Laying Siege: Heaven vs. Hell

Siege of Acre

Mark Shea is a very talented apologist and theologian. I am not. Yet for some reason I decided to question a statement he made on a post last night. It was a minor point, and in the end I am probably wrong. He made the statement:

"The basic blunder of the Pharisee right down to our own time is that he forgets that it is Hell and not the Church that is under siege."

 Now, again, it was a minor point, and one used more for fanciful writing than to make his main argument. But it struck me as odd, and it seemed to be contrary to my understand of certain aspects of the Gospels. So I asked for a bit of clarification, and he gave it to me. But his clarification muddied the waters even more. You can read the back and forth below the post, and I am sure you all will be able to tell me how wrong I am, but that isn't my concern. What I started thinking about after that is who is attacking who?

···laying siege...···

We hear in the St. Michael Prayer: "...and all the evil spirits that prowl the world seeking the ruin of souls!"  To me that sounds as if Satan and his devils are coming after us. Likewise, I brought up to Shea, and in my head, the verse that guides the blog (Mt. 11:12): "...the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence..." There are other verses as well that talk about the attacks, or siege if you will, against Heaven and the Kingdom.

Shea, however, argued that verses, such as Mt. 16:18, show that Heaven attacks the "Gates of Hell" and thereby lays siege to the land of the dead. I think he is right, to some degree, again the back and forth of "right and wrong" on that one point isn't important. What is important is that we understand that there is a war going on out there. Oh I know, I shouldn't use such aggressive and abrasively-violent rhetoric. But alas, it isnt rhetoric, it is reality. 


I think Shea is partly right, that Heaven does lay siege to Hell, but I think that I am likewise right and that it is also the other way around. I think that the war is so chaotic, so messy,  so overwhelming that we lose sight of the fact that we can get caught up in the craziness of it all quite easily. I don't think that it is fair to say that one situation or the other exists at the mutual exclusivity of the other - I think both spiritual realms lay siege on one another.

This is an important point because, I think it is so easy to think that once we have declared ourselves Catholic, that everything is fine,  and that since we are on the winning team,  all we have to do is go through the motions and wait. But that isn't the case, you see, we arent supposed to just sit back and wait for the other side to give up. In fact this thinking is dangerous because, we can become complacent and misguided. When we relax, we lose sight of the overall goal and we can become easily deceived.

We must act be prepared to be attacked; even worse we must be ready to withstand the sieges that the great deceiver, Satan, throws at us. Certainly we can be assured that God is the winning leader, and that Heaven ultimately wins, but until that time, it is a battle to keep as many souls on the side of truth as possible. We must prepare ourselves for the worst - even when we expect the best. This isn't just about the good side winning, it is making sure that there are no "lost sheep" in the process.

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