In the Middle East, Christians face a choice if they do not convert to Islam: Die or leave your country. Christian women are being raped and sold as sex slaves. Journalists and aid workers are being beheaded. And in the U.S., we have increasing threats to religious freedom. Now, for the second time in recent memory, satanists are threatening to hold a so-called black mass, this time in Oklahoma City.

In response to these threats at home and abroad, EWTN will televise a Eucharistic Holy Hour of Reparation with the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word. Please join Father John Paul Mary at 8 p.m. ET, Sunday, September 21 as he leads this Holy Hour to make reparation for these blasphemous events, and to pray for the conversion of the organizers of the black mass and those attending this sacrilegious event.

EWTN’s Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word! Fr. John Paul (right) on his way to World Youth Day in Rio with Fr. Miguel (left) and Fr. Mark (center).

Father John Paul says we must bow down in adoration and thanksgiving for so great a gift as the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. He is the answer to the problems which threaten to overwhelm us. That’s why, wherever there is great evil, Catholics pick up their greatest weapons – prayer, adoration, the rosary.

“A single act of charity is greater than all the evil in the world,” said Fr. John Paul. “You can think there is more evil in the world than holiness. That’s what the evil one wants you to think. But where sin abounds, grace abounds even more (Romans 5:20). What the nuns do in the slums of Calcutta, what the missionaries do in the deserts of Africa, what the homeschooling mother does in teaching the faith and sacrificing for her children builds up the body of Christ. People look at the Church as an institution, but the Church is much greater than that. It is an actual living organism. When we live lives of charity, we build up the church here on earth. The only way to combat evil is with charity and goodness. Period!”

A black mass is nothing but a mockery of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. As Father John Paul notes: “Evil is not creative, it can only mock what is good.”

Just as satanists mock Jesus in the Eucharist, some will mock Catholics for saying rosaries for peace. But we know that it was citizens praying the rosary that gave Christian forces their great victory over Muslim Turks in the Battle of Lepanto, even though they had fewer soldiers and fewer weapons; it was Filipino citizens who surrounded the tanks sent by the Marcos dictatorship that caused the soldiers to lay down their weapons and join their fellow citizens; it was the rosary that saved Jesuit Missionaries at Hiroshima after the first atomic bomb detonated a few blocks from their home.

Father John Paul recalls the Battle of Lepanto, which is widely considered to be a turning point in history; indeed, the future of Europe was at stake. “It was a war that we should not have won,” he says. “The victory was accredited to our Lady, under the title our Lady of Victory. Prayer is always effective.”

People of faith shouldn’t be led astray by the argument that they must allow the satanists to attend their “mass” so others can continue to enjoy the freedom to attend their own services. Says Father, “I would challenge those who make this argument to ask themselves if they would allow a group to steal or kidnap the person they love the most and perform the most cruel and heinous acts on them in the public forum. That is precisely what these satanists are doing.”

As you may have heard, Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City sued the satanic “church” in Oklahoma City for theft of a consecrated host, which they returned. Assuming the group doesn’t obtain another stolen host, EWTN Vice President of Theology Colin Donovan says this is now a “dry black mass or really just black theater. In any case, it requires reparation for the offense to God. Adoration of the Eucharist answers Profanation of the Eucharist, whether actual or simulated. Both are grave evils.”

Father John Paul says Catholics need to be clear about the importance of this battle: “You cannot get any closer to God this side of Heaven than in the Holy Eucharist. I believe Mother Angelica would want us to defend the Lord Jesus with every fiber of our being. We are not protecting ‘something,’ we are protecting ‘Someone.’ We want to raise people’s awareness of how seriously Catholics take their Faith.”

The rosary is a powerful weapon, but it only works when Catholics use it! Please join us at 8 p.m. ET, this Sunday, Sept 21 – and spread the word because, as Father John Paul said, “Prayer is always effective.”