Ready for Battle?, preached on October 18, 2026

But we can see though that conflict is inevitable in human life.

And you know my heart skips a beat with Ephesians 6 and the whole armor of God.

And you know the fathers, they like to make lists and they like to extend metaphors to their utmost.

And I won't spoil it for you, but you have a real treat in store if you haven't gone through a list of fathers going through the list of all the layers of meanings of every single piece of Roman armor.

I want to instead jump ahead to the 19th century to a Spanish ambassador.

and his name was Juan de Nosor Cortes, and he saw his world in the 1840s falling apart, and apparently Europeans had gone crazy again.

And there were some people who just wanted to not be involved at all.

But he said this, Don't tire yourself in seeking a place of security against the chances of war, for you tire yourself in vain.

That war is extended as far as space and is prolonged through all time.

In eternity alone, the country of the just...

Can you find rest? Because there alone there is no combat.

So if we're breathing, there's combat going on somewhere and we're involved in it.

And heaven, the place of peace, he says is the country of the just.

I don't think the ambassador would have attended a celebration of life, but I think he would have gone to a requiem mass and prayed for the deceased.

And he recognizes that there is a human resistance to the real struggle, to the real conflict, and he pushes, and he says, there is no man who is not a combatant in this hot contest.

In this warfare, all men born of women are soldiers.

And don't tell me you don't wish to fight, for the moment you tell me that, you are already fighting." And by implication, if you're saying you don't want to fight, you're not fighting on the side of Christ the King.

And if you want to get a Jesuit aggravated, point them to someone who's not fighting on the side of Christ the King, which means get aggravated a lot these days.

But our participation in the conflict is indispensable, he says.

Do not imagine that the gates of eternity shall be opened for you unless you first show the wounds you bear.

Those gates are only open for those who gloriously fought here the battles of the Lord.

So we've got to be in it to win it, and we're going to get hurt.

And it's inevitable.

And so along the way, you try to acquire skills, you try to acquire virtues.