Tag Archives: Spiritual Warfare

Lions of Your Blood

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Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth

Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,

As did the former lions of your blood.

Shakespeare, Henry V, Act I, Scene II

All my fathers dwell within me,

Waiting, waiting to be woken.

They are not dead, will never die,

But, with their waking, strength renew,

Finding that, by time unbroken,

Their words once spoke still speak afresh.

All their faithful watches keeping,

A cloud of witnesses who see,

Should never find their scions sleeping,

But walking in the ancient paths,

The Way to New Jerusalem,

And warring in the cosmic fray,

As they once did, our fathers bold.

Shall I not now contend as they

Whose journey’s end was fought through fire?

And does my Captain’s call grow hushed?

It yet resounds and sounds my soul,

Impassions me to take the field!

And as the lions of my blood –

My brothers past, my fathers still –

I will the battle gladly join!

Gregory the Great on Job’s Spiritual Warfare

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As I was studying for this week’s sermon, these words from the Church Father Gregory the Great concerning Job 1:21 stood out to me:

Although [the devil] himself blasphemes God, he was created blessed; now the man [Job], even though struck down, sings a hymn of glory to God. It is incumbent upon us to notice that our enemy wounds us with as many darts as he attacks us with temptations. For we stand in the front line of battle every day, and every day we receive the darts of his temptations. Still, we too throw darts at him when we are overwhelmed with troubles if we reply humbly. Blessed Job was struck down by the loss of his possessions and the death of his sons, but he turned his pain into praise of the Creator, saying, “God gave it and God took it back; God has done what he pleased; blessed be the name of God.” [Job] struck down the proud enemy with humility, he laid the cruel foe out flat with patience. So let us not believe our warrior was wounded without inflicting wounds himself. As often as he was hit he praised God with patient words, and in so doing he let fly his darts at the adversary’s breast, and the wounds he inflicted were more serious than those he sustained.

-Gregory the Great, Moral Reflections on the Book of Job, Vol.1, trans. Brian Kerns, OCSO (Athens, OH: Cistercian Publications, 2014), 144-145.