may not be an easy road to follow, but Christians cannot lose sight of God; we cannot lose hope.

The answer to combating the devil is the sacrifice of the Holy Mass.

"The Church teaches that Jesus Christ truly dwells upon our altars...He immolates Himself to His Father, for the sins of the world. However, in order that the sublime mystery of our altars may produce an effect on our lives, the faithful must be rightly disposed. It cannot purify a soul that is attached to its disorderly ways, nor restore to goodness a heart obdurate in evil. The Real Presence and sacrifice detach man from the life of the senses, and make him live a spiritual life..."

The following should then give Christians much hope:

"You, then, feeble and fainted-hearted souls, who feel your faith faltering and weakening, shaken by the effrontery and arrogant clamor of thew wicked, turn your eyes for a moment upon the Christian world, where, in spite of ingenious, mendacious conspiracies, Jesus Christ continues to be loved and adored. See those crowds who fill our churches at the times of the major solemnities, kneeling humbly and invoking Jesus Christ with the unshakable conviction that their prayer will reach heaven. See the dying, as they press His blessed picture to their lips so as to fortify themselves against he anguish and the fears of t heir final agony. See those sorrowful countenances, bowing down at the steps of His lonely altars and straightening up again, beaming with an indescribable joy. See those sinners, stricken with remorse, beating their breast and departing, trusting that they have regained pardon. Such is the infallible voice of mankind; the striking testimony of popular faith; the profound cry of public conscience, which can be diminished for a day but which all the threats of the mighty and the artifices of atheistic science will never succeed in stifling.