The VerbumQUO (mar11quo.htm)

SUNDAY
March 11, 2007
vol 18, no. 70

The Devil is in the Details!


The VerbumQUO for today is "daemonia" which is the plural for "devils", something Christ focuses on numerous times in the Gospel of Luke for the Third Sunday of Lent. Beelzebub's greatest accomplishment has been to convince people he doesn't exist. Oh how we have been hoodwinked and, had we listened to the Word, we would be prepared today for the demons' onslaught.

by
Michael Cain
Editor, The Daily Catholic

      Editor's Note: The editor has re-launched this series for Lent in order to highlight one word from the Proper of the day's Mass. Taking the Latin Verbum and Quotidianum, which mean respectively "Word" and "Daily", we have coined the word "Verbumquo" by contracting quotidianum to quo and running it together as VerbumQUO for this feature series, thus "The Daily Word," as in the sum of the message, the 'quotient', if you will. It is also our hope that in choosing the Latin word with its meaning and etimology more will be attuned to hearing the word read at the altar and better comprehend the beauty of the Mother tongue. Hopefully in this Time of Lent we can gain a higher appreciation and contemplation on how the Daily Proper of the Holy Mass applies in our lives in alignment with the will of Christ and His Blessed Immaculate Mother and His Mystical Bride, His Holy Roman Catholic Church.


    The VerbumQUO for the Third Sunday of Lent is something we should never forget daemonia which is plural for "devils". In today's Gospel of Saint Luke 11: 14-28, Jesus emphasizes the importance of driving out devils and to be well aware of their power and that they are in the camp of the condemned. Christ clearly delineates these two camps, if you will, when He says "He that is not with Me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth." He could not have put it clearer, more simple to understand. Let us look at the full Gospel today to see how this is hammered home:
In illo tempore: Erat Jesus ejiciens daemonium, et illud erat mutum. Et cum ejecisset daemonium, locutus est mutus et admiraitae sunt turbae. Quidiam autem ex eis diserunt : "In Beelzebub principe daemoniorum ejicit daemonia." Et alli tentantes, signum de caelo quaerebant ab eo. Ipse autem ut vidit cogitations eorum, dixit eis : "Omne regnum in siepsum divisum desolabitur et domus supra domum cadet. Si autem et satanas in siepsum divisus est, quomodo stabit regnum ejus ? qui dicitis in Beelzebub me ejicere daemonia. Si autem ego in Beelezub ejicio daemonia, filii vestri in quo ejiciunt? Ideo ipsi judices vestri erunt. Porro si in digito Dei ejicio daemonia : profecto pervenit in vos regnum Dei. Cum fortis armatus custodit atrium suum, in pace sunt ea, quae possidet. Si autem fortior eo superveniens vicerit eum, universa arma ejus auferet, in qibus confidebat, et spolia ejus distribute. Qui non est mecum, contra me est : et qui non colligit meccumk dispersit. Cum immundus spiritus exierit de homine, ambulat per loca inaquosa, quaerens requiem : et non inveniens, dicit : Revertar in domum meam, unde exivi. Et cum venerit, invenit eam scopes mundatam, et ornatam. Tunc vadit, et assumit septem allios spiritus secum nequiores se, et ingressi habitant ibi. Et fiunt novissima hominis illius pejora prioribus." Factum est autem, cum haec diceret: "ex tollens vocem quaedam mulier de turba, dixit illi : Beatus venter, qui te portavit, et ubera, quae suxisti." At ille dixit : "Quinimo beati, qui audiunt verbum Dei, et custodiunt illud."
At that time Jesus was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb. And when He had cast out the devil, the dumb spoke, and the multitudes were in admiration at it. But some of them said : "He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils." And others, tempting, asked of Him a sign from Heaven. But He, seeing their thoughts, said to them : "Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation, and house upon house shall fall. And if Satan also be divided against himself, how shall this kingdom stand? Because you say that through Beelzebub I cast out devils. Now If I cast out devils by Beelzebub, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore, they shall be your judges. But if I by the finger of God cast out devils : doubtless of the kingdom of God is come upon you. When a strong man armed keepeth his court, those things are in peace which he possesseth. But if a stronger than he come upon him and overcome him, he will take away all his armor wherein he trusted, and will distribute his spoils. He that is not with Me is against Me : and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through places without water, seeking rest : and not finding, he saith: I will return into my house whence I came out. And when he is come, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then he goeth and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked then himself, and entering in they dwell there. And the last state of that man becomes worse than the first." And it came to pass, as He spoke these things, a certain woman from the crowd, lifting up her voice, said to Him: "Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the paps that gave Thee suck." But He said: "Yes, rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it."

