Editor’s Note: Regarding a recent reply to a person struggling with unholy and impure thoughts during Mass or when reading Scripture or praying the rosary, we quoted a priest as recommending four things: guard your senses, pick a good time to pray, focus on your prayers, and open yourself to God’s grace through the sacraments. One of our readers, an 84-year-old prison inmate, also sent along the following helpful thoughts:
Christ is pleased with your courage in articulating your problem. It is a painful cross with which God has entrusted you. It does not mean that anything is wrong with your good soul. If upon occasion, there are biological or anatomical responses, the attendant spiritual discomfort you feel is proof you did not give “full consent of the will,” and guilt feelings therefrom are counterfeit accusations designed to disturb you. Be at peace.
However, if such possible responses occur, and even if you are at Mass, sometimes it would be well to feign the need for a drink of water. This will break the pestiferous syndrome. However, be not saddened if it returns. A pat of cool water on the face and/or on the wrists is fruitful. God has holy designs upon you and asks only that you persevere. The great St. Peter of Alcantara was plagued with mental blasphemies, as were other saints. Offer it all patiently to God, even as you petition Him to take it away.
If you are not invested in and wearing the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, avail yourself of this powerful devotion, rendering you a child of her special predilection. Other helps are a few blessed sacramentals of your own choice, a container of holy water, and the recitation at least once every day of the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. Devotion to your holy guardian angel, and to all the choirs of angels, will help.
Beware, nonetheless, of loading yourself with too many self-imposed prayers. God is urgent in His care for you and does not wish you to be unduly burdened with a holy imprudence in this regard. Invoking simply the Holy Names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is good, as well as appealing to the Precious Blood and Sacred Wounds of our dear Lord. Do not be in the least surprised if none of the above seems to help at first, and things seemingly get worse. This is normal, and there are holy pursuits to keep the problem contained. This cross does not harm your prayers, even if it seems to.
You can also ask the intercession of Blessed Bartolo Longo, who was once a Satanist and gradually became a blessed, and of St. Martin de Porres. Our Blessed Mother, who loves you dearly, is your principal protectress.
Lastly, this cross usually has its origin in demonic influence. Just as our holy guardian angels influence us for good, the demons or devils seek to influence our souls their way. But as St. John says in his first epistle, “He that is in you is stronger than he that is in the world.” Obviously, you are not demoniacally possessed. However, you are being oppressed by the Devil. If you weren’t close to God, you wouldn’t be an object of the Devil’s attention.
But as Pope St. John Paul said: “Be not afraid!” And remember that Jesus loves you as if you were the only person in the world.
During times of such afflictions, experiment with finding a thought that you can visualize. For example, the empty cross on Calvary with Christ rather far in the distance approaching it. May we meet someday in Heaven where Christ waits at the end of everything!
Q. At daily Mass recently, there have been readings from the Book of Revelation. Many of the readings are hard to understand. Perhaps you can explain two of them to me. The first is the reference in chapter 11 to “two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.” What is this referring to? The second is from chapter 14, which talks about 144,000 people who have God’s name written on their foreheads. Who are these people? — J.M., via e-mail.
A. Before commenting on the specific passages you mentioned, we can recommend two books that you might find helpful in deciphering the obscure passages in the final book of the Bible. The books are Revelation by Peter Williamson and Understanding Revelation by Jimmy Akin.
Regarding the passage in chapter 11, the two witnesses are probably Moses and Elijah, the two great heroes of the Old Testament who represented the Law and the Prophets. John the Apostle, the author of Revelation, compares the two witnesses to olive trees and lampstands because olive trees symbolize life and immortality, and lampstands represent the light of Christ shining in a world of darkness. The two men symbolize the twofold role of the Church in history: 1) to pray and worship, and 2) to prophesy and witness. We need to fill that same role today and let the light of Christ’s message shine through us.
It reminds us of the story of the little girl whose father was explaining the saints pictured in the stained-glass windows in church. When she got to her religious education class, the teacher asked what a saint was. She replied, “A person who lets the light shine through him.”
In the reading from chapter 14, Jesus, the Lamb, is standing on Mount Zion along with 144,000 faithful who have the Lamb’s name and the Father’s name written on their foreheads. They are sealed with these names in contrast to those in chapter 13 who were marked with 666, the number of the beast. The number 144,000 is a symbolic number, representing completeness and the number of the 12 tribes of Israel squared and then multiplied by 1,000.
It does not mean, as the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim, the number of Witnesses who will be saved, but rather it represents the totality of God’s people. They will be saved because they have followed the Lamb, and there is no deceit on their lips; they have not lied or denied Christ.
We know that the number of the saved is not limited to 144,000 because in chapter 7 John said that he had “a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.” When asked the meaning of the white robes, one of the elders said that “these are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
Also in chapter 14, John hears a loud voice from Heaven and harp music and singing. Harps were used in Temple worship and they will be heard in Heaven, too. The faithful are singing a new song of praise and gratitude to God before the four living creatures and the 24 elders. The four living creatures appear as animals with eyes in the front and back of each one indicating vigilance and complete awareness of everything taking place in creation.
The creatures resemble a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle. The lion is a symbol of divine authority, the ox symbolizes strength, the man intelligence, and the eagle swiftness.
Since the second century, the four creatures have been associated with the four evangelists. Matthew is the man with the human face since his Gospel begins with the human genealogy of Jesus. Mark is the roaring lion since his Gospel begins with a voice crying in the wilderness. Luke is the sacrificial ox since his Gospel begins in the Temple where the oxen were sacrificed. John is the soaring eagle who uses lofty rhetoric to explain the mystery of Christ’s divinity (cf. John 1:1-14).
St. Bede said that the four creatures refer to the whole Church: her humility in the man, her courage in the lion, her sacrificial service in the ox, and her sublime identity in the soaring eagle.
The 24 elders around the throne, who represent the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles, are dressed like priests (white garments) and kings (gold crowns). They are wearing the white robes of the priesthood because it was their duty to bridge the gulf between God and the human family. They had the obligation of bringing God to the people and the people to God, the same role that priests have today.
John’s vision relates not only to the first century, but to all of human history. Those standing with the Lamb are those who believed in the Gospel, repented of their sins, and were baptized. They served faithfully in God’s army in the battle against idolatry, immorality, materialism, deception, and persecution by the agents of Satan.
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