By Tom Nash
Catholics wonder why some priests and parishes are reluctant to celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday in particular and the related devotion in general. After all, who wouldn’t want mercy?
Well, receiving mercy from our Lord Jesus Christ means recognizing your sins, especially any mortal sins. That’s a big ask, because it not only requires repentance, including humbly navigating the sacrament of confession, but also an ongoing commitment to growth in holiness, and thus embracing our cross as Christ did his (see Matt. 16:21-27).
Similarly, there’s resistance among some priests and parishioners to praying the St. Michael Prayer after the Masses they offer daily, because that requires recognizing the devil for who he really is: a powerful fallen angel who desires our damnation—especially that of priests, given the salvific power Jesus has given them. We need to act accordingly. That too is a challenging ask, including because we live in a modern world that mocks such belief.
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen understood all of these realities well, which is why he spoke and wrote so insightfully on the demonic and the God-given weapons the Church has to combat Satan and the other fallen angels. (The Church is beatifying Archbishop Sheen on September 24 in St. Louis.) Sheen especially hones in on the devil’s hatred of the cross, the sacramental re-presentation of Christ’s one sacrifice of Calvary in the offering of the Mass, and eucharistic adoration, the great fruit of the Mass.
Sheen reflects on the devil’s three temptations in the desert, with which Satan seeks to divert Jesus from his redemptive mission (Matt. 4:1-11). Sheen calls them “shortcuts from the cross.” For example, in tempting Jesus to “command these stones to become loaves of bread” (Matt. 4:3), “the evil spirit was saying, ‘Start with the primacy of the economic! Forget about sin!’” “The vision of social amelioration without spiritual regeneration has constituted a temptation to which many important men in history have succumbed completely,” Sheen adds, referencing communist dictators in particular. Yet what such leaders and the devil promise inevitably concludes in despair: “The dictator gives bread; God does not, because there is no God, there is no soul; there is only the body, pleasure, sex, the animal, and when we die, that is the end.”
The Cross and Its Sin-Atoning Shedding of Blood
Sheen often cited Sacred Scripture to illustrate the efficacy of Jesus’ one sacrifice of Calvary: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22). Whereas Old Covenant sacrifices were done in obedience to God and provided limited atonement, only the blood of Jesus suffices in blotting out the sins of all mankind. “As the New Testament says,” Sheen comments, “all of these things were done in figures and symbols. . . . The true Lamb had come and for only one purpose; to shed blood in expiation for the sins of the world” (emphasis added).
Sheen thereby explains the Incarnation: why Jesus became man. “Satan tempts through the flesh. Therefore, the Son of Man came in the flesh in order to conquer Satan on his own ground. The Son of God appeared for the very purpose of undoing the devil’s work.” Indeed, by becoming man and through the cross, Jesus broke Satan’s grip on the world, says Sheen, citing St. Paul:
On that cross he discarded the cosmic powers and authorities like a garment; he made a public spectacle of them and led them as captives in his triumphal procession (Col. 2:15).
St. Peter was initially “willing to have a divine Christ but not a suffering Christ” (Matt. 16:21-23). “He was called Satan because the essence of Satanism is temptation from the cross. Anyone who tempts Christ from the cross is Satanic.” Yet, in time, Peter would come around, as we are called to do, in witnessing to Jesus as the Savior of the world who atoned for our sins by embracing the cross (Acts 3:11-26; 5:27-32).
“The cross is the greatest basis of unity in the world,” says Sheen. “It drives men together when everything else drives them apart. The cross unites the friends of Christ and it also unites his enemies.”
The devil can appear as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14), yet he can be quickly found out by his refusal to acknowledge Jesus. St. Padre Pio used this divine method when Satan appeared to him disguised as his priest confessor, and the saint was suspicious of his true identity. “Say, ‘Praise Jesus!’” Pio exclaimed. The demon refused and vanished. Similarly, as Sheen notes, the devil cannot mimic the redemptive wounds Jesus received on the cross:
In an old legend, it is said that Satan appeared to a saint and said, “I am the Christ.” The saint confounded him by asking, “Where are the marks of nails?” Satan may appear in many disguises like Christ, and at the end of the world will appear as a benefactor and philanthropist—but Satan never has and never well will appear with scars.
The Power of the Mass and Eucharistic Adoration
In the Mass, the merits of the sacrifice of Calvary are re-presented and offered anew, as heaven and earth become most profoundly one. Having failed to stop the cross, Sheen says, the devil takes aim at the faithful in general and priests in particular to lead them away from Christ through neglect of prayer, especially faithful participation in the Mass and the reverent reception of Holy Communion:
Neglect! We do not lose our souls simply by doing bad things. We lose our souls by omission. . . . If someone has taken poison, and the antidote is brought to him, it does not make a difference if the antidote is thrown out of the window or whether he simply neglects to take it. The poison is operating and will have its effect.
Besides offering Mass every day, Sheen credited the power of his priesthood to his daily holy hour before our eucharistic Lord Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, a discipline he maintained for sixty-plus years. Whereas priests and laymen may doubt, Sheen notes, the devil does not, which is why his most infernal act is called the Black Mass. “A consecrated host is absolutely essential for a black Mass,” says Sheen:
We may be lax in our devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, but Satan is not. Scripture tells us Satan believes [James 2:19]. Satan believes in God, in the divinity of Christ, in the Eucharist, in the Church, and yet believing, he would destroy. This is why we pray the holy hour.
Realizing the temporal demands of the laity, Sheen recommends, if at all possible, a holy hour inclusive of daily Mass, and, in any event, fifteen minutes of daily prayer (not necessarily before the Blessed Sacrament) to maintain and deepen the interior life. (However, I submit that’s further reason why we should make adoration without exposition much more available at parishes everywhere, given the undeniable benefits of drawing near to our eucharistic Lord Jesus.) But for priests and religious, Sheen counsels a non-negotiable daily holy hour, and he exhorts priests not to count their daily Mass and also to make a continuous holy hour instead of breaking it up, e.g., into fifteen-minute intervals:
I have never known a priest, a brother, or a sister, who left the Church who made a daily hour. And there will never be one because they live so close to [Christ], and he will not let them go.
Finally, Sheen tells a humorous anecdote regarding when he fell asleep one afternoon before the Blessed Sacrament at a church in Paris. In referencing the plight of Ss. Peter, James, and John in the Garden of Gethsemane, Sheen reminds us of Christ’s mercy—and yet also that we need to remain vigilant in our lives as his disciples:
I went to the Church of San Roque at two o’clock. I was tired and sat down, and I woke up at three, right on the dot. I said to the Good Lord, “Did I make a holy hour?” My angel said, “Well, that is the way the apostles made their first one. We’ll take it.” The point is never just skip it: never, never, never, regardless of the difficulty.
The quotes from Archbishop Sheen are taken from his talks and writings, including as compiled in Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen: On the Demonic, edited by Fr. Dave Tomaszycki (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2024).
Tom Nash is a staff apologist at Catholic Answers and the author of several books, including The Biblical Roots of the Mass.
Great article!
I love the "fell asleep during adoration" story!