The Epistle for today is once again taken from S. Paul’s letter to the Church at Philippi, the first city in Europe in which he established a Christian community. Of all the Pauline epistles, Philippians perhaps most clearly reveals the warmth and affection that existed between the Apostle and a congregation he had founded. His words are those of a spiritual father who loves his children and is deeply concerned for their salvation.
In this portion of the Epistle, S. Paul draws a sharp contrast between those who faithfully follow Our Lord and those whom he describes, with evident sorrow, as “enemies of the cross of Christ.” These are people whose manner of life contradicts the very Gospel they profess. Rather than allowing the grace of Baptism to transform their lives, they continue to be governed by their disordered desires: whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.
Anyone who willingly allows his passions to govern his behaviour fails to appreciate the cost of his redemption. God Incarnate offered Himself upon the Cross as the perfect sacrifice for our sins, reconciling fallen humanity to the Father and breaking the dominion of sin and death. Through Baptism, we have been united to His death and Resurrection, so that we might no longer live as slaves to sin, but walk in newness of life. To persist deliberately in the very sins from which Christ has delivered us is to contradict the purpose of His saving work. In this sense, we risk becoming what S. Paul calls “enemies of the cross.”
The reference to those “whose god is their belly” is particularly revealing. Gluttony is but one manifestation of the wider problem of allowing our bodily appetites and passions to govern our conduct. The passions themselves arise from powers and desires that belong to our created human nature. Yet when these desires are no longer directed towards their proper ends, they become disordered and enslave us. What God created for good becomes, through our misuse of it, an occasion of sin.
S. Paul understood both the power of sin and the weakness of our fallen human nature. He also recognized that when we repeatedly surrender to our passions, we become increasingly inclined to justify our behaviour. What once occasioned shame may eventually become a source of pride. Thus his sobering description: whose glory is in their shame.
This tendency to justify our own behaviour is hardly confined to any one particular sin. We may seek reassurance by surrounding ourselves with those who share our weaknesses, or by encouraging in others the very conduct we are reluctant to condemn in ourselves. Eventually, we may cease to regard as sinful what the Church has consistently taught to be contrary to God’s purposes.
Consider, for example, the profound changes in society’s understanding of marriage. The historic Christian understanding of marriage as a lifelong union between a man and a woman, ordered towards their mutual sanctification and the generation and nurture of children, has increasingly given way to an understanding shaped principally by personal desire and individual fulfilment. The widespread acceptance of divorce, the separation of sexual intimacy from procreation, and the subsequent redefinition of marriage all reflect, in different ways, a departure from that traditional understanding.
These developments did not occur in isolation, nor can they all be attributed to a single cause. Nevertheless, they illustrate how profoundly our understanding of moral obligations can change when personal autonomy becomes the principal measure of what is right and good. The Christian is called to something altogether different: not to reshape God’s commandments according to our desires, but to allow our desires to be transformed by His grace.
And this is precisely where S. Paul directs our attention. Having warned against those who mind earthly things, he reminds the Philippians that our citizenship is in heaven. We belong to another Kingdom, whose sovereign is Jesus Christ. Our allegiance to Him must therefore govern not only what we profess with our lips, but how we conduct our lives.
Yet S. Paul does not leave us merely with an exhortation to moral improvement. He directs our attention to the glorious destiny for which we have been created. We await the return of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed unto the body of his glory.
This is the ultimate purpose of our redemption. Christ has not come simply to forgive our sins while leaving us unchanged. He has come to restore and transfigure our fallen humanity, so that we may share in His risen and glorified life. The transformation that begins in Baptism and continues through repentance, prayer, and participation in the sacramental life of the Church will find its consummation in the resurrection of the dead.
The lessons appointed for these last Sundays after Trinity echo the great theme we encountered on the Feast of Christ the King. We are already subjects of His Kingdom, even as we await its full manifestation at His glorious appearing. Our citizenship is in heaven, but our calling is to manifest that heavenly citizenship here upon earth.
It is time that we begin living as citizens of that Kingdom.
