Satan’s Anti-Supernaturalism!

Pope Leo XIII

Pope Leo XIII has insisted upon the leadership of Satan in the ceaseless warfare of Naturalism against the Supernatural Life of Grace. Satan’s headship of the camp of evil must never be forgotten or lost sight of. This remark is particularly necessary in our days, because the triumphs of applied science in modern times tend to give human beings the illusion that they are the spiritual masters of the universe and obscure the all-important truth that, behind the visible veils, there are other intelligences more powerful than theirs striving for and against Our Divine Lord. The existence, then, of the good angel, permanently anchored in Supernatural Life, and of the fallen angels, always fiercely opposed to the supernatural, must be constantly borne in mind. Satan everywhere combats and everywhere seeks to eliminate the Supernatural Life of Grace, participation in the Life of the Blessed Trinity. His act of rebellion was a refusal to depend on the Blessed Trinity for his happiness and perfection. By that act he not only forfeited the Life of Grace but declared war on it. The whole being of that pure spirit, all that relentless, untiring energy, of which we, poor creatures of nerves and muscles, cannot form an adequate idea, is always and everywhere directed against submission to the Blessed Trinity in supernatural love. We change our minds and we need sleep and rest. With Satan it is not so. It is because Satan knows how effective such institutions as the press, the cinema and the monetary system can be, when brought into play against the Supernatural Life of a country, that he has been so intent on transforming them into agencies for the propagation of Naturalism. In the October (1938) issue of The Southern Cross, we read: “An American student of statistics has made a detailed investigation of 500 films. In them he counted 100 murders, 91 suicides, 103 adulteries, 38 seductions, 352 robberies and 43 frauds or swindles. In these 500 films there was thus a more-or-less veiled defence or condonation of 727 major crimes or immoralities. A Swiss citizen, Professor Malhabec, reports the result of a similar investigation in Berne, where he found that of 3,300 children of school years, 1,700 were more-or-less regular cinema-goers. In 1,250 films presented for their entertainment there were exhibited 1,163 seductions, 1,120 adulteries, 1,224 homicides, 1,170 robberies, 1,171 shootings or various murders, and 765 suicides.” Satan’s invariable appeal is to liberty. That is the pretext he alleges in order to lead men astray. ” The end at which the devil aims,” writes St. Thomas, “is the revolt of the rational creature from God This revolt from God is conceived as an end, inasmuch as it is desired under the pretext of liberty [or autonomy] ” (Ilia P., Q.8, a.l).

Satan, needless to say, is well aware of the fact that his efforts against Our Divine Lord and the Supernatural Life of the world cannot lead to order but will result in chaos and disorder. His dupes, however, do not see that, at least, not clearly. If, at times, a vision of what they are heading for is mercifully vouchsafed to them by God, they shut their eyes to it, except in rare instances. Satan’s sin was a refusal to accept the truth that for the perfection and happiness of his being he should depend upon God and not upon himself alone. He wanted to get rid of the dependence and subjection which are inseparable from his condition of creature. The result was an eternity of misery. The way of spiritual childhood of Saint Teresa of Lisieux with its insistence on complete dependence on and absolute trust in the love of God, our Father, is in complete opposition to the spirit of Satan. Hence we need not be astonished at the role assigned to the Little Flower in the present struggle in the world. All the frightful energy, then, of Satan’s hatred is specially directed against the Holy “Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the renewal of the expression of submission of Calvary. Arrayed with him and animated with the same hatred, there is an army of invisible satellites of the same nature. Forgetfulness of these facts makes it hard for people., who read only the newspapers and frequent the cinema, to understand.

(Fr. Denis Fahey C. S. S. Sp.; The Mystical Body of Christ)