   From daemonia comes the English noun "demon" which is a "devil". Phonetically it is pronounced DAY-MOAN-EE-AH with the emphasis on the bolded part which has the accent on the o. Let us look at Webster's definition:

    "demon" - noun, [From the Latin daemon spirit, evil spirit. from Greek daimon a divinity.] 1. A tutelar divinity; a daemon. 2. [Latin daemonium, neut. of daimonios of a divinity, from Greek daimon. ] An evil spirit; a devil. demonic adj. Also demonian or demonical Of, pertaining to, or of the nature of a demon or demons. Influenced or produced by demons. demonize, v.t. 1. To convert into a demon; to infuse demonic fury into. 2. To control by a demon. "

    We can see the latter is exactly what Jesus was driving out when confronted by some of the doubters among the multitudes. Christ took the opportunity to drive home the point that demons do exist and that they destroy the soul and deprive man of the kingdom of God which Christ represents. I think the holy Benedictine Abbot Dom Gueranger puts it so well in his commentary for this Gospel in Volume 5 of The Liturgical Year:

    "Let us also listen, with holy fear, to what our Savior tells us with regard to our invisible enemies. They are so powerful and crafty, that our resistance would be useless unless we had God on our side, and His holy angels, who watch over us and join us in the great combat. It is to these unclean and hateful spirits of hell that we delivered ourselves when we sinned: we preferred their tyrannical sway to the sweet and light yoke of our compassionate Redeemer. Now we are set free, or are hoping to be so; let us thank our divine Liberator; but let us take care not to readmit our enemies. Our Savior warns us of our danger. They will return to the attack; they will endeavor to force their entrance into our soul, after it has been sanctified by the Lamb of the Passover. If we be watchful and faithful, they will be confounded, and leave us: but if we be tepid and careless, if we lose our appreciation of the grace we have received, and forget our obligations to Him Who has thus saved us, our defeat is inevitable; and as our Lord says, our last state will be worse than the first."

    This is exactly why Holy Mother Church, in her wisdom, pared today's Gospel with the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians, in which the Apostle of the Gentiles reasserts the sins of the flesh are the quickest way for the dark demons to enter. That is why he emphasizes that anyone who dares to welcome these sins of fornication, uncleanness, sodomy, covetousness and all other forms of lust including "obscenity" or "foolish talking, or scurillity" will lead to "the anger of God". So few today realize how grievously they offend our Lord and His Blessed Mother, and indeed all the saints, when they speak vulgarities and obscenities as if it is a regular part of their lexicon, used as verb, noun and adjective. The first two commandments are severely violated today and few give it thought. I shudder whenever I hear the four letter words, but I shudder more when I hear Christ's name taken in vain either by my sons, their friends or on the radio which happened last year on a Friday while enroute to Mass. Wanting to just catch the scores of the NCAA first round, they took a commercial and so I switched to another station to see if they had it. They were talking about the Tourney and, inside of a one-minute span, three of the radio voices took the name of our Lord in vain in a most crass manner. I should have known it would be a disc jockey and his cohorts out of New York, and I'm not talking about the vile Howard Stern but some guys called Don and Mike. Never again. At least I know when I tune in ESPN radio for the scores, I won't get the filth spewed on other stations. Just sports.

