The Raging Culture War

Listening to Gil Bailie, he emphasize the difficulty of being able to read or acknowledge the "spirit of the age" or "spirit of the world" in the present times. It is easy to look back, say at the the Holocaust, and be able to say, " how could we not see what was going on" or "never again". The difficulty is that the spirit of the world, which is one of the three fronts of the evil(the world, the flesh, and demons), is constantly changing according to the times and also it is very difficult to describe, to put our hands around it. We do know that there are three characteristics that the spirit of the world seeks, they are: greed, vanity (honor) and pleasure.
One of the meditations of the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius is of the two banners or armies. On one side we have the the banner of Christ and the other we have the banner of the Devil and there is a war between them. Each side as there soldiers/apostles/followers. The goal of Christ is to win souls for His Father, the goal of the Devil is keep souls away from God the Father; He doesn't care about them for his own good or possession, just to make sure that they are destroyed. There are many other analogies that reflect this reality. It is important to realize that the battleground where this war takes place is our hearts. It is also important to realize that there are NO compromise/middle ground/peace treaties/Geneva conventions. You're either on the side of Christ or on the side of the Devil. Period. There are many different aspects of our lives that we need to surrender and give over to Christ until we are completely His and ready to die in battle. This is the reality of our own personal spiritual life and it is most definitely the reality of our culture. To me it is as clear as day that there is a absolute battle going on in our culture. It is exactly what JPII is speaking about when he spoke about the "culture of death" and what Benedict speaks about when he says "the dictatorship of relativism". These two men can/could see the spirit of the world in present times. There are three recent events that clearly point to this battle that is raging. What is so amazing is the timing of these events and how starkly that bring to light this reality.
1) Hilary Clinton visiting the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and asking "who painted it" while they next day receiving the Margaret Sanger award from Planned Parenthood and praising the work of Sanger. You can't make this up. It shows either complete ignorance or direct attack from the Devil. She didn't know anything about the story of Guadalupe and she didn't know anything about the work/agenda of Sanger or she's an apostle/follower of the Devil. As I said, the goal of the army of the Devil is vague, there's no real goal except to take souls away from God, while the army of Jesus is clear and precise: to win souls for God. This is why it is not clear to Hilary or the general population that she's working for the Devil, there's no real objective. Most people who align themselves with the Devil don't even know it. The timing these events is what is really amazing.
2) Two days ago Archbishop Dolan was instilled as the Archbishop of NY. I didn't watch or hear any of his homily but I know that he spoke about being strong on Pro-Life and Pro-Family issues, that he would be a defender of these. Present at the instillation was Gov. Patterson of NY. Today, two days after Dolan's instillation, Gov. Patterson will introduce a bill to legalize "gay marriage". Again the timing of this is amazing.
3)On Tuesday President Obama spoke at Georgetown (forget that this is a direct rejection of the request of the US Bishops not to honor or give platforms to politicians who directly oppose fundamental Catholic principles) and what is absolutely amazing is that his administration requested that any religious symbols or signage be covered up. Georgetown proceeded to cover up not only the Crucifix but when out of their way to cover up the "IHS" as well. What's striking to me is not so much the denial of the Catholic faith by Georgetown but that it occurred during the Easter Octave. I see this as a direct attack; there is no gray area here and the timing just makes it more apparent.

We MUST be aware that there is a war raging and what's at stake is souls; the battle ground is in our own hearts, we must side with Christ.