HOW NOT TO CAST OUT DEVILS

 A MESSAGE FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT

When our Lord was accused of casting out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils, he admonished his accusers for making no sense.  After all, for any kingdom, even that of the devil, to be so divided against itself as to cast out devils in the name of the devil himself, how exactly is that going to work?  Our Lord’s point is quite clear, and he made sure they understood exactly in whose name he was casting out devils.  “If I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you.”  Only God has the power to cast out the devil.

The fact is, that in order to rid the world of any evil, we must first be good.  For if people are so entrenched in their lives of sin, how can they now restore goodness to those lives.  Many people have become so disordinate in their thinking that they actually do turn to Satan to ask for help.  You may think that is a rare thing, but alas, it’s becoming far more common than most of us realize.  However, that’s a topic for another day.  A majority of people do not go to such lengths, and yet they fail equally to turn to the right place to get help.  They obstinately turn their back on God and place their trust in man.  And we’re seeing every day just how ineffective that is.

The seemingly never-ending series of crises that have faced the world since 2020 finally seem to be having the effect of drawing many to turn back to God.  We are told that the geopolitical situation today is more dire than anything we’ve faced since Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.  And no matter where we might be tempted to lay the blame for what’s going on, or the motivation behind it, it seems indisputable that some kind of great reset is taking place in the world of political alignments.  The threat of a war that could potentially wipe us all out is beginning to have an effect on the minds of a few, however superficial this might turn out to be.

It is, then, with very little surprise that we witnessed the bishops of the Ukrainian Catholic Rite begging their pope in Rome to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  What we may not have expected is that he would agree to their request.  How can Beelzebub cast out Beelzebub?  Could there be some spark of genuine devotion left in this man who openly seeks to destroy the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Mass?  It’s not for us to judge the motivation or spiritual status of any man, so we’ll just hope for the best.  However, it should be noted that our blessed Lady of Fatima specified that it should be Russia that is the object of the consecration.  She explicitly named Russia. She did not mention the Ukraine, or Ukraine and Russia, but only Russia.  So we may question, in a spirit devoid of cynicism, whether our Lady’s command is being truly obeyed.  We should also question whether all the conciliar bishops of the world are indeed uniting with their conciliar pope in this act of consecration, which, if I’ve understood it correctly is actually being done by some subordinate and not Bergoglio himself.  And the other bishops of the world?  Where are they?  The bishops of Germany, for example, are surely too consumed with their current obsession to change the catechism and declare same-sex relationships “a gift of God.”  That kind of thinking does not have room for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  May she have mercy upon her errant children, and hearken unto our prayers!