The House Built on Rock

Sometimes we are assaulted by temptations and find ourselves in a real spiritual battle. It seems that when we are working our hardest to follow God's will for holiness we are attacked the most. The attacks always go for our weakest points. That's what an enemy does: he finds where we are most vulnerable and strikes.

We can take courage, though, from Matt. 7:24-25 which St. Benedict includes in the Prologue to his Holy Rule:

The Lord says in the Gospel: "Everyone therefore that hears these My words and acts upon them, shall be likened to a wise man who built his house on rock, and [the rain fell] the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against the house, but it did not fall because it was founded on rock."

Father Placidus Kempf, O.S.B. reflected on this and wrote:

A house built on such a foundation can withstand all assaults. These assaults are of all sorts and come from all directions. There is the "rain from heaven" (mentioned in the Gospel but omitted by St. Benedict); the 'winds of the air," and the "streams and torrents of the earth." So, in erecting our spiritual house we may expect trials from heaven to test our building; attacks (or temptations) from the evil spirits ("spirit" in Latin means "wind"), and the undermining floods of the persecution of men. But our house will not fall, because it is firmly founded on Christ, the Rock.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I forget in the midst of the attacks by the devil which often come in obsessive thoughts I have difficulty turning off, that Christ is right there wanting me to turn to Him. Those "winds of the air" don't have a chance against our Jesus, nor do the other assaults that come our way. We just have to keep our weapons sharpened: the Rosary, the Divine Mercy, Confession and Holy Communion, daily prayer, good spiritual habits and stand on that Rock.