The Devil - Venerable Fulton Sheen

I have a beautiful young audience here immediately in front of me and I called the youngest of them to me just a few minutes ago and I said if you get tired you go to sleep that applies to the rest of you in the audience as well I was once talking in a church and the baby began to cry and the mother took the babe out as she was going down the aisle I said madam the child is not bothering me she said no you're bothering the child a woman bought an expensive dress brought it home to the husband showed him the bill and he said to her when you tried it on why didn't you say get behind me Satan she said I did and he said it looks so good from the back there was a man went to heaven and he thought perhaps he would like to go to hell see what it was like and he asked st. Peter if he could go down so he went down to hell and rather enjoyed himself over the weekend came back to heaven and the following weekend said to Peter really I I didn't mind it down there could I go down again yes said Peter and for the second time he came back and reported enjoying himself the third time he asked to go down and Peter said now this is your last time when he got down the devil put him in one of the hot corners of hell and he said to the devil and I was here before you treated me nicely yes he said then you were a tourist now you're a resident so remember we get treated very well now but the devil but when we're residents he does not treat us as well I have a missionary priest friend whom Lai has been my intimate for over 35 years and he's been a missionary in China Korea Vietnam has been in prison in Russia and the last time I saw him he told me that he went into one of the churches in Vietnam and the children were gathered around another girl was about 10 or 12 years of age and they pointed the girl out to him and the girl had a veil over her face and he pulled the veil down and he said it was the ugliest face that he had ever seen not so much the face itself physically but the ugly features that she portrayed he paid little attention to her and the children came to him the next day and then he became a bit frightened of her and he asked if she had lived in the village and she had lived in the village just a short period of her life he spoke French to her she spoke perfect French spoke Italian spoke Latin though she had no training in any of these languages he felt then perhaps that she was possessed and he took a relic of the little flower and brought it to her she reacted violently then took the relic out and just brought the frame of the relic and she laughed at him and then he briefly exorcised her and she was perfectly normal now because we are sown we get so much of our theology from the press I thought perhaps you might be interested in hearing about the devil from a sound philosophical and theological point of view I'm going to describe to you the devil first from the psychiatric point of view and secondly from the biblical first the psychiatric it is interesting that as we dropped things in the church the world begins to pick them up and distorts them now we for example the nuns dropped the long habits the girls put on Mexico's we stop saying the beads hippies put the beads around their neck and as theologians dropped the demonic the psychiatrist picked it up Rollo may of Rockefeller Institute has several chapters in his work on psychiatry on the diabolic what is the diabolic from the purely psychiatric point of view dr. roome a analyzes the word diabolic it comes from the Greek words dia and BA line dia Balan is to tear apart rend asunder anything therefore that breaks pattern that destroys unity that corrupts is stalled produces discord that is the diabolic now there has been a great increase of the diabolic notice for example the discord in the church the discord in religious communities the discord among the laity is regardless the church discord in the clergy all these are manifestations of a spirit of the diabolic that is that surrounds us now the psychiatrist analyzes the way in which the diabolic works and he mentions three first love of nudity secondly violence aggressiveness thirdly split personalities no inner peace disjointed minds first a love of nudity I asked the chaplain some years ago and in an institution if he had manifests any manifestations of the diabolic in an institution where he was and said yes sometimes when I bring the Blessed Sacrament in the people strip as I passed the room but leave that aside that is not important I would rather refer you to the gospel now our Blessed Lord one time went into the land of the Gerasenes or gadarenes it depends upon which translation of the Scriptures you are using and he found in this land a young man possessed by the devil the gospel mentions three characteristics of this young man first he was nude secondly he was violent and aggressive they could not even keep him in Chains and thirdly his mind was split schizophrenic our Lord said to him what is your name he said my name is legion now a legion in his time meant six thousand soldiers in the Roman army see already he's a person and yet his legion six thousand others my name is legion for we are many see the personality is no longer unified I Legion we many now the psychiatrist does not ever correlate his three manifestations of the diabolic with his young man and the gospel I am doing that because I could not help but notice the similarity between the two so from just a superficial point of view the diabolic disrupts and whenever you have a great manifestation of the Spirit you always get the devil working when for example Moses in the Old Testament work miracles against Pharaoh Pharaoh's agents simulated a few miracles when the Holy Spirit came upon the early church Pentecost there was the persecution of Stephen we had a Vatican Council the blessing of the Spirit upon the church and we have immediately the