What the ancient serpent is still targeting
Andrea Mantegna, 1496
It seems to me that there are three things that happened in the Garden of Eden—specifically concerning God’s creation of human beings—that can help us understand the darkness that we are experiencing in our culture today.
Three things were established when God created human beings, whom He made in His own image and likeness.
1. Life
The very first thing God gave us was life itself. Life is basic and inherent to being human. That seems like a great big “duh”… but we need to say it out loud.
It makes sense that Satan, that ancient serpent, would seek to destroy the good of human life.
He convinced us to bring abortion to our land. Not just wiping out human life, but specifically innocent human life, by the millions, and convincing us to pronounce that evil as good.
Negate and destroy human life? Check!
2. Marriage
The very first human relational thing God created was marriage. Adam and Eve were a married couple from the get-go. Creation’s first human relationship was a marital one. Again, a great big “duh”… but we need to say it out loud.
It makes sense that Satan, that ancient serpent, would seek to destroy the good of marriage. He convinced us that the essentials of marriage—namely, its very nature as permanent, procreative, and conjugal—should be rejected. Divorce, contraception, and “gay marriage” accomplished the negation of the true nature of marriage, and we now pronounce those evils as good.
Negate and destroy marriage? Check!
3. Male and Female
Human beings were created from the beginning as complementary in nature: “Male and female He created them.” This is so basic, so clear to all cultures in all times and places that it’s perhaps the greatest of all “duh”s … but we need to say it out loud.
It makes sense that Satan, that ancient serpent, would seek to destroy the good of our very natures as male and female.
This last was the hardest thing to accomplish of course—as there are few things more obvious and inherent than our ontological nature as woman or man—so he saved it for last. But if he could get us to fall for the negating of life and marriage, then convincing us to deny and erase our very natures as male and female comes almost easily. We now uphold and protect and promote the evil of transgenderism and “gender fluidity” as a good.
Negate and destroy male and female? Check!
With this final blow, the annihilation of all humanness, all essences and relationships that God created in the Garden, can be complete. But what is Satan’s goal anyway? What is he hoping to accomplish with this “creation negation”? After all, even though we have been diabolically convinced that we need and require abortion, divorce, contraception, “gay marriage,” and “gender fluidity” as matters of “human rights,” we still think of ourselves as “enlightened,” “progressive” and “humanistic.”
Well, it’s incredibly straightforward: It’s about “killing” the Fatherhood of God. If Satan can break mankind’s relationship with God our Father, then we, His children, are spiritually lost. In his book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope St. John Paul II gives us clear insight into the evil one’s plan (page 228):
“This is truly the key for interpreting reality …. [O]riginal sin, then, attempts to abolish fatherhood.”
The devil’s attempts to undo the perfect order of creation in the Garden has never ended:
Erase life and you erase fatherhood.
Erase the permanence, generation, and conjugality of marriage and you erase fatherhood.
Erase the distinction between male and female and you erase fatherhood.
It’s genius, really! We sever our relationship with God as Father, and we lose our life of grace and our home in Heaven.
To the extent that Catholics buy into the devil’s plan, by agreeing to any distortion or compromise of life, marriage, or the integrity of the sexes, they advance the plan of the devil and contribute to their own—and others’—eternal destruction.
Watch for the snares and don’t fall into the trap. Cherish and uphold the fullness of God’s creation, and stay close to the Father who loves you.
It all goes back to the Garden.
