October 8, 2025

Fr. John Riccardo

Beloved: Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David: such is my gospel, for which I am suffering, even to the point of chains, like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. Therefore, I bear with everything for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, together with eternal glory. This saying is trustworthy: If we have died with him we shall also live with him; if we persevere we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him he will deny us. If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself (2 Timothy 2:8-13).

A few years back, The University of Mary published a remarkably insightful book entitled From Christendom to Apostolic Mission: Pastoral Strategies for An Apostolic Age. If you’re not familiar with it, I encourage you to run to your favorite Catholic bookstore or online vehicle to obtain a copy. It’s definitely a must read for anyone in ministry, ordained or lay. A follow up to the book came out last year entitled The Religion of the Day. As I pray with Paul’s exhortation to Timothy, and to us, this week, I find myself calling to mind a passage near the conclusion of this book.

Paul tells us how important it is for us to persevere. What’s more, he reminds us for what exactly we are persevering: so as to reign! In other words, it’s worth it. The Greek word Paul uses could alternatively be translated as remain, endure, don’t be moved off your spot, be patient. Perhaps, most simply, it means to stand. Anybody feeling tempted to grow impatient with all that’s going on on so many levels? Which brings me back to the passage from The Religion of the Day. The authors are commenting not on this excerpt from 2 Timothy, but rather on Ephesians 6:10-17. The tie between the two exhortations is the word “stand.” What follows, I know, is a bit lengthy, but it’s just too good not to share in its entirety. Let us linger with these words in the days ahead. May St. Paul mightily intercede for us, and may the Spirit of God empower us to not be moved off the Rock that is Jesus.

“Saint Paul is giving Christian disciples a rousing battle cry, of the kind generals issue to rally their troops before engaging the enemy.

One thinks of the ‘band of brothers’ speech given by Henry V before the battle of Agincourt in Shakespeare's famous play. Yet the main encouragement Paul gives to his fellow Christians is not ’Attack!’; not ’Forward!’; not ’Once more into the breach!’; but: ‘Stand!’ The word is used four times in this one passage. No one doubts the importance of soldiers holding their ground and not running away, but is that the best we can do?

Paul's extended analogy is also significant. He speaks of truth, righteousness, peace, and faith as parts of a suit of armor, and armor is fundamentally a defensive measure. The one weapon mentioned for attack is the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. This emphasis might lead us to think that Paul is preparing the disciples for a defensive siege, counseling them to hunker down and dig in against a superior enemy. Yet this is clearly not the case. Paul's call to his followers was always: ‘be imitators of me as I am of Christ’ (1 Cor 11:1). He is laying out for them his own strategy, which is also the strategy of Christ himself, and that strategy is anything but defensive. In all that has concerned the battle between light and darkness in which we have been implicated, God has been the aggressor. It was God the Father who started the assault on the demonic kingdom. It was God the Son who invaded occupied territory in a kind of disguise, bringing heavenly power to bear on a captive and fallen race and setting up a colony of heaven in the midst of occupied territory. Saint John wrote that ’the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil’ (1 Jn 3:8). Jesus declared that he ’saw Satan fall like lightning’ (Lk 10:18). It was Jesus who provoked Satan into hand-to-hand combat and threw him down. Jesus was always on the attack and always master of events. Yet paradoxically, the spear point of his attack was his passion and death. Jesus purposely allowed himself to be taken by his enemies, and he patiently endured the worst they could throw at him, not because he was compelled to do so, but because he knew that this was the winning strategy. ‘Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?’ (Mt 26:53-4). By taking his stand in the will and the truth of the Father, by refusing to give up even when he seemed to be defeated, Christ completely routed his demonic foes.

“Christ's servant Paul, imitating his Master, was also constantly on the attack, and he also clearly intended to defeat his enemies. He was full of energetic plans, and he stirred up activity and conflict wherever he went. Concerning his own missionary work, he wrote: ‘We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ’ (2 Cor 10:4-5). Paul was not a defensive sort of person, and though his call is to stand, the posture he enjoins is not defensive in a psychological or even a tactical sense. Instead, he makes clear how the heavenly attack goes forward.

“Christians attack the evil of the world and challenge the supremacy of the prince of darkness by refusing to be moved off their ground, by staying in the fight no matter what, and by fearlessly speaking God's word of truth even in the face of persecution and death. They imitate Christ, the great champion of truth and goodness, precisely by standing. Why is that?

”In this stage of the battle - this time between the first and the second coming of Christ, during which human souls are being sifted, sorted, and gathered into the kingdom - the Church operates as a kind of resistance movement behind the lines of the demonic enemy. Christians know that they cannot entirely overcome the curse of the Fall and dethrone the one whom Jesus regularly calls ‘the Prince of this world.’ There is a promised invasion coming, and the Church has set all its hope on the fulfillment of that promise. Meanwhile, Christ in the Church continues his work of probing hearts, gaining new disciples, stirring up loyalty to the Father, getting in the way of the devil's dark plans, bringing the dead back to life, and teaching his disciples to despise and disobey their former captor. The devil hates this heavenly society in his midst and launches desperate count-er-attacks against it according to the measure of power allotted to him, but no matter what he does, he cannot snuff it out or stop its subversive activity.

“Given this strategic situation, it becomes clear why ‘standing’ is so important and why the seemingly defeated martyr rather than the externally victorious conqueror is the quintessential Christian hero. Christians always win when they stand in the truth of Christ, whatever their circumstances. Christ has arranged things for those who belong to him such that, so long as they do not give up, they always win. The devil knows this iron law of spiritual warfare. He knows that he cannot defeat Christians by making life miserable for them, or by stirring up persecution against them, not even by slaughtering them wholesale. The only way he can overcome them is to find a way to get them either to abandon the truth or to lose hope and quit the fight, by somehow getting them off the secure rock upon which they are standing, the rock of Christ.

“Jesus taught his followers that they would grow strong, conquer, and gain a kingdom according to the pattern of his Cross: not by wealth but by poverty; not by power but by humility; not by strength but in weakness; not by coercive force but in defenselessness; not by the world's wisdom but by the seeming foolishness of God. Like Christ, Christians triumph just when it seems that they are failing. Not that they set out to fail. Following the example of their Master, Christians attempt to be faithful, diligent, wise, competent, zealous, and patient. In doing so they are given the privilege of being channels of his grace and truth. They see God at work in their own lives and they know the joy of seeing fellow captives set free. Yet they find that at crucial times, despite all their best efforts, they seem to fail. They and their work are nailed to the Cross and crucified. It is just then that heaven's power is mysteriously released and that new life comes bursting from the grave. The Church is weakest and most vulnerable when it most relies on worldly categories of strength and success. It is strongest when it is most reliant on God and least wedded to the powers of a fallen world.”

From The Religion of the Day, pp 117-121.

Stand!

Disarming the Spirit of Fear