Prayer is our outstanding supernatural resource for fighting the wiles of the enemy!

“Prayer is, beyond doubt, the most powerful weapon the Lord gives us to conquer evil … but we must really put ourselves into the prayer, it is not enough just to say the words, it must come from the heart. And also prayer needs to be continuous, we must pray no matter what kind of situation we find ourselves in: the warfare we are engaged in is ongoing, so our prayer must be on-going also.” – St. Alphonsus

You see? Whether it’s a Navy SEAL or a Saint, we admire those who put it all on the line — go “all in!” — those who are totally dedicated to the mission … and God admires them too. Throughout salvation history, we have seen how God responds to this resolute and determined kind of prayer, just as Jesus taught His disciples. It was in Nineveh that the entire city turned back to God and did all that they could, through prayer and fasting, to “demonstrate to” God that they were absolutely resolute in this “turning.” God saw how “serious” they were about this, and He was moved (Jonah 3:3-10). This is yet another story that demonstrates how God – a perfect Father – compels His children to be truly resolute and quite serious when calling out to Him.

The heroes of our faith are the warrior saints who have gone before us. God worked mightily and miraculously through them. Therefore, we must study their ways. How did they remain so well connected, in such strong friendship with God, so that His river of supernatural grace could flow so freely through them? What do these “SEALS for Christ” teach us about the ideal spiritual disciplines, the ultimate daily regimen of prayer?

The following are those top ten ideal and most rock-solid foundational practices of an authentically strong Catholic.

1. The Morning Offering
2. The Angelus (6 AM, noon, 6 PM)
3. Mental Prayer (at least 15 minutes)
4. Spiritual Reading (at least 15 minutes)
5. Frequent Confession (at least once a month)
6. Holy Mass and Communion
7. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (regularly)
8. Acts of Mortification (especially fasting)
9. The Holy Rosary
10. Brief Examination of Conscience (at night)

Our Daily Prayer for Liberty and for a Holy Spirit Revival 

“Free us from every force of oppression, both internally and externally. Grant to our leaders the wisdom to protect and promote our liberties; by your grace may we have the courage to defend them, for ourselves and for all those who live in this blessed land. Heavenly Father, grant a Holy Spirit Revival in our land!” (Based on a prayer by the USCCB)

SUPERIOR IDEAL

Among the ways we have just let Coach Vince Lombardi inspire us, let’s focus on the most important one: He went to Mass and received Communion every day of his life. Pope John Paul II said the Holy Eucharist “contains the Church’s entire spiritual wealth: Christ Himself.”

Precisely during a time when our culture was becoming disconnected from their True Source, Vince Lombardi remained firmly and wholly connected to his. No matter what Lombardi dedicated himself to, he never abandoned his true self as a child of God and devoted disciple of Jesus Christ. More than anything, he understood the necessity of receiving God’s Divine Life, as he brought himself, daily, to the altar of our Lord to receive him — body, blood, soul, and divinity — as the real source of power in his life. This was where his energy, his very life came from. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once said, “As a man must be born before he can begin to lead his physical life, so he must be born to lead a Divine Life. That birth occurs in the Sacrament of Baptism. To survive, he must be nourished by Divine Life; that is done in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.”

There is no other authentic way to strive for perfection. Lombardi recognized this as the superior ideal that must never be abandoned, but interwoven into all of our pursuits, whether it is as a businessman or parent or professor or coach.

Vince Lombardi lived profoundly by God at the exact time our culture was unraveling and when it was all too easy to abandon God (as it continues to be today). How easy it was (and is) for so many to follow the crowd through the wide gate (Mt 7:13) of the many fads and trends of immorality, self-gratification, and anti-authority in the 1960s and up to today. Lombardi is yet another reminder that the real heroes of every age are those brave souls who courageously accept the challenge of integrity by ignoring the trends of their times while remaining true to themselves, even if it means being a signum cui contradicetur, a sign of contradiction, in the world (Lk 2:34). (Excerpt from Church Militant Field Manual).

Fr Richard Heilman