Another Forgotten Truth – Life Is a Warfare, a Battle

[If we are to enjoy the Beatific Vision for all eternity, we must, as so many spiritual writers teach, first know and identify who our enemy is. Who seeks to sever our relationship with the Source of eternal life? Who is it that seeks our eternal damnation? How do we defeat this enemy? Father James F. McElhone, C.S.C answers these questions with some specific and sage advice about spiritual combat, prayer and the acquisition of virtue:]

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

 
“…to acquire any virtue, pray. Life is a warfare, a battle. The greatest battles have been fought, not on fields reddened with blood, but in the soul, where the battle is intensified by the powerful forces of good and evil striving for the priceless gift of God - the human soul. The history of the soul shows records of success and failure, for souls generation after generation have been fighting a battle that is constant, that death alone ends, and which is vitally important; a battle not against flesh and blood, not against brothers in Christ, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of darkness, against the wickedness of the archfiend, who holds at high command the very elements of daily life to wage the deadly conflict.