We introduced this lesson with the idea that “evangelization flows from the spiritual life.” This is so important that we should repeat it. We cannot fulfill our mission as evangelists if we don’t have a strong spiritual life. Saint Maximilian Kolbe confirmed this, when he wrote,
The conversion and sanctification of a soul has been, and shall always be, the work of divine grace. … We attain grace for ourselves and for others through our humble prayers, our mortification, and our faithfulness in the fulfillment of our daily duties, including the most simple ones. The closer the soul is to God…the more effectively the soul shall be able to help others to attain divine grace. [And also] the faster and more abundantly shall its prayer be answered. … Therefore, the value of every [evangelizing community] depends only and absolutely…on our interior life, on our personal closeness to the Immaculate [Virgin Mary] and, through her, to the Heart of Jesus.
Saint Maximilian is absolutely right. The external means of our evangelization — that is, what we do when we’re out there — listen, befriend, proclaim, and invite, and so forth — are useless without the interior, spiritual power we’ve gained as we’ve grown in holiness.
How do we make use of the spiritual power more effectively? How do we wield it for the salvation of others? How do we use that power to do spiritual battle for souls? The example of Our Lord Jesus, going to His cross, sheds light on these questions. If we’re already pursuing a strong spiritual life, let’s consider three additional habits for doing spiritual battle for souls.
Number one: Develop a regular habit of interceding for those you evangelize, and for anyone else you know who may be far from God. Jesus Himself did this on the cross when He prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34). With the same heart of mercy, we ought to regularly—even daily—pray that Our Lord might open the hearts of others to the grace of faith, repentance, and salvation.
After all, final salvation is the first, most important need of every human being, and intercession for the conversion of others is the easiest, most basic habit of our spiritual battle for souls. It should be an important part of our prayer life.
The story I love is the story of St. Catherine of Siena, who had a relationship with a man who was on death row in prison. He was getting ready to be killed. And she kept praying for him and interceding for him and talking with him, and getting him so that he would convert and come back to the Church. And he did. And what ended up happening is, as he was going to the guillotine, he asked St. Catherine of Siena to join him, and she did. And she actually held his head as it was getting ready to be chopped off. And their conversation back and forth was beautiful. It says, in the book, that she kept telling him, “You’re going to see Jesus today, you’re going to see Jesus today.” And it was her spiritual strength, her sacrifice, that helped his conversion, and then walked him – literally – walked him to heaven! I love that story.
Two recommended tools for this kind of intercession—our weapons for the battle—are the Rosary and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. I also use mass intentions and prayers after communion.
Number two: Develop a regular habit of making spiritual sacrifices for people as you intercede for them. Jesus went to His crucifixion intentionally. Out of the love of His merciful heart, He willingly made of Himself an offering to atone for our sins. He suffered and died for us. The book of Hebrews says that “for the joy that was set before [Jesus], he endured the cross, despising the shame.” (Hebrews 12:2) Did you hear that? That means that Jesus counted as nothing the shame of the Cross. All He had in His heart was the joy of us before Him. He wanted us to be in heaven with Him! That’s why He went to the Cross.
So, with the same heart of mercy, we should regularly make sacrifices for others — especially those we evangelize. Making a spiritual sacrifice with a heart of love adds strength to our intercession. A great way to sacrifice for others is abstaining from certain foods, or complete fasting, for a period of time. You may, for example, consume only bread and water for a week as a sacrifice for a friend who had an abortion and left the Church. Another way to sacrifice is to give extra alms to the poor as a spiritual offering on someone’s behalf.
Yet another way is to spend an extended, sacrificial amount of time interceding for them—maybe 2 or 3 hours, or more. Also, we can offer up involuntary sufferings like illnesses and persecutions, uniting them to the Cross. Whenever we make a spiritual sacrifice for someone, we ought to keep that person in mind and intercede for them as we make that sacrifice.
I knew a group of seven young adults who were deeply concerned with a high school friend who seemed to be falling away from the Church and away from grace. Each of them picked a day of the week to fast so that their friend would be lifted up by prayer and fasting every day of the week. They kept up this regimen for a whole year, and they saw good fruits from it.
Number three: When interceding for others, embrace God’s sorrow for them. When Jesus went to the Cross, He went with sorrow for sinful mankind—sorrow for the harm we inflict upon ourselves and our sins; sadness for the stubborn hardness of our hearts. We should join in this sorrow. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn.” We should be sad and weep over the situation of those who are far from God, or do not know Him.
Like Jesus, we should “look straight into the face” of sin. We should unite ourselves with Jesus to such a degree that we see with His eyes, we feel it with His heart, and recognize sin for what it is: the thing that separates us from God for eternity. If we recognize the great weight of sin that the Lord Jesus had to carry in going to His cross, we will be sad and weep.
I spent some time with Immaculee Ilibagiza in Rwanda, and she told me one of the stories of what happened during that genocide. She told me how she was face to face with the killer, and she looked at this killer, and all she could do was pray. She grabbed her rosary and she started to pray. But she didn’t pray the way I thought she would, like, “Lord, deliver me from this killer!” She didn’t. She had a heart that was filled with mercy. She recognized that there was evil in this man, but this man in front of her was also loved by God. She was very sad for that, and she felt it in her heart. So she prayed that the man would be delivered from the evil. And what happened next was amazing. They were looking eye to eye. After she prayed, he looked down, he sat down on the rock, and he dropped his machete, the same machete he would have used to kill her and the others that were with her. Because of her prayer, he was delivered from the evil, and then she was spared. That’s a perfect example of someone that looks evil right in the face, and then looks for the mercy — feels the sadness, and looks for the mercy of God.
If the tears of Jesus can pay the price of salvation, and we are the body of Christ, what spiritual value might our tears have (see Col 1:24)? A great way to grow in our sorrow for sin is to spend time meditating on sin, judgment, hell, or most especially, on the Cross of Jesus. These three habits can help us do powerful spiritual battle for the salvation of souls. The better we follow Jesus, the better instruments we become for the salvation of others.