“And the Lord God said to the serpent: ‘Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.’”
God, in His love and compassion, does not begin by rebuking Adam and Eve, who stand trembling before divine justice. He turns to the snake, the ancient serpent, and pronounces the judgment upon him. O foul beast, you who were so magnificent upon the angels, you have been reduced to a place lower than animals. Cows have a greater dignity than you, because you who were supposed to lead the minds of men to the things of heaven have caused them to turn from God to earthly knowledge. He cannot repent due to his angelic nature, and all the faults of creation are heaped upon him, thus he will be trampled into the dirt. Thus, you should have no fear, o dear Theophila, of the ways of the enemy. His face is rubbed in the dirt, and the villain of your love story has already seen his humiliating defeat: “I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven” (Luke 10:18). The demons are outside the scope of charity, and can be prayed against with true fervor: “Do to them as thou didst to Madian and to Sisara: as to Jabin at the brook of Cisson. Who perished at Endor: and became as dung for the earth” (Psalm 82:10-11). Mankind is set to war against demons, between the seed of the serpent, that is those that do evil, and the seed of Eve, which is forecasted to be Jesus, Mary, and those that follow them on the path of love. As for you specifically, Theophila, the victory of your love is assured: “Thy neck,” that is, your bond to your divine Head, “is as the tower of David, which is built with bulwarks: a thousand bucklers hang upon it, all the armour of valiant men” (Song 4:4). Because of the presence of Jesus in your soul, it is given you to trample demons: “Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk: and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon” (Psalm 90:13). They can only writhe in the dirt beneath the love in you. All he can do is lie in wait for your heel, thus St. Paul exhorts you to stand with “your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15), that you may be immune from the fangs of the serpent. For Christ defeated the enemy by the words of the Scriptures, and He is your model. It is by bringing the words of the Lord to mind with love that pushes back the temptations of the enemy, be they to lust, avarice, despair, foolishness, anger, or a belief that God doesn’t love you. It is by the words of God that you can walk upon the heads of demons without fear, for their poison cannot sink in where love has given you strength, and where His words are the sword in your mouth: “And from his mouth came out a sharp two edged sword” (Apocalypse 1:16), which is your greatest weapon against your foe.