TOTUS TUUS, MARIA!

BATTERING RAMS

Your weapons for storming the gates of hell

Myriam van Nazareth

Total consecration to Mary as the Mistress of all souls ultimately serves one purpose: the establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth, which will take place at the moment when the Mistress of all souls humiliates Satan totally and irreversibly under Her foot and thus will be shown to all creation by God in the full effect of Her unlimited power over the instigator of all sin and darkness. The establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth has everything to do with a targeted war against evil, and with the purification and sanctification of your own soul. God expects every soul to put herself totally and unconditionally at the service of Mary, the powerful Mistress of all souls, so that She may complete the Work of Redemption wrought by Jesus Christ by, with the voluntary contribution from the human souls, putting Satan in chains once and for all and destroying his works of devastation and corruption under Her mighty foot.

The Mistress of all souls could very well do this by Herself – She has received all power to do this – yet the Law of Divine Justice requires the human souls to grant full and voluntary collaboration to this crowning of the Victory of the Light. That is where these brief but very powerful guidelines come in. In each of these 15 directives you will be presented with another weapon to help you escape from the castle in which evil has been trying, and still is trying, to keep you captive – or, as you can also look at it – to help you storm the gates of hell. These weapons have been given the name of BATTERING RAMS, by which I refer to the image of the long sturdy poles with which a heavy gate can be stormed to pound it open.

The storming of the gates of hell

The powers of evil have been permitted to try the human souls. They are now doing this in full force, by responding to man’s greatest weaknesses:
- the desire for material possessions and wealth
- sexual desire
- pride
- the desire for recognition.

This is how our society is corrupted up to its deepest roots by a total reign of money, sexuality, competition, selfishness and self-centeredness. Let us join hands in prayer so that all souls who are n search of true Peace and true happiness may now return together to a life of sincere Love, purity and self-denial.

The forces of evil build walls around your soul, until the latter is trapped in a castle of confusion, deception, error, blindness, lies, doubts, discouragement and discontent. In order to liberate yourself from this castle, you must storm its gates with the aid of several BATTERING RAMS. Remember, however, that evil is not merely a force outside of you, it is also trying to eat you incessantly from within. Therefore: whoever wants to overcome evil must first of all overcome themselves.