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Please, There Is No Need to Mention Hell
BY: Michael Seagriff
The Gospel command (Matthew 8:16-20) to make disciples of all nations baptizing them in name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit prompts this question: Have we Catholics abandoned our Christ-given mission?
For years, our Church has downplayed the importance of conversion and the salvation of all souls, choosing in their stead the promotion of social justice and worldly objectives. We act as if the solution to the world’s problems remain in the secular realm when in fact it can be fought and defeated only on the spiritual plain.
Our silence in light of such misguided efforts slays souls and emboldens Satan.
We have limited our ineffective evangelization efforts (for the most part) to just those calling themselves Catholic, thereby reinforcing the secular belief that one religion is just as good as another. Most Catholics do not know their faith and few live it – because they have often not been taught it. Even though God’s Truth will set a soul free, we far too often insist on substituting His full and complete (and no doubt challenging) Truth for a watered down, pastorally comforting non-truth, that can never nourish and foster authentic spiritual growth.
Our silence in light of such misguided efforts slays souls and emboldens Satan.
God’s law and commandments are applicable to all human beings, whether they be Catholic or not or whether they believe in a supreme being or not. God’s Truth is implanted in the hearts, minds and souls of all whom He has created. We humans know intuitively what is right and what is wrong. Why have we not shouted this Truth from the rooftops and reflected it in the way we live our lives?
Our silence in light of such inaction slays souls and emboldens Satan.
No one (relatively speaking) comes to Church on Sunday. We, our bishops and priests, for the most part, remain silent about the eternal consequences for those souls who do not participate in Sunday Mass.
Our silence in such situations slays souls and emboldens Satan.
We are told that of the few Catholics who come to Sunday Mass, upwards to seventy-five percent no longer believe that Jesus Christ is really truly and substantially present, Body Blood Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist hidden behind locked tabernacle doors and in the Sacred Host placed on their tongues.
Our silence in light of such non-belief slays souls and emboldens Satan.
We wonder why so many Churches have been closed and abandoned. Surely, if we believed that Jesus is present in our Churches we would act with the reverence such belief requires and spend time with Him. Obviously, our catechesis and example have failed to teach that essential and fundamental Truth.
Our silence and poor example slay souls and emboldens Satan.
Rarely are our Churches the silent, reverent, sacred spaces they were intended to be and which our Lord deserves – unique places where one can in quiet, adore, worship and speak to the God who longs to be loved. Yet we do little or nothing to correct this tragic state of affairs.
Our silence in light of such irreverence slays souls and emboldens Satan.
When was the last time the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops spoke with one uniform, persistent, fearless and endless voice, not just condemning such evils as abortion, contraception, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, fornication and active homosexual lifestyle, but with love and in fraternal correction, explaining to everyone (not just to Catholics) why such conduct is evil and leads to eternal punishment?
Our silence in light of such failures slays souls and emboldens Satan.
How many more lives will be brutally ripped out of the wombs of their mothers before we, our Bishops and our priests will call this evil what it is – murder not health care, not the right to choose, but murder? If the harvesting of human body parts from aborted human beings and the use of taxpayer funds to support such evil will not receive the universal persistent and unending condemnation of all God-fearing people, priests and bishops of our Church, what will?
Our silence in light of such evil slays souls and emboldens Satan.
How do we save souls if we, our priests and our bishops create or acquiesce to ambiguity in Church doctrine where none had heretofore existed? Let me offer a few examples.
The Church has taught that there are eternal consequences to those who have rejected God’s grace and die in the state of mortal sin unwilling to repent and seek forgiveness. How can any Catholic now accept the suggestion that “No one can be condemned forever because that is not the logic of the Gospel?” Such a concept appears contrary to all that the Church has taught (see Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 1033 and 1035).
Our silence in light of such error slays souls and emboldens Satan.
It has always been undisputed Church teaching that it is a mortal sin to receive Holy Communion if you are a divorced and remarried Catholic who never sought or obtained annulment of one’s marriage (CCC 1650). How can we support assertions to the contrary today?
Our silence in light of such error slays souls and emboldens Satan.
The Church’s constant teaching has been that a soul in mortal sin receives no spiritual benefit from receiving Holy Communion, but rather eternal condemnation if such conduct is left unconfessed. (CCC 1384-1385) Why would we, our bishops or priests encourage others to commit such sinful acts?
