Betraying Jesus & the Superhero Trap
A diary entry from November 12, 2022
Tonight, I’m attending a small “girls night out” type gathering of women from church. The host is fun and chatty, and so are all the others. I feel warm and welcome and included, which is probably the reason why I’m failing to speak up when the “kids running wild” discussion ensues.
Two of the younger mothers have a half-joking, half-guilty exchange about how some of their kids misbehaved and ran around the back of the church during Mass.
Another woman chimes in, saying that she thinks it’s totally okay and normal: “Whenever I see one of those people frowning at kids, I frown back. I mean, come on, those are our children! They are the future of the Church!”
Some women vocally agree, some smile politely. So do I. I don’t want to make any waves—I, the newcomer, the single older woman with no family here, the one who needs to make friends and figure out how to keep them. When I leave later that night, I feel guilty to have let Jesus and VatiGod* down like this.
Back home, my jumbled thoughts finally come together to form a clearer picture. If I hadn’t been too scared to speak up on your behalf, Jesus, here’s what I would have said:
“Yes, our children are the future of the Church. That’s exactly the reason why they need to be disciplined and taught to be respectful and reverent at Mass from the earliest age. They need to know: This is not our living room, it’s not a playground, it’s not a social club. It’s a place of solemn worship. It’s God’s own house, and He actually lives here. He’s alive in that tabernacle, watching everything that goes on at Mass… and then He gives Himself to us in an incredible, unsurpassable show of love for us, His children. He melts on our tongues, merges with our bodies for a brief period, changing us from within every time we receive Him.”
Saints have written whole books about what really goes on during Mass, the unfathomable amount of grace that God showers us with in that one precious hour. So have others like Scott Hahn in his book, The Lamb’s Supper: Mass as Heaven on Earth.
The Amazon book blurb says, With its unchanging prayers, the Mass fits Catholics like their favorite clothes. Yet most Catholics sitting in the pews on Sundays fail to see the powerful supernatural drama that enfolds them.
Sure, kids will be kids; they’ll occasionally misbehave. But excusing and even affirming out-of-line behavior instead of correcting it is the wrong way to go. I feel terrible that I didn’t defend you, Jesus, as I should have. I should have thrown caution to the wind and forgotten about my own little self, which was more concerned with being popular than with being honest.
I’ve let Satan get the better of me, mute me by stoking my fears of being the lone dissenter, the disliked dispenser of inconvenient truths—shunned, ostracized, alone. Oh Jesus, forgive me. I’m not doing the job you’ve sent me to do.
Jesus is driving the point home even in my sleep. At 1:40 AM, I awake from a horrible nightmare. I only remember the last part, even though the dream itself was much longer.
K. and I are in a house with others from the demon slayer team. We know that demonic entities are in the house, and we need to fight them. We split up and move through the empty rooms of the dilapidated mansion.
As I step into a room with piled-up junk in it, I discover a humungous gray snake the color of cold ashes amidst the debris. It blends in so well that I almost missed it. The serpent isn’t moving—it looks like it’s sleeping or hibernating. I back out of the room and call K. He says we should pour gasoline over it and burn it up while it’s asleep and helpless.
I say, “No, we have to fight it when it’s awake.”
I hand him a massive sword for that purpose. He’s angry that I expect him to put himself into such grave danger when we could take an easy shortcut.
I say, “It’s the only way.”
The team carefully prepares some more weapons: a flamethrower, a can of gasoline, and some deadly traps. Then it’s time to wake up the serpent. He roars and hisses when he sees us and rears his ugly head up high (he’s so big that he almost fills the room), but it’s too late for him. K. gets some good blows with the sword in, and then another person from our team blows the snake up with fuel and the flamethrower. We flee the room, which is on fire now. The serpent has imploded, burned to a cinder.
Triumphant and exhausted, I step into the next room, a good-sized library with a cathedral ceiling, and lie down on an old, lumpy couch to rest. I briefly close my eyes. When I open them again, I see Satan in the form of a giant dark-gray archangel hovering at the ceiling, ready to swoop down on me and annihilate me.
I know in an instant that we’ve made a very bad mistake. We did the superhero thing. We forgot that we by ourselves aren’t powerful enough to deal with the Evil One. We forgot that we can’t do anything without God.
I start praying: “Lord Jesus Christ, please help me against this powerful enemy, whose power is no match for yours, not even close. Save me, save me, save me.” I know this is the right thing, the only thing to do.
Then I remember the Holy Mother. “Mary, Mother of God and terror of demons,” I pray, “please come and help me.”
She comes immediately. She looks at the gigantic angel at the ceiling whose charcoal-gray wings span the entire room. “Leave,” she says.
I can feel Jesus standing right next to her, backing her up, reinforcing the command. Satan vanishes, like he’s never been there.
I wake up in a sweat and realize I’m lying on my back facing the ceiling, a position I never sleep in. I pray the Jesus Prayer—“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”—a dozen times or so until I feel completely safe. What a nightmare. What a lesson.
As if to confirm my thoughts, my Daily Bible Verse app pings to notify me of a new entry: For in him we live, and move, and have our being. (Acts 17:28)
Amen.
[*“Vati” means “Daddy” in German and is pronounced “Fuh-tee.”]