When we think of the devil, we think of something to be feared and fought against. We know he is powerful, but did you know that he is actually jealous of your power?

Recently on Father Simon Says™, Father Richard Simon explained what great power God has given you that would cause the devil to be jealous, and also how the devil is fighting to take that power away from us. He said:

“We read ‘By the envy of the devil, death entered the world.’ What does the devil have to be jealous of in me? The devil knows a lot more than I do and is a lot more powerful than me. The devil is immortal, a fallen angel. Why would he be jealous of me?

Because God has shared with me, with you, and with all of humanity, a power He has not shared with the angels. This is huge. A man and a women, in their coming together, can create something immortal.

God has unique creative power, but Jesus says that in heaven we will be like the angels, neither giving nor taking in marriage. Angels don’t have children, they don’t have the kind of creativity that we have.  We human beings have been given an amazing gift by God. A man and a woman, in their coming together, can create something immortal. That’s breathtaking. And the devil hates us for this.

If the devil can make a mess of the human giving and creating of life then that’s a thumb in God’s eye, as far as he is concerned. So the devil invents sterile marriage – abortion, birth control, the permutations of relationships that are called marriage in our time.

Marriage is essentially creative. Now, there are people who cannot have children, but their faithfulness to one another strengthens society so that we might be a fruitful society. So, even marriages that by nature are childless, even these are about children. We are all called to parenthood – maybe spiritual and not physical, but physical parenthood should also be spiritual – and the devil hates this, so the devil hates children. And look at the barbarities, inside and outside the Church, that have been directed toward children.

This is very important. The devil does not have this power. Also, the devil does not have the power of art, and he wants to corrupt art. The devil hates beauty, and if he can ruin art and ruin the family, then he is doing fine.

The point of much modern art is to shock, but that’s not the purpose of art. The purpose of art is to uplift and inspire and to draw one into beauty. And there are a whole lot of churches that are quite shocking. They look like spaceships from the planet ugly. The devil hates beauty and hates children because that is a kind of creativity that God has shared with humanity and not with the angels.”

Listen to the full reflection below:

Father Simon Says airs weekdays at 2:00 p.m. Eastern/11:00 a.m. Pacific on Relevant Radio® and the Relevant Radio App.