  1. You are not alone in the fight against evil. BATTERING RAM 1: Your mightiest allies are the most holy names of Jesus and Mary, and God’s angels. Invoke them daily, especially when things get tough. No force is able to resist them. Jesus, Mary and the angels are part of this great part of God’s Reality that man can not perceive under normal circumstances. Nevertheless, be sure of the fact they are there, and that they will make their presence perceptible in your heart to the extent that you believe in them.
  2. The power of evil can be compared to the roaring of a dying lion: frightening, but weaker as you become more aware of its real state: evil is already in its death throes. It only has as much power over you as you allow it to have. Your counterforce is built on growth in all virtues and on the reduction of your dependence on all physical needs. Here is BATTERING RAM 2: Learn about Your weaknesses, and pray to overcome them.
  3. When you start the battle against evil within and outside yourself, it is necessary that you open the door of your soul to God’s light. You can do this only to the extent that you believe and trust. So here is BATTERING RAM 3: Your own faith and trust. In another writing I referred to faith as being the oil in the hinges of the door between your soul and God: It determines how smoothly your door opens to God.
  4. The forces of evil are extremely active in all relationships and contacts between people. They are at the basis of all incomprehension and disagreements. Do you really want to take the wind out of their sails so that they become paralyzed in their actions? Then use BATTERING RAM 4: learn to forgive your fellow man to the utmost. This will make Satan loose all grip on the relationships between yourself and your fellow creatures.
  5. Your struggle against evil loses a lot of power as soon as you become discouraged or become sad. Every form of listlessness works like a ball and chain: You are no longer able to walk, and every meter on your journey through life is covered dragging along. This is where the next weapon comes in: BATTERING RAM 5: practice brightfulness in all trials. A brightful mood spreads a great deal of light around you, and also invigorates the souls who are waging the same battle as you. The more people try to be like a little sun to their fellow man, the less it is going to rain into the hearts.
  6. There can be no true imitation of Jesus and Mary if you live only for yourself. All your fellow men are participants in the same battle as you are in. Therefore, be like Simon of Cyrene, and help Jesus in your fellow creatures when the latter are carrying their crosses. This is BATTERING RAM 6: helpfulness and charity to the degree of self-denial. The more you invest your forces in your fellow creature, the more strength God is going to invest in you.
  7. One of the most common strategies of evil is to defile all your actions, words, thoughts, feelings and desires. The reason lies in the fact purity is one of the most characteristic features of all that is sacred. Hence BATTERING RAM 7: exercise the absolute purity in everything that lives in you and in whatever emanates from you.
  8. The life of man on earth is characterized by suffering, burdens and trials. Man tends to view these as useless obstacles on his path. However, they are by no means: They are absolutely necessary for the Salvation and Redemption of Your own soul and the souls of Your fellow men. Hence BATTERING RAM 8: Loving acceptance of all suffering, burdens and trials. Every protest against the trials on Your path drives You away from God’s Light and paralyzes Your strength to carry your burden. Learn to accept every detail of your life as a Work of Divine Providence. When you live completely in union with Jesus and Mary and consecrate everything to Mary, you may assume that Divine Providence will outline your path through life up to the last meter.
  9. With every attempt to break out of the castle evil has been building around you, you must be in communication with God. That is why you should continually make use of BATTERING RAM 9: ardent prayer, from the very depths of your heart. Mechanically grinding out prayers will not yield the force required to storm the gate of this castle. As soon as your heart is able to work up the appropriate Love to truly touch God’s Heart, even a mere sign of the cross will generate a force that blows up all the gates. Of paramount importance is also the daily prayer of the Rosary. However, do not forget that also every continuous connection between Your heart and God (and Mary) is in the true sense of the word prayer. Prayer is communication with God, and if You consciously dedicate each action, every word, every thought, every feeling, every aspiration and every desire to God or to Mary and allow Him (Her) to actually breathe life into them, Your heart is in the deepest sense of the word in prayer.
  10. A crushing counterforce to all the workings of evil consists of adding a perfect sense of meaning to everything that happens to you. This power lies in BATTERING RAM 10: total, unconditional and everlasting consecration to the Holy Virgin. You lay Your whole life, everything that happens to You, and all Your doings, in Mary’s hands, and implore Her that She may use it as raw material to 'manufacture' salvation and blessings. This way all of this can not be abused by evil for the benefits of its own woks of corruption, decay and perdition.
  11. The forces of darkness have everything to gain by your dividing your life into all kinds of compartments and falling prey to ingrained habits. You are much more susceptible to temptations when your life is going along fixed paths, just as you become much more vulnerable to robbers when you are always passing at the same place at the same time. BATTERING RAM 11 is getting detached from yourself: breaking with habits that form a breeding ground for temptation and sin. Habits and fixed patterns of behavior involve the risk that your entire life proceeds mechanically, without conscious efforts, without a heart, like a monotonous grind.
  12. Your life is made up of an uninterrupted series of actions, behaviors, and events and developments and your own reactions to them. You can add to all of this a sanctifying power by turning it into BATTERING RAM 12: Bring all of your actions and words to a higher level by uniting them with the actions and words that have emanated from Jesus and Mary during their lives on earth, intensely consecrating them, and praying ardently that Jesus and Mary Themselves may act and speak in and through You.
  13. Satan knows how sensitive man is to the judgment and comments by his fellow man, and sets great store by making a good impression on his fellow man. Herein lies the danger that you may not really do, or refrain from doing, things whole-heartedly, with a view to the impression your behaviour may make on your fellow man. Not seldom sin finds its origin in this attitude. Really being a child of God means daring to be yourself, and not neglecting the inspiration and promptings of the Holy Spirit to go on ways that your soul (your conscience) recognizes as undesirable, and not neglecting the inspirations from the Holy Spirit by turning into directions in spite of the fact your soul (or your conscience) recognizes them as being undesirable, just for the sake of pleasing your fellow person. Thus chains of evil are born and maintained. Therefore, fearlessly resort to BATTERING RAM 13: detaching from the judgment made, or from opinions held, by your fellow man. Dare to row against the current if the majority do not live and speak in accordance with God’s Will, Plans and Works.
  14. Man has always devoted a large part of his time to finding ways to make life easier and to circumvent the many obstacles of living in a vulnerable body. That is why people have built societies. A society must be organized. It is characteristic of societies that they tend to take more and more root in a morality of self-indulgence as their development progresses. Especially for this reason, modern societies are so heavily prey to the forces of evil. To return to the source of the sanctity God had provided for You, you should make use of BATTERING RAM 14: willingness to make sacrifices and do penance. The liberating power of detachment is unsurpassed. Detaching, is releasing yourself from the grasp of all material things and 'needs' and anything that promotes your physical being getting used to having all of its needs satisfied right away. This way only detachment makes truly approaching God possible. You can do this by fasting, by frequently denying yourself material things and enjoyments. Thus you can break the chains of slavery to Your physical needs to get closer to the true freedom of the saints.
  15. There is no way along which God comes into more intimate contact with Your soul than through the Sacraments. Among the Sacraments there are two that you can use regularly. They form BATTERING RAM 15: the Holy Eucharist and Confession. Through an individual sacramental confession (not through a collective confessional celebration!) you cleanse your soul (as well as your spirit and your mind) from sin, thus reducing the power of Satan on your soul. Through Communion, received with a pure heart and in a reverent way (the ideal way is the one receiving the Host on the tongue while kneeling), you set an act of desire to actually let Jesus live and work in Your whole being. Thus through the Sacraments you invite God through the intervention of the Holy Church of Christ to unite with You and to live in You, which will weaken the workings of evil in you, to the extent that you yourself actively contribute to the maturing of the fruits of this intervention through a virtuous life.

In summary: Use the following battering rams without delay to open the gates of the castle of evil and to free your soul:
- your allies: the Names of Jesus and Mary, and the angels
- get to know your weaknesses, and pray to overcome them
- your own faith and trust
- forgiveness to the utmost
- brightfulness in all trials
- helpfulness and charity to the degree of self-denial
- aspire for absolute purity in everything
- loving acceptance of all suffering, burdens and trials
- ardent prayer
- total, unconditional and everlasting consecration to Mary
- getting detached from yourself
- bring all your actions and words to a higher level
- detachment from the judgment by your fellow man
- willingness to sacrifice and doing penance
- Confession and Holy Communion

Myriam, July 2005 (date of original text in Dutch language)