Our silence in light of such conduct slays souls and emboldens Satan.
It has been the teaching of the Church that we MUST strive with God’s grace to overcome our sinful behaviors and that with His grace all things are possible, including abandoning long-standing sinful acts. Even if we are never fully successful in overcoming our sinful behaviors, we are never exempt from trying to do so. How can we now teach that such a standard is too high and those who have been unsuccessful in striving to free themselves from entrenched sin, are no longer obligated to do so?
Our silence in light of such erroneous teaching slays souls and emboldens Satan.
How can we have a reasonable hope that all souls will be saved or that atheists (who die not knowing Jesus) are in heaven, or that God makes a person gay, or that gay sexuality “in some way be Eucharistic,” that “it can be expressive of Christ’s self-gift” or that “it can be expressive of mutual fidelity, a covenantal relationship in which two people bind themselves to each other for ever” or that it is licit for a non-Catholic spouse to receive Holy Communion?
Our silence in light of such false assertions slays souls and emboldens Satan.
Who would ever had thought that the administrators of a Catholic College would fail to
unequivocally support a well-respected tenured faculty member and a student who were attacked for simply proclaiming and defending the teachings of their Church against those who promoted error and sinful conduct?
Our silence in light of such failures slays souls and emboldens Satan.
Were you shocked that a once vibrant and faithful Catholic nation has approved the killing of children in their mother’s womb and celebrated this tragedy joyfully and unashamedly?
You shouldn’t be. That is what happens when we remain silent and don’t engage in spiritual combat. When the Church and its members fail to teach and defend the Truth, Satan offers a counterfeit substitute truth – one that leads only to hell.
Our silence slays souls and emboldens Satan.
Is it not time for we silent souls to defend God’s Truth, to fulfill our baptismal obligation to be the Gospel to those we meet as Matthew told us yesterday, and to more fully engage in the spiritual battle for the salvation of all souls?
Or do we want to remain silent and slay souls and embolden Satan?
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Ex-psychic warns of occult, demonic evil and the devil’s ‘biggest deception’
BY: Billy Hallowell, The Washington Times (October 30, 2026).
Millions of Americans seek to giggle and quip about the occult, treating Ouija boards, Tarot cards, and other tools of divination as mere parlor tricks — but the reality is much more sobering.
Demonic activity isn’t a mere figment of people’s imaginations; it’s a very real phenomenon, with anthropologists and social scientists documenting its presence in nearly every culture since the dawn of time.
It should come as no surprise that Hollywood horror movies thrive on the natural intrigue these experiences spark, with studios churning out demon-themed movies every October to send chills down audiences’ spines.
But, in many ways, evil is treated like a figment of people’s imaginations — and some critics believe that’s by design.
“One of the biggest deceptions that the devil has for people is that he doesn’t even exist — that there is no evil, that there are no demons, that the Bible isn’t true, that God isn’t the one true God of the universe,” Jenn NIzza, a former psychic-turned-Christian, recently told me.
And she’s right. For Ms. Nizza, whose new book “Darkness in Disguise: A Biblical Warning about Spiritual Deception in Our Culture” documents her journey out of the occult, these experiences are very real. She was just 13 years old when a Tarot card reader came into her Long Island, NY, home and did a reading that changed everything.
It sparked something in Ms. Nizza — a voyage that led her from intrigue with the occult to an eventual career as a psychic medium.
“That was truly my gateway into divination,” she told me. “I was completely intrigued by it. … It left me wanting much more. … If she could get these cards and she was a card reader, surely I could do the same thing.”
Eventually, the occult became an obsession, with Ms. Nizza looking for answers and “wisdom” wherever she could. She started doing readings for friends and family and ended up finding herself struggling with anxiety, confusion, and even an eating disorder.
“It was an addiction that was never satisfied,” she said. “It’s kind of like being hungry, eating all the food in the world, and still being hungry because it’s rooted in lies, so it will never fulfill.”
What Ms. Nizza once believed were helpful so-called “spirit guides,” she now believes were demons, using her to perpetuate evil. Among other practices, she partook in something known as automatic writing.