    And yet, there, too, one must take care. How many duties, responsibilities and spiritual exercises will suffer later this week because of the NCAA Tournament? And that has nothing to do with the gambling problem readily identified by the experts. We have, in effect, made sports our idol as well as entertainment where one program our sons are hooked on - which we won't watch, especially during Lent - American Idol is so bold as to admit it by proclaiming near divinity to kids still wet behind the ears, who don't know the meaning of singing from the diaphragm, and, from what we have heard at times in the past, I doubt few of the contestants would really know what a melody is. And the way most today regard the sinful traps as enticing and necessary - the very sins Paul has warned against, is appalling. When it is brought up one gets a shrug or a look like 'what, you're holier than thou?' No, I'm not, but I know the difference between right and wrong. Thanks to the decimation and devastation of the Faith by the smoke of satan unleashed through Vatican II, few do know the difference. But they blindly and blandly retort, "if it is wrong, well, God is all good and couldn't be so mean as to condemn a soul." Oh, why haven't these people read what God says in Sacred Scripture. Christ so clearly says, those who are not with Him, are against Him. Those against Him are the enemy. Do they really want to be His enemy? One wonders with the rash of sins committed against Him and yet, what should be the beacon of morality, has become a cesspool of fruitless freaks; I am, of course, speaking of the immorality and heresies so prevalent in the conciliar church which, like the demons, masks who they really are. Yet, again, our Lord has also clearly identified them as the enemy in Matthew 7: 15-20 for He says: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes off thorns, or figs off thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the bad tree bringeth forth bad fruit. A good tree cannot yield bad fruit, neither can a bad tree yield good fruit. Every tree that yieldeth not good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them."

    Could it be any clearer? And yet, the demons multiply and invade every person, swarming and infesting. Look at those who initiated Vatican II and look at what we have today. Do you understand what our Lord meant when He said: "Then he goeth and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and entering in they dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first"? We've had well over 40 years of this demonic spirit of raping the Truths and Traditions of Holy Mother Church and yet those potentates in charge today are worse than the first, and not a one is willing to be exorcised of the demons within themselves or allow their flock to be free of the devils, as they all in concert stubbornly cling to the bad tree that is destined for eternal hellfire. What, pray tell, do these clueless conciliarists, who think they're 'Catholic', believe if they don't take the Word of God seriously?

    The chief exorcist of Rome Father Gabriel Amorth, one of the few who is not a modernist, expressed the very truths above in an interview by Stefano Maria Paci for 30 Giornale (30 Days) five years ago and which is featured today in the "Gems from the Past" feature. For over 50 years Fr. Amorth has studied exorcism and what he had to say in the two-part we carried in our 2002 FOCUS series with The smoke of satan in the house of the Lord Part One and Part Two said volumes:

    "When the faith retreats, superstition makes progress. In biblical terms, I can say that people are abandoning God to give themselves up to occultism. The terrible retreat of the faith throughout the whole of Catholic Europe makes people throw themselves into the arms of magicians and fortunetellers, and satanic sects prosper. Devil worship is the object of great publicity among the masses through satanic rock and celebrities like Marilyn Manson. Children are also under attack: there are magazines and comic strips that teach magic and Satanism. Spiritualist seances in which the dead are called up to answer certain questions are very widespread. People are now being taught to perform spiritualist séances through the computer, the telephone, the television, the video recorder, but above all through automatic writing. No longer is there a need for a medium: this is a spiritualism that each can practice by himself. According to polls, 37% of students have on at least one occasion played the game with letters and a glass, which is a veritable spiritualist séance. In a school where I had been invited to speak, the students told me that they used to play this game during the religion lesson, under the obliging eyes of the teacher."

    We've seen all the protections against these eliminated by the conciliar church. Please read that interview and realize how much worse it has gotten over the last five years since that interview in 2001. I encourage you to read it and ask yourself if the current devils are not seven times worse than the first ones who instigated Vatican II. Exactly what Paul warned against, Fr. Amorth confirms is going on in the conciliar church in how the smoke of satan has penetrated every level today:

    "His strategy is always along the same lines. I have told him this and he admits it… He makes people believe that hell does not exist, that sin does not exist, and that he is nothing but one more experience to try out. Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies."

    On the subject of why exorcisms have basically been eliminated, he blames squarely on every bishop who should know better and then he says something quite remarkable:

    "When I was a child, my old parish priest taught me that there are eight sacraments: the eighth is ignorance. And the eighth saves more than all the others together. To commit a mortal sin, there must exist grave matter, but also full awareness and deliberate consent. To fail to give one's aid is, for bishops, a grave matter. But these bishops are ignorant: there is therefore no deliberate consent and full awareness."

