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The Snares of the Devil

Writer's picture: Joseph ValenticJoseph Valentic

It is a wonderful spiritual practice to memorize and recite prayers. However, sometimes we learn the words without really thinking about their full meaning. Sometimes, in the beauty of traditions carried down, we may have words that people no longer use or they simple do not know what they mean. This has happened to me more than a couple times in my life, until God prompts me to slow down and contemplate the words and what they mean for me today.


Similar to reading scripture, there are times when certain passages seem to come off the page and speak to the exact moment we are in our lives, certain words and phrases in prayers can be used by the Spirit to lead us to something God wants us to know. This happened to me recently with the famous prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. God began to draw my focus to the phrase "snares of the devil". This is taken from the line in the prayer that says "be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil". For the better part of a month this has been on my mind and in my prayers.


I began to reflect about how well that passage captures a large portion of the devil's actions in our lives. I began to see how sly the devil is in drawing us into sin and losing our freedom and peace through his snares. I prayed to be more aware of these snares and to try to avoid falling into them. But I had not been praying about being released from the snares I had already fallen into. Today on my way to church with the family, while praying our rosary, I felt strongly prompted to ask my children if they knew what a snare was. They did not know what it was. I gave them a brief explanation that it was a trap and how it worked and I briefly explained how the devil sets and traps us in his snares, but I did not have time to go into it in detail. During mass our Deacon would include in his homily a discussion of how the devil traps us into sin and we lose our freedom. He explained how the Lord and the armies of the Lord fight to release us from our captivity and how to avoid being captured in the first place. It was a remarkably moving homily and I knew it was further confirmation to continue exploring this topic of snares and to share it in this post.


What Is A Snare and How Does it Work


In order to understand the phrase in the prayer, "snares of the devil", we need to understand what a snare is and how it operates. Even if you know what it is, it is helpful to contemplate how it operates to understand how the devil uses snares. A snare is a trap that typically has two main components. One is the loop that the prey gets caught, similar to the image below. The other part is some form of bait. It is typical for the loop of the snare to be covered with brush or camouflage so it is not easily visible. However, to the cautious eye, it can typically be detected, but not if one is focused on the bait inside it.


Snare Trap
Snare Trap











The bait draws the prey into the trap. Once the prey takes the bait the trap springs into action and the loop sinches instantly around the some part of the prey's body. If the prey tries to pull away from the trap or thrash about in anger or fear to get loose, the noose gets tighter and the escape becomes less and less likely, without external help. Typically, at this point, the only way out of the trap is for the prey to calm down, humble itself, and let someone help release the snare.


This simple trap is a very apropos description of how the devil often operates in our lives. He sets traps for us that are baited with things that tempt us, based on our weaknesses. They could be things that positively attract us and play off our sensual desires for pleasure or attachments to the things of the world, money, physical pleasures, food etc. The bait could be things that the devil knows will temp us to enter into sinful anger or despair. It could be something that peaks our pride and causes us to avoid humbling ourselves and the more we stay in our pride the tighter the noose gets.


Often times, while the bait is big enough to get our attention, it is usually no so big that it causes us to be startled or suspicious. This keeps our guard down so we will more easily go for the bait. The devil also likes to camouflage the snare wire of the trap, by placing the bait in areas were we are most comfortable, most often prone to sin, and most likely have our guard down. As mentioned above, for someone who is moving slowly and looking at his surroundings, the wire of the snare can usually be identified and avoided.


Praying the prayer to St. Michael with a genuine desire to be protected from the snares of the devil is a great beginning to be more aware of and able to identify the snares, before we step fully into them, or before we fully take the bait in the center of the trap. It is also helpful to ask your guardian angel to help us in this process and join us in our St. Michael prayers. Your guardian angel lives to help you and will be more than happy to help you. But you need to be mindful of the old adage "never travel faster than your angel can fly". If we move too fast, we will not hear or sense the the warnings of our angel, and we will most likely be fooled by the devi's camouflage on his trap.


If we should still fall into the trap and we have identified it, we need to do the same thing necessary for the prey to get out of a physical snare. We first need to calm down and stop thrashing about physically and or emotionally. Once we calm down, then we need to humble ourselves and ask for help. First and foremost, we need to ask for help from the Lord. We need to ask Him to "release" us from the snare and from the temptations that led us to the bait. It is great to follow this with an Our Father prayer, tying the the "deliver us from evil" portion of the prayer, to your request to be released from snares.


Following the deacons homily, during Holy Communion, and after, I prayed for the Lord to release me and my family from the the snares we had fallen into. Following mass, I spoke with the Deacon and shared with him how prior to mass I was prompted to discuss what a snare trap was with my family during our rosary. I shared how meaningful it was to hear his homily, but I did not share with him my prayers about being released from snares. Providentially he shared this story. He said that in the olden days of battle when they were readying the archers to shoot a flaming arrow into the enemy camp, which was a sign to proclaim the freeing of captives, the commander of the army would say one word to launch the arrow. He would say "RELEASE". When I heard this I knew this was God confirming all I was contemplating and our need to pray for our "release" from past and future snares of the devil.


I would like to leave you with these two key thoughts. First, if you have fallen into the snares of the devil in the past and you have not sought to be released from them, you need to do this. A great place to start is to simply ask the Lord to release you from the snares of the devil in your life, again followed by an Our Father. From there, you should take advantage of the sacrament of confession. This sacrament not only grants you forgiveness from your past sins and traps you have fallen into, but it conveys actual graces to help you avoid future traps.


The second key thought is to go forward praying the St. Michael prayer daily and even multiple times a day. As you pray it, specifically have in mind asking St. Michael and your guardian angel to help you be able to see the traps of the devil, before you fall in them, and then to avoid the bait. For most of us, the bait is often based on our root sin or other well established habits of sin, so this will not be a simple one and done prayer. This is a battle and we are in deed warriors in it. But it is a battle imminently worth fighting for, because it is ultimately the battle for our freedom, now and for all eternity. If we do not see and choose to fight this battle now, it only gets worse the longer we avoid it. Most importantly, if we do not fight it now, and we pass away, locked in the devil's snares, we will lose our freedom for all eternity.


If you are feeling overwhelmed at this moment in your life, do not despair that you cannot change, that is one of the greatest snares of the devil. God's word tells us we can do anything in Christ who strengthens us. We only have to ask for His mercy and help. He stands ready to help us always. Jesus shared with St. Faustina that he wanted her to spread the devotion to His divine mercy and to let people know that mercy was His greatest attribute. And again, all people have to do is come to him, repent, and ask for His mercy and he will grant it to them. There is no snare greater than the mercy of God!


Let us Pray

Oh my loving guardian angel please join with me and pray for me:


St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. 


Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. 


May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, 


and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, 


by the power of God, 


thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, 


who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen


The St. Michael prayer and many other additional prayers to help us in the battle's we face can be found in the Warrior Prayer Manual. It is beautifully designed to help us occupy and train our mind, through powerful prayers and incredible images, so we are fully armed to fight the battles we face and avoid the snares of the devil.


The entire Warrior Prayer Manual can be viewed online at this link: https://catholiccurator.com/the-warrior-prayer-manual#warrior-manual-preview


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