The Temptation of Saint Anthony - Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516)
Daniel Mitsui gives us a grave reminder at The Lion & the Cardinal:
There is a truth to this so simple that we often forget it: Satan is smarter than us. And he is stronger than us and he is more patient than us. Were he not, we would have no need of a Savior ... Satan hates the Church and he wants us to hate the Church. And he is smart enough and strong enough and patient enough to ruin everything that makes loving the Church easy. He was smart enough to ruin the seemingly immortal Middle Ages, so he is certainly smart enough to ruin the fragile traditionalist movement today ... A Church that is not permanently scarred is not the Body of Christ.Read all of this sober Lenten meditation here.
2 comments:
Great meditation there Athos. I don't recall visiting THE LION & THE CARDINAL blog before. Daniel Mitsui seems to be quite an intersting fellow. I like, for the most part, a previous post of his dated March 21st, CONVERSION and CONSUMERISM.
Quite a great addition to our line up of websites/blogs to visit, if you wouldn't mind doing the honors, old chap.
I haven't found anything not to appreciate at the L&TC. Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
And, BTW, Girard's dictum about Satan ("The first mistake is thinking Satan does not exist; the second is thinking that he does") holds sway in my clip from his fine analysis of the state of affairs of the Church. One should know that Satan is alive and well in the GMSM; Satan is also not easily quantifiable (like all things metaphysical) as simply a "personal" "being".
But one shouldn't, therefore, base decisions on Satan's nonexistence. If anything, one should assume Satan does exist, or act as though he does exist.
And so, what is the difference how to designate Satan as long as the effects and evidence of the satanic are there for all the world to see as a diminution of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty?
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