    With all respect to Fr. Amorth, ignorance is no excuse whatsoever for the bishops - especially the bishops, and for the laity as well, for the Propers of today's Holy Mass clearly provide proof that they know. If not, then they truly are dumber than anyone thought. For a cleric not to know Sacred Scripture, well there's no excuse except lukewarmness and demonic possession. Either way, they're on the wrong path. More proof that the conciliar church is on the road to hell; no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Read the interview and you'll see how they've so cleverly dismissed the devil because they're already in cahoots with the very demons they profess not to believe in.

    Dom Gueranger has also alerted us so clearly of the choice we have:

    "Would we avoid such a misfortune? Let us meditate upon those other words of our Lord, in today's Gospel: He that is not with Me is against Me. What makes us fall back into the power of satan, and forget our duty to our God, is that we do not frankly declare ourselves for Jesus, when occasions require us to do so. We try to be on both sides, we have recourse to subterfuge, we temporize; this takes away our energy; God no longer gives us abundant graces we received when we were loyal and generous; our relapse is all but certain. Therefore, let us be boldly and unmistakably with Christ. He that is a soldier of Jesus, should be proud of his title! "

    Earlier in his discourse, the abbot pointed out that the Third Sunday of Lent is known as Oculi Sunday because of the Introit Oculi mei - "My eyes" taken from Psalm 24: 15-16:
Oculi mei semper ad Dominum, quia ipse evellet de laqueo pedes meos : respice in me, et Miserere mei, Quoniam unicus et pauper sum ego. (Psalm 24: 1, 2). Ad te, Domine, levavi animan, meam : Deus meus, in te confide, non erubescam.
My eyes are ever towards the Lord : for He shall pluck my feet out of the snare : look Thou upon me, and have mercy on me : for I am alone and poor. (Psalm 24: 1, 2). To Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul : in Thee, O my God, I put my trust, let me not be ashamed.

    We are indeed alone and poor and without God we're nothing but meat to the demons who are out to devour us. It truly blows my mind when, over these last five years we have seen unmitigated proof that the only place where the True Faith is preserved and practiced is where the Traditional Latin Mass is said. In the vast majority of those chapels, the people are being fed the Truths and Traditions of Holy Mother Church as it was intended for the flocks. Yet, it saddens us so when we try to broach the subject with our Novus Ordinarian friends that they refuse to hear the truth, they refuse to realize the demons have entered and are multiplying by generation. In the vast wealth of Dom Gueranger's words for today's Gospel we have this reality to consider:

    "But if there be one season of the year more than another in which the faithful ought to reflect upon what is taught us both by faith and experience as to the existence and workings of the wicked spirits, it is undoubtedly this of Lent, when it is our duty to consider what have been the causes of our past sins, what are the spiritual dangers we have to fear for the future, and what means we should have recourse to for preventing a relapse. Let us, then, hearken to the holy Gospel. Firstly, we are told that the devil had possessed a man, and that the effect produced by this possession was dumbness. Our Savior cast out the devil, and immediately the dumb man spoke. So that, being possessed by the devil is not only a fact which testifies to God's impenetrable justice; it is one which may produce physical effects upon them that are thus tried or punished. The casting out of the devil restores the use of speech to him that had been possessed. We say nothing about the obstinate malice of Jesus' enemies, who would have it that His power over the devils came from His being in league with the prince of devils: we would now merely show that the wicked spirits are sometimes permitted to have power over the body, and would refute, by this passage from the Gospel, the rationalism of certain Christians. Let these learn, then, that the power of our spiritual enemies is an awful reality; and let them take heed not to lay themselves open to their worst attacks, by persisting in this disdainful haughtiness of their reason."

    No one, other than our Lord and St. Paul, could have said it better. It's time everyone thoroughly examine their conscience and extract the demonic hosts within, which seek to snuff out grace. Look carefully because the devil is in the details!

Michael Cain, editor, The Daily Catholic


    SUNDAY
    March 11, 2007
    vol 18, no. 70
    VerbumQUO