Day 28 – 90 Days to Liberty

by Fr Richard Heilman | March 26, 2023 12:05 AM

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[1]). 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)

 

“Freedom from Racism” by Fr. Bill Peckman

As dominant a topic as racism is today, the word is only 140 years old in usage. I have been reading the book The Guarded Gate by Daniel Okrent. He traces how both nativism and eugenics in 19th Century America and Northern Europe led to the closing of the U.S.A.’s doors to immigrants in the 1920’s from groups deemed to be lesser races. Race didn’t exclusively refer to the color of one’s skin as it does today. Races were divided by religion and nationality as well. The likes of Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge would have been indignant at the idea that a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) such as himself, would have been put in the same race as Poles, Russians, Slavs, Italians, Spaniards, Irish Catholics, Catholics, or Jews. This type of racism found its most deadly form in the Third Reich in Nazi Germany. Hitler, being a northern European, also sent Slavs, Poles, Roma (aka Gypsies), Russians, Catholics (especially clergy and seminarians), as well as Jews to the concentration/death camps.

The notion of racism these days fully arises out of eugenics. For those who do not know what eugenics is, it is a belief that humanity can become a super race by eliminating what are considered lesser strains, or human “weeds”. English scientist Thomas Galton began this controversial study based on the extension of the work of his cousin, Charles Darwin. The Nativist movement in the U.S. and the U.K. picked up on this and found a particular champion in America with Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger. It was she who designated the entirety of those with black skin to be among the lesser of humanity, taking a view of them akin to the slave traders and owners who 50 years prior sought to keep them enslaved.

Racism is another way that Satan sets us against each other. It is another potent dividing line. Although he doesn’t address race in his epistles (mainly because the concept is non-existent), St. Paul writes many times how these manmade divisions are inappropriate to the Body of Christ. He says that in Christ, there is no male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or freeman (Galatians 3:28). It takes little effort to imagine he would extend this to the idea that in Christ there are no races, but that all in Christ are one despite manmade differentiations and the superior/inferior delegations we put to them.

Racism is tearing apart our country right now. It is a tool used by people with hopes of tearing down this country and reconstituting it as a communist or socialist nation. Both ideologies require struggles between an oppressed class and oppressor class to justify upending the system. They have simply borrowed the categories from other totalitarian groups, such as the Nazi’s, and tweaked them to suit the new narrative. They can do this because we have 150 or so years of fomenting the idea of racism.

There have been incidents of racism within the Church. When one looks at the story of Fr. Augustine Tolton, declared venerable by the Church, we see a black man and former slave who was called by God to the priesthood yet could not find an American seminary to take him. I believe that racism, in a soft form, has largely gutted inner city parishes where the natives refused or failed in evangelizing the new people moving in because they didn’t look like them. To be honest, I have heard more than a few times, vile racial slurs from those who claim to be good Catholics. Such things, as St. Paul would remind us, are wholly unacceptable behaviors for a follower of Jesus and have no place within the Body of Christ.

It is our society that likes dividing the population into separate corporate bodies to pit them against each other. Certainly, more nefarious political systems need and thrive upon such divisions. Within the Body of Christ, this is wholly evil. One of the marks of the Church is ‘One’ —that is, that we are one in Christ. That oneness is not subservient to worldly divisions and political jostling. Consider that the Catholic Church has over 1.4 billion members. Those 1.4 billion come from every conceivable culture, language, and skin color, yet we are called to be one. That oneness starts here and stretches to eternity.

What is needed is wisdom, that gift of the Holy Spirit that enables us to see one another as Christ sees us. First and foremost, He sees each of us as needing God’s love and grace. He sees each of us as redeemable and worth the price of the Cross. We need to see each other in such a light. When someone searching comes upon us, they should not see us looking like the world, but they should see us in stark contrast to the world. We don’t seek to divide what is called to be one. Over the years, I have thought it asinine to make judgements about the character of a person based on how much melanin happens to be in their skin. Wisdom leads us to truth. Truth leads us to love. God is love. Let us pray for the courage to look at the agent provocateurs who use race (and any other category they can find) to pit us against each other, and instead choose to love each other as God loves us. (From “Let Freedom Ring[2]“)

 

 

You can enlist in the United States Grace Force HERE[3] (please recruit family and friends!)

Information on the United States Grace Force can be found HERE[4]

We highly recommend ordering the book “Let Freedom Ring[2]” authored by Fr. Bill Peckman, Fr. James Altman and Fr. Rick Heilman. This amazing book will be a great tool for easy access, highlighting and bookmarking as you traverse through the first 40-days of our 90 Days to Liberty journey with tens of thousands of other special forces prayer warriors!

You can order the book at RomanCatholicGear.com[5].

You may want to consider using the Hallow App for Lent: Hallow.com[6]

 

GET YOUR PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH PRAYER JOURNAL …

HERE[7]

 

[8]

Endnotes:
  1. Jonah 3:3-10: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah%203:3-10
  2. Let Freedom Ring: https://romancatholicgear.com/collections/books/products/let-freedom-ring-book
  3. HERE: https://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001ESuSGaJpYPCG2iUdd4j4bkKwd4gkh2ZUVbam_Ty9rCn6blH6_U3cI2D8UvSLEcSzHnC4eq2UWmK1I0SbEw0SPKqnkZ2j0Z4J4D-_m4dD6CKJU9day-bBa8Qnx4dv7RLDIVlYAjL1JWsjfUTNPH2jQIVY9gbdbz4O4oMIzv5V1dT_upQsD8cX86iq_5Y-x4eLrTVtdOmA24s%3D
  4. HERE: https://usgraceforce.com/god-wants-you-enlist-in-the-grace-force/
  5. RomanCatholicGear.com: https://romancatholicgear.com/collections/grace-force
  6. Hallow.com: https://hallow.com
  7. HERE: https://romancatholicgear.com/collections/peace-through-strength-1
  8. [Image]: https://romancatholicgear.com/collections/peace-through-strength-1

Source URL: https://usgraceforce.com/day-28-90-days-to-liberty/