THE BATTLE OF THE SIGNS

 What the soul accepts without knowing and hell celebrates in silence

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I. THE SIGN DOESN'T ASK PERMISSION

The human soul was not made for neutrality. It either adores or falls. And yet, today, modern man—so practical, so enlightened—has grown accustomed to wearing signs he doesn't understand, to repeating gestures he didn't choose, to singing words that deny what he pretends not to believe.

He wears inverted crosses as if they were ornaments. He wraps himself in festive skulls. He decorates his house with oriental idols. And he does all this while saying that "it means nothing," while his soul is soaked—drop by drop—in the content that this "nothing" truly contains.

The sign acts. Even if the conscience sleeps. Because the symbol is not just a drawing: it is a seed. It is not an accessory: it is a silent language that forms the soul, as the climate forms a landscape.

And in this civilization that claims to have transcended forms, the most subtle—and most decisive—battle is no longer fought in treaties: it is fought in signs.

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II. THE LANGUAGE OF GOD: WHEN THE INVISIBLE BECOMES VISIBLE

God speaks. But he does not do so like men. His pedagogy is ancient, but alive: He teaches with fire, with water, with bread, with blood. He does not explain: He reveals. He does not theorize: He shows Himself. And that is why His truth is not only heard, but touched, smelled, and tasted.

Christianity is the only religion where truth became flesh. And a flesh needs gestures, forms, time, and color. That is why the Church—wise mother—did not allow her faith to dissolve into abstractions, but wove it with signs: the cross, the altar, genuflection, incense, fasting, and silence.  Everything that modernity calls “superfluous” is, in reality, the alphabet of the redeemed soul.

The sacraments—effective signs instituted by Christ—contain and cause grace. Sacramentals, blessed by the Church, dispose the soul, elevate the mind, protect the body. And beyond them, there is a universe of holy signs that, without causing anything in themselves, teach, prepare, and protect.

Saint Thomas teaches it bluntly:

“Man needs the sensible to rise to the spiritual.”

And Saint Gregory the Great adds:

“What Scripture teaches with words, the liturgy proclaims with signs.”

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III. VISIBLE SHIELDS, INVISIBLE BONDS

A crucifix is ​​not a figure: it is a proclamation. The Rosary is not routine: it is resistance. The scapular is not a cloth: it is belonging. Holy water is not an ornament: it is an invisible trench.

Holy signs, when blessed and used with faith, do not contain God like the Sacrament, but they make His memory present, dispose the soul, and exercise true protection. They are moral shields. They are silent pedagogy. They are calls to conversion.

That is why the saints used them as weapons. Saint Benedict traced the cross over poison and defeated it. Saint Teresa of Jesus humbled the devil with a drop of holy water. The Curé of Ars slept among signs that the devil hated. Saint Pio of Pietrelcina discerned the blessed from the profaned like one recognizes the perfume of heaven.

Nothing was secondary to them. Because they knew that God also speaks through forms, and that whoever guards His signs guards His Kingdom.

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IV. THE SIGNS OF COUNTERRELIGION

The devil cannot create, but he knows how to imitate. And when he does, he inverts.

This is how the enemy's liturgy has infiltrated T-shirts, music videos, festivals, tattoos, fashions, and jewelry. Pentagrams, skulls, inverted crosses, occult eyes, ritual greetings, invocations disguised as design, lyrics laden with blasphemy, desecrated images. All presented as art. All consumed as entertainment. But all sown with precision.

Just look around: Santeria symbols sold as culture; band t-shirts that glorify suicide; posters that mix paganism and politics; candles with counterfeit saints; chants that repeat heresies with a party beat.

And even more subtle: Eastern idols turned into decoration; mandalas as therapy; mudras as elegant gestures; Buddha statues presiding over Catholic dining rooms; yoga postures—born as offerings to pagan deities—turned into spiritual gymnastics for souls who no longer know who redeemed them.

No, they are not neutral.  Because every sign has an owner.

And the soul that accepts a sign, even if it ignores it, enters the sphere of influence of that which that sign proclaims.

Saint Augustine, who knew the deceptions of hell, summed it up lucidly:

“The devil cannot create, but he imitates and perverts everything God made.”

And the saints acted accordingly: Saint Patrick destroyed the Druidic signs. Saint Boniface cut down Thor's tree. Saint Cyprian, who had once been a magician, confessed that the impious signs he used were real instruments of the devil. And when he came to know the cross, everything that had come before was shattered.

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V. DEMONIC INFLUENCE AND OPEN DOORS

The devil doesn't need to possess to reign. It's enough for the soul to lower its guard.

Possession is extraordinary. Influence, on the other hand, is everyday. It creeps in through gestures, habits, objects, music, symbols. It manifests itself as resistance to prayer, unfounded confusion, an allergy to silence, a repulsion toward the sacred. And often, it all began with a symbol accepted without thinking.

Because the symbol, even unintentionally, educates the soul. And when the soul grows accustomed to darkness, it ends up believing that darkness is just another form of light.

Father Amorth said it bluntly:

“The devil enters through the doors that are opened to him. And a symbol can be one of those doors.”

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VI. LIVING WRAPPED IN LIGHT

Therefore, the Catholic soul must surround itself with holy signs like one who builds a fortress.

Not out of superstition, but out of fidelity.  Not out of fear, but out of identity.

A visible crucifix. A blessed scapular. Holy water in the home. True images. Music that uplifts. Words that don't wound the sacred. Clothing that doesn't contradict the faith one professes.

It's not rigidity. It's coherence.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, preparing the catechumens of the fourth century, said it without poetry:

"Every Christian gesture is a shield for the soul."

And the Church has always taught it: Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi. The way we pray teaches faith. And faith shapes life.

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VII. THE WAR OF SILENCE AND SIGNS

We are not in a debate: we are in a war.

And this war is no longer fought only in books, but in symbols.

It doesn't just happen in parliaments, but in closets, on bodies, in profiles, at parties, in songs.

Today the crucifix is ​​expelled and the skull is venerated. Incense is laughed at and blasphemy is applauded. The cassock is censored and nudity is celebrated.

And whoever does not consciously choose the signs of the Kingdom will end up unwittingly wearing the mark of the enemy.

Saint John Damascene said it with theological precision and fire in his blood:

“I do not worship matter, but the Creator of matter, who became matter for me.”

We say it today, in the face of the advancing shadows:

We do not worship signs. But we do not despise them.

Because whoever loses the language of holy signs will soon speak—unknowingly—the language of hell.

OMO