He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the
truth, because there is no truth in him.
When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar
and the father of lies. (John 8:44)
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Yesterday's March For Life in Washington (Washington Times photo) |
As
we mark the ugly anniversary of Roe vs. Wade this week, it is only appropriate that we take a look at “Old Scratch”
himself, the Devil. In John’s Gospel our
Lord tells us everything we need to know about the Devil: “He was a murderer
from the beginning”, and “He is a liar, the father of lies”. And what is his
first lie, the Big Lie that is still his primary murder weapon? “You will not
die . . . you will be like God, knowing good and evil”. (Genesis 3:4-5) There will be no eternal consequences, Satan
tells us, we can decide for ourselves what is good and evil, we are the
gods. For this reason he is called “the
Devil”, from the Greek διάβολος (diabolos),
which means
“slanderer, perjurer, false accuser, and can also mean “deceiver, one who
misleads”. It derives from the verb διαβάλλω (diaballo), whose original meaning is “drive through”, or destroy. Satan
seeks to destroy us, eternally, by using falsehood and deception to separate us
from God.
I
got to thinking about all this the other day due to a comment from my
Lovely Bride. She had just run across
this article [here] from the National Right To Life News, detailing certain pro-abortion
prayers that are being circulated by our old friends at Planned Parenthood, and
she couldn’t help but think of the observation of C.S. Lewis (and many others) to the effect that Satan can’t create anything on his own, all he can do is mock and falsify
God’s creation. I think she has a point. PP calls their campaign by
the inelegant title “40 Days of Prayer For Women Everywhere”, an obvious mockery
of 40 Days For Life. Here is a sample of a few of the Planned
Parenthood “prayers”, from the NRTL
News article:
“We give thanks for the doctors who
provide quality abortion care.”
“We pray for a cloud of gentleness
to surround every abortion facility.”
“We pray for all the staff at abortion clinics around the nation. May they be daily confirmed in the sacred
care that they offer women.”
“We give thanks for abortion escorts who guide women safely through the
hostile gauntlet of protesters.”
“We pray for women who have been made afraid of their own power [of
choice, i.e. abortion] by their religion.
May they learn to reject fear and live bravely.”
National Right
To Life News notes that these “prayers” were composed by a group calling itself
“Faith Aloud”, and that “Infamous late term abortionist Dr. Leroy Carhart is a
member of the board.”
My first
reaction on reading this was something akin to extreme nausea: do these people
really believe that God will surround their butchery of unborn babies made in
His image and likeness with “a cloud of gentleness”? That this butchery could
be in any sense called “sacred care”? That the Lord would smile upon their
request to separate women from their (most often Christian) religion? Well, maybe not, because these petitions are not
actually addressed to God, or to anyone else for that matter. Is it due to a lack of faith, or perhaps a
realization that a just and loving God would not be likely to answer prayers
such as these? Whatever the case may be, these are the same
people who mocked the words of the Heavenly Host with “Choice on Earth”
Christmas cards (in Planned Parenthood newspeak, “choice” always means
“abortion”); these are the same people who thought it a generous gesture after
the terrorist attack on 9/11 to offer free abortions to pregnant widows of men
who died in the World Trade Towers. This
macabre mockery of religious faith has been a part of the pro-abortion
industry/movement for a long time, and it isn’t limited to that movement’s
flagship enterprise: immediately after the Roe decision in 1973 a group calling
itself the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights (RCAR) was founded, which
soon, recognizing that the truth in this case was a rather unlovely thing,
changed their name to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. And that ugly truth is the reason for the euphemisms and
the bizarre, phony prayers: if they’re honest, they lose, and so they must
pretend to be something they’re not.
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Christ, or is it the Anti-Christ? and the Father of Lies |
So, let’s see now, lies, mockery of God
and sacred things, death, who does that sound like? Could it be…? Yes, you know
where this is going. Now, I’m not saying
that the people at PP and their fellow travelers in the abortion industrial
complex are Satans themselves: I’m willing to believe that most of them think
they’re doing the right thing, and that they’re on the side of the angels. The problem is, they are on the side of the
fallen angels, led by the father of lies himself. I find myself yet again quoting St. Paul: “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the
principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this
present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly place”
(Ephesians 6:12).
So how do we go about combating the powers
of darkness? St. Paul tells us to take
on “the
whole armor of God” (Ephesians
6:13) and “pray at all times in the Spirit” (Ephesians
6:18) “that utterance may be given me in
boldly proclaiming the Gospel” (Ephesians
6:19). It is a two-pronged
strategy: first prayer and reliance on God, next a bold proclamation of the
truth. That’s why, before the March for Life in
Washington and our local marches, we attend Mass or a prayer service. We need to remember that, and remember that
this isn’t
simply a matter of politics, it’s a matter of Good and Evil, the God of
Truth and the father of lies. Let’s make sure we stay on the right side.
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