We Are At War

The war we as Christians face is not an earthly one, but a spiritual one. Satan never sleeps and has minions working for his cause. If you find my first two sentences hard to believe, look at what is going on around us. The Catholic Church is being attacked almost on a daily basis and our priests are on the front lines in that part of the war. I have said this before (as have others), no priests, no Jesus in the Eucharist. Our country and government seem to be falling apart at their very seams. Then there are the natural disasters~ earthquakes, floods, extreme weather; I truly believe these are a sort of wake up call from God, His trying to tell us that He is in control, not any one of us.
Some are listening and responding, but not enough. As Christians we have been called and given a place on the "battlefield". Today's feast of Our Lady of Fatima is a reminder to us of that call. In 1917, Our Lady appeared to three children. She asked them if they would be willing to pray and sacrifice on behalf of poor sinners. They told her they would. We too need to give our Blessed Mother our yes to this cause as well. Our Lady revealed to the children that so many souls are lost because there is no one to pray for them.
I don't mean to sound like an alarmist, but things in our world are getting worse. Practicing Catholic Christians need to pray and make reparation. This is no easy task given the spiritual climate (or lack there of) of our society and culture, but Our Lord warned us that this would happen; He promised us, in fact that if the world hated Him, it would hate us as well. (see John 15:18) He also promised that the gates of hell would not prevail over His Church. (see Matt. 16:18)
Nothing I have said here is anything new, and in most instances I am preaching to the choir. However, I know that I myself can very easily lapse into a bit of a spiritual numbness that keeps me from seeing and responding to what is going on around us.
The messages Our Lady gave to the children at Fatima are for us as well. The Rosary is a powerful weapon in the spiritual battle. So let's all take up our beaded sword and pray. There is strength in numbers~ the devil knows it, but so do we.
For more on Fatima, here are some good and trustworthy links.
Fr. Andrew Apostoli: here and here.
Fr. Joseph Homick has some pages relating to Fatima on his Two Pillars:Holy Eucharist and Our Lady blog.
Fatima For Today