Modern Warfare

Engaging the Devil as our real enemy  

Ephesians 6:10-20 

         Brothers and sisters: Draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power. Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the Devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground.   

          Have you ever seen young people walking around with their heads buried in their phones? Do you know what they are usually doing? Most of them are playing a video game, and most of those video games are about warfare. Last week I visited the youth group and sat next to a young man who never said a word to me. When I asked a question, he answered with a grunt, “Ugh.” The whole time he was totally engrossed in a video game. I watched over his shoulder and noticed it was a game called, “Clash of Clans.” Other popular games are called, “Call of Duty,” or “Mobile Strike,” or “Medal of Honor,” or “Killzone,” or “Modern Warfare.”   

          Why are these war games so wildly popular? Well, Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said that “What the Church puts down, the world picks up.” That is, the Church used to teach that the whole Christian life was a kind of “warfare” and we must take up arms and fight against an enemy that is hell-bent on destroying us (pun intended). That’s the meaning of the old term, “Church Militant.” Someone should start a new video game called that! But we no longer use that language – we’ve put it down, we’ve dropped it – and so the world has very predictably picked it up, especially our young people.    

          In the first reading today, St. Paul is not afraid to pick up the language of warfare to describe Christianity. He writes to the Ephesians sounding almost like a Marine drill sergeant barking commands: “Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the Devil…and having done everything, hold your ground.” In other words, you don’t have to play a video game to experience “modern warfare.” There’s a war going on day and night all around us. But here’s the catch: the real warfare is not against other people but against “the principalities and powers of this present darkness.” That is, the real warfare is inside each of us, against our own disordered passions that the Devil uses to tempt us.  Every human heart is a battlefield.

          My friends, if I asked you, “Who is your greatest enemy?” what answer would you give? If you’re Donald Trump, you’d immediately say, “It’s Crooked Hillary!” If you’re Hillary Clinton, you’d answer, “It’s that misogynist man, Trump!” Some priests will say, “My bishop is my enemy!” If you’re divorced, you might say, “My ex-spouse is my greatest enemy!” And teens would say, “Ugh,” and go back to their video games. But let me suggest that your real enemy is inside you, in your heart, where the powers and principalities of this present darkness use your passions as weapons against you, your laziness, your pride, your jealousy, your sex-drive, your anger, your greed. In other words, swing the sword of battle not outward at other people, but plunge it into your own heart, and defeat the Devil who is hiding there. When we engage in such warfare, we become truly the “Church Militant” and engage in that “modern warfare” which is really an “eternal warfare.”   

          The Buddhists have a wise saying, that’s worth our contemplation. They say, “My enemy, my teacher.” That is, our enemies can teach us many things. And the first lesson they teach me is that I’m often fighting the wrong enemy.   

          Praised be Jesus Christ!