No doubt we are living in these times – and at such a time as this, never before have we perhaps seen so much intra-Church conflict since maybe the Great Schism of 1054! If that sounds to you like it is an over-statement, one that’s more than just a wee bit far fetched then think again.

Only this week has another bombshell been dropped within the Church concerning the so-called grave discordance caused by Pope Francis’ reign and how this is splitting hairs and hearts over many issues generally over the last 18 months, and more particularly only just this week, the ultra-fundamentalist factions have been causing a giant furor over a very distorted, overly read-into interpretation of one of the theatrical scenes from the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony. And I must admit, at first I was a bit confused at the story’s plot-line but then I caught-on to the fact that the whole thing was actually staged as a live theatrical in the actual sequence of a play with seperate acts – Acts I, II, & III and so on. And the underlying theme was the spiritual battle between good and evil (as is the tradition for Olympic Opening Ceremonies).

It became obvious that in this parable-like visual overture, God had permitted the interferrence or the works of the devil to be shown as that is what He permits here on earth in real life for our strengthening – even though God knows we, those of us who know & love Him – hate what the devil does, God mysteriously permits his action and uses it in the process of our sanctification.

That said, He also provides us with those Advocates who will, as St Paul says, “fight the good fight” for us and with us (the Angels & Saints) and this was shown throughout the entire performance to be mightier than the tacky, puny, drag-show the devil wanted to parade in front of everybody. God showed up most stridently in St Joan of Arc – being both the main torch-bearer and also the flag-bearer, the bearer of, as St Ignatius calls it, “the Standard of Christ”, which btw, is the banner of His holy peace.

It was done this way deliberately too to show that in Eternité (the very last scene), only the peace of God reigns supreme, the light of the Holy Spirit prevails, having obliterated all darkness and every evil.

Regarding this concern over what some have interpreted to be a ‘Last Supper’ act….There was no real Last Supper act….all the spoofy grotesque scenes were those which were supposed to represent the devil’s interferrence in our world. The ‘Last Supper act’ was merely an interpretation pinned onto some dragster scene by some very dodgey news reports which came out only after the Opening Ceremony.

Btw, at the time I saw these tacky drag scenes (which was a part of the devil’s interferring act) I would never have guessed there was anything even vaguely resembling the Last Supper in it!

But what struck a chord of horror in me was when I saw this overweight dragster with huge breasts who was also wearing what looked to be a sun disc behind her head. I thought, gee whizz, that’d be right! That pesky infernal Enemy getting his pitchfork in by trying to make a mockery of the symbol of the Olympic rings – typical devil’s trash this kind of frivolization or profanitization of the sacred….But such scenes were not intended to valorize evil but rather portray it as being a real interferrence in our lives. Such portrayals often feature in other theatrical presentations depicting the fight between good and evil. There was an ametur theatre production I once saw about St Augustine’s life and in this play there was a scene featuring all these demons…..I bet you people watching did not think the play was “valorizing the demonic” just because the demons appeared as characters in the show! They were featured only to represent St Augustine’s own personal struggle with evil in the form of lust and other sexual temptations that routinely benighted him before his conversion….Therefore we must take heart and see too that the demonic imagery quite luridly ‘taking over’ at intermittent and unexpected moments the other night during the Opening Ceremony, was none other than a similar representation of the cunning and guile the devil is permitted to infest our world with….But nevertheless, God ALWAYS comes out on top as was stridently & victoriously conveyed in the last couple of scenes leading up to Eternité and beyond.

So the why behind my mention of Pope Leo XIII and St Don Bosco has to do very much with their prophetic visions concerning the state of the Church at the End of the Age. Both of these men were confronted quite dramatically and in rather fantastical ways with signs and symbols concerning the nature of how the spiritual battle between the forces of evil will challenge very intensely and rambunctiously the cause of righteousness and holiness not so much from outside the Church but very much from within. The main battle between good and evil will grip Holy Mother Church from within her walls. However, the problems will be caused by those within the Church compromising with worldly values, and to such a degree that they will be deceived into believeing they are ‘A-okay’. This is a strident example of the Elect being taken for a bad ride by the devil where they will be so deceived by their own stubborn Phariseic self-righteousness into not even recognizing the instances where God is deliberately showing up in a big way to alert them to the reality of this battle happening all around.

