Devil preys on men's eyes

Lay evangelist warns men against being drawn into temptation

By RAMON GONZALEZ
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

"Satan uses every trick to lure men's bodies to become an occasion for sin," Romero told about 350 men at the Men of Integrity annual conference March 19.

"The devil hates your body because it is a temple of God. The devil wants to humiliate the body. The devil wants to rape the body as a reaction against Jesus who sacrificed his body on the cross for our salvation."

Romero, a lay evangelist from California, gave six talks at the conference at St. Theresa Church in Millwoods. He spoke with the same passion that made him a three-time World Police Olympics boxing champion, a former U.S.A. middleweight kickboxing champion and a 17-year veteran of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

Evils of pornography

"Sin starts with the eyeballs," he said. "Sin is conceived first in the eyeball. If you are taking in sin with the eyeball then it moves into the imagination and then as we imagine the sin it starts moving into the area of your heart, the deepest core of your being. And then it moves to the rest of your body. And then before you know it, you are wrapped in sin."

Archbishop Thomas Collins also spoke at the men's conference, an annual event sponsored by Catholic Family Ministries. Use It or Lose It was the theme of the event.

Quoting from the Bible, Romero reminded his audience that the Lord called the eye the lamp of the body. "If your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light," he said. "But if your eye is not sound, if your eye is not taking in good things, your whole body will be full of darkness.

"What you take in with your eye will either elevate you to a love, prudence, justice, temperance or it will bring you down into a state of darkness." On judgment day you will be treated according to what you have done in the body, he warned.

The eye of King David caught the naked figure of Bathsheba, the wife of a friend and soldier who was in the battlefield fighting for him. Tempted by the devil, he used his power to seduce her. When he realized she was pregnant, he orchestrated his friend's killing in the battlefield to cover his tracks. Upon the man's death David married Bathsheba.

At this point David is guilty of adultery and murder, sins he refused to acknowledge. When his sins became known, David repented and confessed. God forgave him but, as penance, he condemned to death the child he and Bathsheba had conceived.

David protested the child's innocence but as Romero put it, "Sin has consequences. David's sins had consequences but God forgave him because he repented. Had he not repented, he would have fried in hell."

The consequences of sin, especially sexual sin, are all around us and include destroyed families and destroyed communities, Romero said, noting 40 per cent of sex addicts will lose their spouses and 27 per cent will lose their jobs.

He and his two kids turn provocative magazines around in stores to prevent other men from falling into sin. Married men who have made a covenant with one woman are the devil's favourite targets.

"Pornography is anti-children, anti-women, anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-Church and anti-God," he screamed.

Respect for women

Don't fall for it, he advised. "When you sin, you curse your family and the only thing that can break the curse is the blood of Jesus. And where can we get the blood of Jesus? In the Holy Eucharist. Confession and Communion are the tools the God gave us to beat the devil back."

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