Our little Maria
(†May 11, 2013) was certainly an image of an Angel by her purity,
innocence, sincerity, compassion, and total resignation to the holy
Will of God.
But an image of the
Devil? How could that be? By her debilitation! She was unable
(without a wheelchair) to move around or to approach us. Without her
wheelchair she would have been left “racked on her bed of pain”,
sort of like Lucifer was for so many centuries, who by the Passion
and Death of Christ was precipitated to hell like a bolt of lightning
and there lay shattered and motionless.
If we were to view
Maria’s soul in its polar opposite – desiring evil to all – it
would show us a perfect type of the demon, for he was so debilitated
by the Passion and Death of Christ that he was as helpless to
approach us to tempt us and do us harm as Maria was helpless to walk
around doing good for all (though, to be sure, one of her chief
virtues was that she sincerely desired to do good to all).
And what
“wheelchair” do we give the devil? Our sins, our imprudence in
placing ourselves in the way of temptation and danger, or in failing
to flee them when necessary. By our carelessness, lack of vigilance,
lack of sincerity, our unwillingness to do penance and approach the
Sacraments, to say our daily prayers, especially the Rosary, and our
lukewarmness and even failure to do our daily duty, we as it were
give the devil a “wheelchair” with which to approach us,
intimidate us, back us into a corner, and even run us over (thank
goodness Maria was an excellent driver or my family would all have
flat feet!).
Our Lady actually
used the word “debilitation” in describing the state in which Our
Lord’s Passion and victory over the demon left him:
”Thou art
astonished, and justly so, to know on the one hand the power of the
merits of my Son and of his Redemption and the ruin and debilitation they have caused in the demons; and on the other hand to see the
power of the devil lording it over the world in haughty presumption.”
(Mystical
City of God, Transfixion,
par. 732; my emphasis)
Maria was a classic
example of a debilitated individual. The word means “having one’s
ability removed”, in her case the ability to walk, to talk
properly, and toward the end even to use her arms. She died a
quadriplegic.
This is truly a
tremendous secret of the spiritual life. It is we
ourselves who
empower the demon. We must avoid giving the devil too much credit for
our sins – he could no more harm us than Maria lying on her bed
unable to move. She could think, she could will,
but she could not move. Someone would
have to pick her up and put her in her wheelchair for her to be able to move around. The last six months of her life
she could not even move her arm into position to move the joystick
which controlled the chair’s movements, so we had to put her arm
into position, and the last month she did not even have the hand
strength to move the joystick – we had to do it for her.
Although it is true
the demon now “prowls about the world, seeking the ruin of souls”,
yet who
was it who thus let him out of hell where he had lain shattered by
the power of Christ and the great Woman of the Apocalypse? Yes, who let him out? We
did! How, you say? By refusing to sincerely live the message of Fatima by
our daily Rosary and daily duty! We failed to counter the evil
apostles of Satan who successfully brought Lucifer back out of hell
(about 60 years ago – a topic for another article), and he now is
putting into final effect what Our Lady of Fatima called the “evil
plan to destroy the peace of the world” which the world calls the
“New World Order”.
Let
us all now begin to truly live the message of Fatima and pray to most
holy Mary, the Vanquisher of All Heresies (all heresies – the
perfect description of Modernism) to, by the power of Her Son, crush
the serpent’s head once again and bring the Reign of Mary the world
so desperately needs.