And what happened this last week regarding the absolutely ribald, fouled-up interpretations that were tragically pinned on the Opening Ceremony (by these ultra-fundamentalist pundits and vociferous opponents of Pope Francis no doubt), is testament to that kind of deception not being recognized for what it actually is.

It also must be emphasized that because the modern revival of the Olympic Games was a uniquely Catholic idea (being on one level, heavily influenced by the Jesuit charism of finding God in all things, while on another being formed through Dominican influence), the devil in his guile and absolute hatred of the Faith, is trying everso hard to destroy the Church from one angle by severing the Olympics from its stridently Catholic heritage as an apostolic missional arm of the Church bearing Christ’s Light out there in amongst the world and to the world. And satan is trying to do this by pitting some members of the Church against the Olympics and its mission and therefore, against other members of the Church who are part of the Olympic charism and mission. In some respects this comes as no surprise, and this kind of stirring faction fights within the Church is not a new tactic of the Evil One. He used it historically against the Jesuits in the 1700s and for a while he had that order which St Ignatius founded expelled from the Holy See’s oversight and provision! And so this latest warped agenda of Lucifer comes as no surprise. And all of this because he hates the fact that the Olympics represents a great symbolon of how God is raising up an army of faithful warriors who will fight the good fight (to quote St Paul) under the Standard of Christ (to quote St Ignatius of Loyola).

After all, the Olympic symbolisms are pre-figurements of Christ’s victory, that of the Holy Spirit’s fire which will one day renew the face of the earth as St Peter alludes to, and which Jesus Himself also made mention of when He said “How I wish it were already blazing!”, and of course the other amazing fact that there is no coincidence that the Five Loaves Jesus blesses during the Feeding of the Five Thousand represent His Sacred Body given as Bread for the Life of the World. There is absolutely no coincidence either that the Olympic Flag has these Five Loaves imprinted on it as a reminder to the whole world (regardless of whether they accept it, understand it, believe it, or not) that some day in the future, Christ will return as the Victorious Champion, Who unites the entire world, the five continents under the banner of His Victory over sin and death – the Standard of Christ referred to by St Ignatius. Jesus very own Body will unite the entire world at the culmination of the End of the Age – when He will draw all things back into Himself. And so, the devil challenged Jesus to a duel as was shown to Pope Leo XIII in a vision in the year 1884, on the day of the 13th October, exactly 33 years prior to the Great and Awesome Day on which the Lord did a Marvel before thousands of witnesses in Fatima, Portugal, laying bare before them the Dancing Sun of His Love, Justice, Mercy, and Peace.

This ‘duel’, to which the devil challenged Our Lord according to Pope Leo’s vision, was one whereby he threatened to be able to destroy the Church, provided he was given 100 years thereabouts to prepare himself to accomplish this evil deed. Well, that 100 years of preparatory time has indeed passed and now we are already entered into the time where that Infernal Enemy is going about his stealthy business of trying to bring the Church of Jesus Christ to rack and ruin. But there’s one thing we need to bear in mind here. While Jesus gave the devil permission ‘to try’, that doesn’t in any way, shape or form guarantee that the devil will actually succeed. Jesus has promised that the victory belongs not to the devil, God’s adversary, but to God Himself. Jesus also knows that as much as the devil may try, the gates of Hell will never prevail against the Church as was witnessed by St Don Bosco in some of the amazingly prophetic dreams he had. There was one in particular which I could not help but think of the other night during the Opening Ceremony. It was the one where there is a ship (representing the Church) which is sailing and heading towards the safety of the Habour – just as we witnessed St Joan of Arc travel down that large body of water, that causeway, bearing the flag with the Five Loaves on it – that flag which so mysteriously and marvelously represents Christ’s banner of Victory, having given Himself on Calvary as Bread for the Life of the World. But then this ship in St Don Bosco’s dream all of a sudden is mutinied and assailed by pirates which represent the action of the Enemy in the process of him trying to bring Holy Mother Church to destruction. And so, during the Opening Ceremony we also witnessed the diabolical thievery of the devil in those lurid drag scenes where he was trying ever so loudly and ostentaciously to “strut his stuff”. It must be remembered that these garish scenes where evil was shown to have a seemingly great measure of stature were only theatrical representations deliberately included if you like to contrast the fight between good and evil, and they were done in much the same fashion (but perhaps with a bit more modern flare) as the morality plays and Easter pagents of medieval times where there were scenes that showed supernal villains and demonic characters coming to life in order to cause trouble. See Hungarian pantomime image below:

