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I guess that is one reason we Catholics get frustrated with these kinds of threads, satan is destroying the world and all of you are concerned is if I pray a rosary or not. Don’t you all get it, this is what satan wants, keeping the focus off of him. Wake up, people!

Remember that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but powers and principalities. Speaking for myself, and surely for the other evangelicals here, we do not see Catholics as the enemy. But deception is an enemy, and well worth the fight to resist. I agree with CS Lewis on this, in that Satan doesn't much care whether we believe in him or not. From his perspective, it's who we don't believe in that matters. Every devotion of the heart that divides off our faith into so many lesser tributaries besides God is precisely such a distraction. Parsing worship into carefully segregated degrees of veneration is as useless as and much more difficult than estimating how many angels can coexist on the head of a pin. The human heart is not so rigidly defined a place. If undue affection for a pet or a job or a spouse can be idolatry, and it can be, why not something so grandiose that it inspires the creation of images and prayers for salvation and the looking for of heavenly apparitions?

Others may think they are strong enough to face such temptation. I am not. I have to keep it simple. When I need help from God, I go to God. Sure I ask other to pray as well. But not as a substitute for my own prayers. We have been invited into the throne room of Heaven, and we will offend the King if we play games with that invitation. He expects us to show up and make our own case, not to send a messenger in our place. It's best not to disappoint Him.

Peace,

SR