WATCH OUT WHEN IT GETS DARK! - Part 1 Watch out when it gets dark; the Devil is more active, more daring and more confident then! Besides, your own resistance to him may be weaker in certain surroundings! Third, your cry for help in the dark may fall on the Devil’s ears, and his people around there will rush “to advise!” When I was a candidate for baptism the chaplain instructing us used to emphasize that we avoid not only sin, but also what he described as “the occasions of sin!” He would say that both sin and the occasions of sin are to be avoided! Even now as I write this, I see and hear that old missionary of the 1960s in his white cassock and rather low voice. “Avoid sin! And avoid the occasions of sin as well! Don’t linger around there! Don’t stay long around there! Don’t frequent those places where sin is likely! Avoid such company, activities, books, magazines, pictures, letters...” That priest later passed on to the next life, but that makes his words even more precious to me now because I can no longer hear him physically. Those words are what he left me, as it were. Fortunately I kept his photograph and it reminds me of his words. I still remember his answers to my questions about what he meant by “occasions of sin.” I somehow understood it as those occasions, places or objects, gifts, songs, movies, parties, dances, friends, associations, entertainments, letters, emails, phone messages, internet sites, TV programmes, Radio broadcasts, foods, drinks, hobbies, games, books, conversations, occupations, fashions and so on which may not necessarily be sinful in themselves, but likely places or occasions of easy sin…” We can liken sin to a fierce lion that can tear us into pieces. Then we can liken an occasion of sin to being in a place within the lion’s range of attack. The Devil is a hunter, like a lion! According to St Peter “the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). (….. to be continued in the next post). - ERIC E.E.OKIROR
Posted on: Sun, 07 Jul 2013 03:15:41 +0000
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