“I would go into a meditative state. … I would go into this trance-like state, which is really emptying yourself, and that’s what allows these entities in,” she said. “And these demons would literally start feeding me information so quickly as I’m pen to paper.”
Ms. Nizza continued, “All this information would start coming out on the page about you, about your family — things that you could validate, facts that these demons know because they’ve observed you and your generations of family.”
At the time, she also practiced mediumship, believing she was helping people connect with their dead loved ones. All the while, Ms. Nizza now believes she was increasingly opening her life up to more demonic evil.
“I really believed I was helping people,” she said. “I felt like this was my purpose, this was my job, this was a gift. I didn’t like the scary aspects that came along with it.”
But for years, Ms. Nizza said she didn’t realize these side effects were tied to her actions.
“I went all that time up until 37 years old, not understanding at all … that there was anything wrong with what I was doing in the New Age and the occult,” she said. “I also believed I had control over the supernatural realm. … I believed I could control the scary spirits.”
Ms. Nizza said the evil kept pressing in, though, until she found herself calling out to Jesus, which sparked a conversion to the Christian faith that vanquished her psychic mediumship and sent her on an important quest.
Suddenly, the pain and chaos she experienced were gone.
“The freedom I felt when I got saved, I always describe it as these imaginary chains loosening off of my ankles, and I cried tears of joy,” Ms. Nizza said. “I did quit my job, I got into a church, I got baptized.”
Through her Ex-Psychic Saved ministry, Ms. Nizza now creates videos and interactive content to warn others about the occult’s dangers.
“I realized that I had been doing something evil and condemned by God,” she said.
Ms. Nizza is hoping “Darkness in Disguise” and her story help inspire people to steer clear of the occult.
“I really hope that it educates believers about New Age practices that are being seen in our culture on a daily basis,” she said. “I argue that everybody will encounter the New Age and the occult, so you need to know what that looks like [and] what the danger is.”
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Communists Win House and Senate: Who Is At Fault?
(November 4, 2026)
The inevitable happened on Election Night. The communists, radical Muslims, and socialists have won the midterm races, and they will seize control of both the House and Senate. Historically, it has happened many times before, yet it will never be anything like how Truman, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, and now Trump lost.
The Republicans may play the blame game all they want, but it comes down to the fact that they didn’t address the issues that matter.
As my friend Jennifer Hannigan summarized the defeat, “Ignoring why those seats were lost can have lasting consequences.” Will the Republicans learn? History has repeated itself once more.
On a social media post, Matt Walsh put it bluntly: Republicans didn’t present a “compelling plan” as they “did not speak on the issues that directly and immediately impact regular Americans.” Everyday parents wake up and have decisions to make daily on food, bills, school tuition, and gas. It is going to become a stressful routine now with the shift in power in Congress, as Democratic control will benefit the lazy while helping the rich on the platform of “Tax the Rich”.
Republicans got crushed because Trump abandoned the “American first message”. It led to Republicans’ imminent defeat.
Now, this is not to blame Trump, but Republicans had many opportunities to put forth strong candidates who could carry on the American-first message that was compelling and help surge voter turnout nationwide. If they all agreed to come up with a plan to appeal to everyday Americans, the “Blue Tsunami” would have only taken the House of Representatives.
The Democrats are no better. Their platform is more flawed than the Republicans’. All that they campaigned on is “Stop Trump” and “Impeach Trump,” yet they have no answer whatsoever on how persuasive their plan is compared to the Republicans.
Simply put: If you sat out or voted for communists and socialists, then you’re at fault. I did my part as a voter, and many of my friends did, though I question many on their decision-making. Despite the outcome of the midterms or any election cycle, we all have a life to live, and it is worth living for daily.
Come January, Congress is going to look different with seven radical Muslims who are not even from America who will form an unholy alliance with their communist colleagues.
We must stand together against this unholy movement and bring about God’s kingdom on earth through prayer, fasting, and at times, fighting.
Always remember one thing: our hope should never be placed in a political candidate or leader. Rather, it is time to place it in the Lamb.
May God save America and damn Allah.
GFK
