“Rise up; this matter is in your hands (Ezra 10:4)!” Your time has come Dragon Slayer! On your feet! You can no longer be “the brother of dragons,” (Job 30:29) for “Lent is the very badge of the Christian warfare!” (Pope Benedict XIV)
How will you spend your 40 Days of Lent, in what may be the most important year of our lives? Remember that 40 Days are very important in the Bible, in the life of the church, and in this final battle of battles.
Will you be a coward for yet another year of your life, like the Israelites who shuddered and quaked before the giant Goliath who came twice a day to the valley for 40 Days, to challenge the armies of the living God (1Sam.17:16)? It is time to name the giants in your life that control you from head to toe, for the time to slay your giant/s with a supernatural sword has come!
Will you be like Jonah who was called to preach and challenge the people of Nineveh to conversion for 40 Days, but instead ran away in the other direction (Jonah 1-3)? You have been running from dragons all your lives. The only thing you are good at is running and hiding!
Others are on a ship in a storm like the fearful fugitive Jonah, while others are in total darkness inside the belly of the whale (Jon. 1:17). You can’t live in darkness forever! You have to have the valor to come out into, “The light [that] shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (Jn.1:5).”
Yet for others, it has been raining on you 40 Days and 40 Nights, as was the case with Noah. (Gen.7:12) You wonder if there is any hope for not having another rainy day.
Will you be like the Israelite spies who took 40 Days to spy out Canaan (Num.13:25) only to come back in fear and trembling after seeing the race of giants? Let’s face it, you don’t have faith because you don’t have a prayer life. You don’t know Jesus and that’s why you shake in your boots! You are naked and ashamed! You are without armor before the “dragon and his angels, (Rev. 12:7)” and you squeal like a sissy!
You are straw for the dragon’s fiery breathe! Your life is a total lie! It is a fantasy, a whimsical, fictional dream at best! You have no courage and you freak out when you see, “the dragons of the desert (Mal. 1:3),” “the dragons in the waters (Ps. 74:13),” and “the dens where dragons dwell (Is.35:7).”
Or, maybe if you have known the Lord for a while or once upon a time, you are like Elijah who after slaying the false prophets at Mount Carmel, fears a witch named Jezebel who threatens him so “then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life,” (1 Kings19:8) for 40 Days to Mount Horeb.
When will things change in your life, you blind and dumb wannabe Dragon Slayer? When will you answer your true calling? Who you are destined to be from the beginning of time? What is the one thing you can do that no other human being on the face of the earth can do? What were you born to be and do? Are you a wimp or Dragon Slayer? Are you free or a slave?
In the battle against the giant red dragon, you have to fearlessly run toward your enemy to slay him! You never think twice but you have to trust God totally and completely AS THIS IS FAITH! You don’t run away, but like, “David [who] ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him [Goliath],” crying…
“You come against me with sword and spear and scimitar, but I come against you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel that you have insulted. Today the LORD shall deliver you into my hand; I will strike you down and cut off your head.’!” (I Sam.17:45,46,48)
You have to be like Jesus who is always on the offense proclaiming the Kingdom of God by healing the sick and casting out dragons from the poor and the destitute. Jesus made the dragons weep and cry like sissies, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us (Mark 1:24)?”
Be like Jesus who spent 40 Days in the desert battling the dragon (Matt.4). Trust that He will be with you in this battle as when He was with the apostles for 40 Days after the resurrection, but you have to prepare fearlessly for the battle of your life, that is about to unfold in these very next 40 Days! You will either slay the giant in your life or be vanquished!
St Joan of Arc
Rise up Dragon Slayer! It is now or never! This is the Springtime of your life! These 40 Days of Lent, be like Moses who twice goes up the mountain (Deuteronomy 9:18, 25:3) to be with the Lord and discover who he really is. Remember that from the beginning of time you are called to, “Crush the heads of the dragons (Ps.74:13)!”
Finally, put on the armor of God [Sacrament of Confession, Holy Communion, and the Most Precious Blood] daily, and load up with weapons [rosary, chaplet, holy hour, scripture reading, liturgy of the hours, etc.], for “the battle is the LORD’s, and He will give all the dragons into our hands (c.f.1Sam.17:47).” Now go… and slay your dragon!
Recommended Lenten spiritual reading (Order Here) & (Order here)
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