manifestation of the evil spirit so I just leave you with this characteristic note of the diabolic from the psychiatric point of view the break up of unity the breakup of families break up of corporations break up of religious communities break up the oneness of Christ that is one analysis of the demonic the second the biblical I take you now to the 16th chapter of Matthew our Blessed Lord had asked the most important question that could ever be asked who do men say that I am eventually Peter gave the right answer thou art the Christ the Son of the Living God then our aggressive Lord announced that he was going up to Jerusalem to be delivered over to the Gentiles to be spat upon crucified and eventually would rise from the dead Peter was willing to have a divine Christ but he was not willing to have a suffering one and as soon as our Blessed Lord said that he was going to be the victim for our sins which I described in the last conference soon as our Lord said that Peter said they shall not be we do not want that kind of a Christ and all our tournaments that kept behind me do not forgive me I need you Satan Satan imagine Peter personally is Satan now dwell on that who would think that in the course of a minute and a half it could become Satan why did our Lord call him Satan well go back now to the beginning of our Lord's public life and I will reveal to you again the three temptations that were presented to our Lord by Satan and we will learn from this discussion that the essence of the Satanic or the diabolic is the hatred of the cross of Christ now let that dwell in your mind what is the satanic from the biblical point of view it is the contempt of the cross of Christ is anti cross as he proved now and that is the meaning we go back to the temptation I've wrestled Lord is on the mountain and Satan offers in three short cuts from the cross why do you Savior from sin you want mankind to follow you I will tell you the way is it Satan you do not need a cross I will give you three shortcuts the first see those stones down there they look like little loaves of bread don't they you haven't eaten in 40 days listen you have an itch you got an instinct for food other people who got other instincts and got an inci for power and esteem for sex let the front of the wheel satisfy their appetites everyman but forget the cross the first shortcut permissiveness do whatever you feel like doing the second temptation the cross will never win mankind because mankind loves wonders surprises the startling the marvelous anything that will make them say oh they'll forget the marbles in a week then repeat another mark side of the Moon so yourself in a steeple and be unhurt that's a marvel do that and the crowds will follow you but you need no cause and the final temptation which will be the temptation of the church in the next 100 years and we have the dim beginnings of it now Satan says theology is politics why bother with the ology God the transept the mystery of redemption the only thing that matters is politics and holding as it were the shiny globe of the world in his hand Satan said all these kingdoms are mine am I and I will give them to you and falling down you will adore me for season for one sinners life telling the truth are all the kingdoms is but in any case it was the third temptation of our Blessed Lord not to be concerned with a divine but to be concerned only with the social and political order now come back to our Lord calling Peter Satan the reason he did was because Satan tempted our Lord from the cross and that is precisely what Peter was trying to do when he said to him this shall not be we will recognize your divinity but will not recognize the cross and from that time on to this this is the biblical essence of the Satanic we have it the spirit of it in the church notice how much we've given up mortification self-denial discipline in schools and seminaries the attempted disruption books for example that will only describe the evil real or imaginary of people and they are in some of our schools as you well know this is the disruptive element the diabolic but the decline of the spirit of discipline is a hatred of the cross the ascetic or the Disciplinary character of Christianity has moved the totalitarian states it is in China it is in Russia there there's discipline self-denial commitment to a common purpose but without a cross and therefore with complete destruction of human liberty how much will this diabolic and the satanic and contempt to the cross continue to manifest itself well we do not know for sure that we are in the age of the demonic but there's a passage in Saint Paul which it first seems very difficult may I read it to you and then I will explain it it is in second theologians chapter two verse seven now remember Paul was writing this well within the first 60 years of Christianity already the secret power of wickedness is at work secret secret only for the present in other words we cannot see the manifestation of evil and the demonic secret only for the present until the restrainer disappears in the scene we do not know precisely who is the restrainer maybe Christ may be the Holy Spirit maybe an influx of grace maybe the holiness of the church but in any case the evil is secret until God says alright now evil you will have your day your hour God has his day evil has his hour and then continuing and then he will be revealed Satan that wicked man whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth and annihilate where the radiance of his coming but the coming of that wicked man is the work of Satan it will be attended by powerful signs and miracles and lies and all deception that sinfulness can impose on those who are doomed to destruction even in the last book of Scripture we get the hint that when the Antichrist comes there will be a simulated death and resurrection in order to deceive so at present we cannot see the demoniac at work but