From the evil one, protect me

Anima Christi: From the evil one, protect me

The sixth of seven meditations on the Anima Christi from Unconditionally, Finding Jesus in the Eucharist

by Greg Wasinski

As I talked about in the chapter Temptation in the Desert, spiritual warfare is real. We have a tendency to avoid the conversation about the threat of spiritual warfare. It’s a sub­ject that can seem too intense to accept or one we are just not comfortable admitting. With that said, it is part of eve­ryday living.

When we allow ourselves to surrender to God’s plan, there is a major threat to the evil one’s efforts to persuade us into sin. Whether they come in the form of simple distractions or blatant, vicious confrontations persuaded by the devil, they can and will occur.

This portion of the prayer is vital for our ultimate defense to recognize and thwart evil’s attempts to send us spiraling into doubt, question what we believe or commit acts of sin. We already offer a similar request when we pray the Our Father in the line, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” God would never directly lead us to offend Him; we are just begging to not have to endure the test. Our humanness is not always strong enough to make the right moral and vir­tuous decisions.

Since evil is the absence of good, we pray not only for de­fense against the acts that we could be tempted to commit, but additionally to ward off the apathy that causes us to slip away from faithfulness. We’ve already learned how through inaction we are seduced into disobedience. We are praying to recognize the presence that causes all this to happen by relying on the image of Christ tempted in the desert and the garden. A powerful image Paul gave to the Ephesians:

Finally, draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power. Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the prin­cipalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. (Eph (6:10-13)

Let us not be so naive to think that the same prince of dark­ness who got Adam and Eve banished from paradise, made Job suffer to prove his faithfulness and had the gull to at­tempt to persuade Jesus away from His Father wouldn’t also come after us. Especially when we long to live a Christ-cen­tered life, striving to spend eternity in Heaven.

Christ protect us as we pray, “Lord, I beg you to keep the devil far from me. I am not always strong enough to ignore his temptations, nor continuously making the right deci­sions that would keep me from offending You. Remain my protector against every advance of Satan.”

Copyright © 2015 by Greg Wasinski & LMBM, Inc. All rights reserved.

Greg Wasinski was successful, career driven, business executive searching for lifelong fulfillment when he heard a direct calling from God to move his talents into full-time ministry. Greg is an internationally recognized, Catholic Christian inspirational speaker and author from Cleveland, OH. He also offers his radio talents as a daily contributor to SiriusXM Radio’s The Catholic Channel with his “Faith & Real Life Moments.”