2 Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. It’s an old saying, but rings true. It’s a metaphor for knowing your enemy well. Know them well so you can identify them and make the contrast between good and evil. Soldiers are trained to identify enemy forces before engaging.
3 Students of martial arts would be aware of practices in typical classes which involve acknowledgement or respect paid to some sort of spiritual component. For example, patches on uniforms may have dragons on them or occult features. Ask the school owner or head teacher what they mean and why they are there. Contrast them to your own beliefs. You may be stepping into something not right for you.
Chapter 2: Listen to your teacher
War councils are needed to determine the fate of their soldiers.
Designs are strengthened by counsels: and wars are to be managed by governments. (Proverbs 20:18 DRC1725)
What does this mean for the average person? It means we should talk about going to war, and then discuss it again before doing so. Or rather, a reasonable person will think things through before succumbing to the lust for blood drawn from fighting. That's what any reasonable person would think, and rightly so.
The "reasonable person" test is a universal principle which assumes an average person would come to believe a certain thing by way of rational thought. That is, in a court of law, especially here in Australia, and in New South Wales particularly, the "reasonable person" test is how an intelligent person in a specific situation would likely react or what a reasonable person would do. In other words, only a fool would rush into a fight.
But what does this verse mean to the student of a martial discipline? It means that under the tutelage of the right teacher, in the science that is right for war, a student would not resort to war unless counseled into it. And even then, we are counseled on how to wage that war. Consider the seriousness of the matter. To get a graphic definition, just Google the word “war” and look at the images that come up. What you will see isn’t pretty. It’s a lot of misery and heartache.
War is the big brother of fighting. I believe wars should be committed to and engaged in to the very end. I believe no one, of any faith, can engage in any war unless they're mentally and spiritually prepared for it or else they can expect to fail to the worst degree. The gravity of the situation demands this in the most part Idiots start wars without thinking things through. Only foolish people commit to war “just because.” Pride may be at the root of some fights. Perhaps “his great-great grand-uncle’s goat ate my great-great grandmother’s washing one day, so for that my enemy needs to die.” Is the type of thinking I don’t think we as a society need to resort to any longer. We’re beyond the neanderthal ways of hundreds of years ago. We have to, otherwise we’re just knuckle dragging cavemen with access to Netflix.
Wars are started and finished for much more valuable reasons, such as salvation, such as freedom, such as things that are really worth fighting and dying for. Sometimes, the biggest scale of war, is when groups of countries throw all their capital at building an army of machines and men ready to wipe out another nation. And sometimes the war can be as small as one person fighting their way out of the hands of someone who’s ready to kill.
Self-defence is the science of protecting oneself and others nearby. Suppose I am walking home late at night from the train station. I am targeted and pushed into a position where I have to fight my way out of it. As it's the only option in this scenario, I consider it to be war, especially because I’ve deduced that my well-being is seriously threatened. So I’m now going to fight for my right to breathe. If I have taken all the necessary steps to de-escalate the conflict or to escape without physical engagement, then I will do what I must do to survive. In other words, yes, taking my attacker’s eye from his skull and delivering pain is what I am trained to do. It's what I was "Counseled" to do before the "war." I would not resort to these tactics if I didn't believe in myself, did not believe in my purpose, and did not believe my God would deliver me from evil.
I'm not saying war is self-defence. I'm saying self-defence, in an extreme circumstance, can be war and that a person must be spiritually, mentally and physically prepared for it. There may be a scenario in which a student of a martial discipline would need to deploy tactics sufficient to survive, even if it cost the attacker some serious injury. Let's face it, war means casualties. A casualty can be the loss of a limb (yours or your attacker’s) or the loss of life (yours or your attacker’s). What type of person would engage in a war for a stupid small immature reason? A stupid, immature person who isn’t aware of the risks.
But how do you prepare for war? I believe it’s in the following way. A person needs to believe in something. Beliefs come from values, values come from faith, faith comes from divinity, and divinity comes from none other than God. If that chain of reasoning is distorted or broken, there may still be a war, but it would be short lived, expensive, and probably pointless. I’ll liken it to this example. St Joan of Arc. Joan claimed to have received visions of the Archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine of Alexandria instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. For Joan, there was belief as she didn’t dismiss her vision of the saints as just hallucination. There was faith, as she had faith in God and herself. She had a belief in her values, and her values included love of country. There was divinity as we know that the saints don’t come from the devil, and there was God, in which the divinity came from. In this case, we can see the legitimate case for war. Remember, Joan was a girl in the early 1400’s, she didn’t enjoy the rights that women have today, she would have had to receive counsel from someone in authority like her priest and bishop. There was no way she could just pick up a sword and go to war.
A war between countries is done with counsel, and wise counsel wins the war. Many advisers come together to work out how, when, why and with whom. Without wise counsel, a country's military force would be decimated. A military force without counsel would not last.
For the Catholic student of martial science, what better counsel is there than a wise teacher? I'll tell you. It's called faith. You aren’t someone who’s out to fight for a trivial, immature reason. You know full well what consequences may await you, even if your actions are justified. It’s for this reason, in your pursuit of Christ, that you need to be counseled. Don’t think for a second there are no risks associated with your pursuit. Even noble pursuits for good reasons can be full of danger. You’ll need guidance from someone equipped to teach you about this. Your parish priest should have the resources to answer questions on the spiritual war you are engaged in, and will point you in the right direction. Over generations the Catholic church has amassed knowledge and understanding which will equip you, the soldier in the army of God, to fight this war.
We will wage war when we have been counseled. We will wage war when our own “government” guides us through it. Is that referring to our conscience? Unfortunately for us, our conscience can be fickle since it’s run by a brain that is wild at the best of times. So how are we supposed to be governed? The “government” referred to verse 18 is God.
This isn’t an invitation to use God as a justification for starting a war. But I do believe it’s justification for finishing a war someone else may have started. During war there is fog, and when you’re in fog you don’t know which way you’re going. Your senses count for nothing. You need a light—the brightest light—to guide you through it. That light is God.
Unfortunately for you, the odds of your seeing victory in this war, in this lifetime, will be slim. But you don’t live for now, do you? You don’t believe this life is the be all and end all. This is just a temporary moment, a speck in eternity. Your act of war against the enemy consists in the prayers you say consistently over a lifetime, your presence in holy Mass, your participation in the Eucharist, your engaging in the sacraments of the Church and your works of mercy, love and forgiveness to the seemingly undeserving. These are all works which will