Like I Was Saying...
To Satan or not to Satan? That is the question--
As I've said before, I'm a youth minister at my local parish. I have a small group of teens ages fifteen to sixteen years old.
One thing I'm committed to is preaching to them the basics of the Gospel message.
I've written about this before, but I believe the Catholic Church isn't very good at articulating the Gospel. I know this because I've personally experienced it.
I break down the Gospel using Father John Ricardo's Created, Captured, Rescued, and Response.
Our Youth Group nights generally have themes for the evening, like last night's theme was The Church and Psychology. So the main talks for the evening revolved around anxiety, depression, and mental health.
Now, I've decided to take the evening's central theme and apply it to the basic Gospel message.
In this case, anxiety and depression would fall under Captured.
Man's issues with mental health are a consequence of the fall and man's fallen nature.
Now, part of the Christian story, as I present it, Lucifer or Satan, plays a major part. Tradition tells us that Lucifer, out of envy, rebelled against God and tricked us into disobeying God, and well, that's why things stink.
So in the thirty minutes I spent with my small group, I re-enforced the Gospel message and tied it into the main theme of the night.
Now, my mother has been sitting in a small group.
On the drive home, she mentioned that she never mentioned either Satan or Death in the thirteen years she spent as catchiest.
This made me wonder if maybe I was jumping the shark in mentioning Lucifer.
The one thing I thought about is that I remember being sixteen and one of my major problems was I thought God was the enemy. So, at sixteen, belief in God was a major buzz kill.
Turns out God isn't the enemy. But in the absence of the true enemy, you have nowhere to go but God.
Look, I know its 2022, and the belief in Lucifer seems so archaic, but the Devil is real. Even Jesus acknowledges his existence. The things we suffer through are mainly driven by him and the consequences of the fall.
Also, to fully understand what Jesus did for us, we have to mention the Devil and his goal for each individual soul.
His job is to hurt God, and since Lucifer is one of God's creatures that can't beat God, he does - in his mind - the next best thing. He attacks the man.
This is why I mention him and talk about him. He's not Voldemort, he's Satan, and I don't think we should shy away from it.
I was still curious if I was doing the right thing, but I read the Church's morning readings this morning. Today's first reading was from Paul's letter to Ephesians 2:1-10.
And Saint Paul starts by mentioning Satan and Sin.
And for some reason, I felt vindicated, thinking, if while preaching it was good enough for Saint Paul, then it should be good enough for me.