let me give you a hint as to how Christ works and how Satan works now if you understand what I'm about to tell you it will help you very much in dealing with the evil of the world and in overcoming it I'm going to describe how our Lord appears before we sin and how Satan appears before we sin then I will describe how our Lord appears after we've seen and how Satan appears after we see first of all how does our Lord appear before just before we sin as when we are about to sin well he appears as thou shalt not he appears is the Lord on the cross he bars the way he says my flesh was crucified your flesh be crucified to go not this way and so he stands in front of us oh we're not free we can add all we want to do Christ is there but how does Satan say or talk when we are about to sin oh don't be sick we don't believe those things anymore times of change are you still a virgin you mean you've never had a smoke of marijuana listen everybody's doing it don't pay attention to those doctors who tell you that you'd hurt your brain cells you've got to live you have to be yourself you haven't committed adultery everybody's doing it now these views of strict morality were alright 100 years ago or 500 years ago but this is the new world I got to be me I got to be free that's the way the devil talks he's on our side before we sin Christ seems to be the accuser before we sin the devil is our defender he's on our side the side of our sex the side of our pride side of our greed he takes our part after we sin then the roles are reversed then Christ becomes the defender and the devil the accuser and the devil will say all right now you've had your dope now you're hooked don't come to me I can't help you you might just as well give up sure you've lost your virginity now what difference does it make my justice well go on sure you've stolen you haven't been caught but you will be or you're about to be caught and so the devil fills us with despair as he filled the heart of Judas with despair Judas could have gone to the Savior the Savior would have forgiven him Majoris took a rope mocked the frozen ground before the frosty trees never II not and every tree seemed to him like an eye and every branch of every tree seemed to be an accusing finger traitor there was nothing for him to do in his despair but suicide and that is one of the reasons why suicide is on the increase in our civilization despair the devil goddess in one of the novels of Dostoevsky Raskolnikov who was a very evil man said to a girl whom he loved he said Sonia you know what's going to happen to you you're either going to jump off a bridge or you're going mad or you will cut your throats but that was not the way it happened because Sonia picked up the Gospel of John and she began reading the resurrection of Lazarus and she said I can find new life in Christ which brings me to the way that our Lord acts after the scene now he is our defender he said come to me all ye who labor if your sins are as scarlet they shall be made white as snow and if they are as red as crimson they shall be made white as wool poor piteous futile thing why should any set the love apart for how much they'll merited ball man slotted slay the ding Jia strut last I know it's not how little worthy of any love thou art for whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee save me save only me all that I child's mistakes fancies is lost I have stored for thee at home rise clasp my hand and come this is the language of the Saviour after we seen now I've told you what the diabolic is the disruption of unity the satanic the contempt of the cross mortification and self-denial and therefore of Christ himself there are ten thousand times ten thousand rolls down which any of you may travel for a lifetime and it makes no difference which road you travel at the end of all of these roads you are going to see two faces either the merciful face of Christ or the horrible face of Satan and either one at the end of your life will say my 9 play not therefore with that which is evil otherwise we are caught and I will tell you the three powerful weapons against Satan first the holy name of Jesus that is a name that Satan cannot stand because in the name of Jesus every knee will bow in the heavens on the earth and under the earth the second the blood of Christ the invocation of the blood of Christ I may give you a sermon on that but we are saved with the blood of Christ therefore in temptation call upon his blood for without the shedding of blood there's no remission of sin and thirdly devotion to our Blessed Mother for at the beginning in the book of Genesis it was the seed of a woman that would crush the seed of Satan we are armed with three these three weapons the Holy Name the blood of Christ and the Blessed Mother and when you think of the diabolic and the demonic and the satanic do not be led off the track by what you may hear through the media of communications the demonic very simply is the anti cross the anti disciplined life the Anti Christ that's the satanic nothing else you'll never go wrong if you understand that any bit you love that cross never their silence round about me by day or night I am startled by a cry it came down from the cross the first time I heard it and I went out and searched and found the man in the throes of crucifixion and I said I will take you down and I tried to take the nails out of his feet but he said let them be for I cannot be taken down until every man woman and child come together to take me down but I said what can I do I cannot bear your cry and he said go into the world and tell every man that you meet there is a man on the cross

Channel: CatholicClips

Views: 940,281

Rating: 4.8537898 out of 5

Keywords: Fulton J. Sheen (Author), Devil (Quotation Subject)

Id: FuCw8UT5y6c

Length: 37min 15sec (2235 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/hughgilesharris]

god is enough satan for everybody.