Victory in Christ
By Bishop Carl Mengeling

We, members of Jesus body, the Church, will joyfully celebrate his Resurrection for 50 days. During Lent, we did battle with the forces of evil, darkness and death with our eyes fixed on Him. The victory of our Risen Lord is also our victory.

Christ’s passion, death and resurrection is the way to victory over evil and death for all His followers in every generation. The contest between good and evil will go on until the Second Coming of Christ in glory.

It is a spiritual warfare with spiritual weapons. The passion and death of Jesus is the spiritual strategy for our battle and victory. The Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s Letters show us the first generation of Christians following Jesus’ way in the contest between good and evil.

Paul concludes his letter to the Ephesians by depicting the Christian as a fully armed Roman Soldier ready for battle, but the weapons are different:

"Finally, draw your strength from the Lord and from His mighty power. Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the Gospel of peace. In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God."

The battle goes on and on. In the third century, we hear about it from St. Cyprian. He was bishop of Carthage in Roman North Africa. He was martyred in the persecution of the Emperor Valerian in 258.

This bishop's letter to his people in time of persecution reminds them of Paul’s Words. We too need these same spiritual weapons:

"Let us take this armor and defend ourselves with these spiritual defenses from heaven, so that we may be able to resist the threats of the devil, and fight back on the evil day.

Let us put on the breastplate of righteousness so that our hearts may be safeguarded, proof against the arrows of the enemy. Let our feet be protected by the shoes of the teaching of the Gospel so that when we begin to trample on the serpent and crush it, we may not be bitten and tripped up by it.

Let us with fortitude bear the shield of faith to protect us by extinguishing all the burning arrows that the enemy may launch against us.

Let us wear on our head the helmet of the spirit to defend our ears against the proclamations of death, our eyes against the sight of accursed idols, our forehead so that God’s sign may be kept intact, our lips so that our tongue may proclaim victoriously its faith in Christ its Lord.

Let us arm our right hand with the sword of the spirit so that it may courageously refuse the daily sacrifices, and like the hand - mindful of the Eucharist - that receives the body of the Lord, stretch out to embrace him, and so gain from the Lord the future prize of a heavenly crown.

Dear brethren, have all this firmly fixed in your hearts. If the day of persecution finds us thinking on these things and meditating upon them, the soldier of Christ, trained by Christ’s commands and instructions, does not begin to panic at the thought of battle, but is ready for the crown of victory."