But these characters and scenes were included not in order to “valorize or promote evil” so much as to demonstrate how serious are the problems in our world because of its interference and also because God’s soveriegn will has permitted its action in our world knowing full well that He in fact has the Victory over evil and not the other way around. And therefore, we need too to be reminded that the Opening Ceremony did absolute marvelous justice to this fact by showing rather boldly and overtly, how in the End, God’s Light and the righteousness and mercy of His Son takes centre stage and reigns supreme, defeating once and for all, the wiles and interferences of the devil and his renegade band of fallen angels. And so too, it was with St Don Bosco’s dream, the mutineers did not win. In fact, it was the Blessed Mother who gave great courage to the authenticity and witness of the faithful remnant that enabled them to overcome the mutineers, the Enemy’s conspirators, and it was her Immaculate Heart that guided the ship to moor in the safety of Heaven’s Harbour. It is so important for us to appreciate the high symbolism of these scenes, both in the wilds of St Don Bosco’s dream and in the extravagant theatre of the Opening Ceremony.

For it is in these symbolisms that we witness the unfolding of the cosmic battle in our midst, dramatized liturgically. It is a call to us to be mindful of this battlefield reality and that the Lord is pleading with us not to ignore it, not to use it as an excuse to fight amongst ourselves – for as St Paul yet again exhorts us, we need to unite in the fight against the principalities and powers of darkness that ensnare our world rather than cause more problems for our Church and world by stacking different charisms and factions representing these charisms against each other. God has made our charisms many and varied for a good purpose and we need to delight in the difference each charism provides instead of use these differences as ammunition against those whose charism is not the same as ours. We need to stop perceiving difference in charism as threats to missional territory. For example, Theatre and the Arts should not be perceived as a threat to Teaching and Preaching but both these charism sets need to be actualized as working in tandem for God’s Greater Glory – Ad Majoram Dei Gloriam. For in the days before the printing press became conventional, Theatre and the Arts was used as a dominant medium for Preaching and Teaching. Hence the reason why I uphold a positive perspective on the way the Opening Ceremony was done, i.e. it was done from a purely symbolic theatrical vantage point as a demonstration of the cosmic battle between good and evil. The IOC planned it this way. And all due credit to them for being so adroit in making such creative use of so many different theatrical modes to convey such a vital message to our ailing world. Again on the note of the necessity to discourage parochial conflict and territorialism in apostolic works, I recall a story about St John of the Cross who was tragically accused by a band of Friars in one particular location, of ‘pinching their mission territory’! Since when did Jesus exhort His followers to be territorial about their mission fields as though collaboration and solidarity across different missional groups was detrimental to the Gospel’s planting?? The answer folks, to that one is NEVER! Jesus never taught his followers to fight each other over missional turf. In fact, he heartily discouraged and preached against such discord. And St Paul followed faithfully in the Master’s footsteps when he exhorted the members of Christ’s Body to avoid forming factions but instead, to remain in loving solidarity with one another, now and on into Eternité.

St Ignatius of Loyola, Pray for Us!

St Don Bosco, Pray for Us!

Viva Corpus Christi!

Viva Cristo Rey!

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