“What would happen,” asks St. Maximilian, “if a soldier — who did not always know the plan of the general — began to act on his own: open fire when he must remain silent, or march forward when he must retreat?” Answer — disaster.

In our battles for souls (our own soul first and foremost), we are constantly having to make choices and decisions. Such decisions range from, “Do I answer this phone call now?” to “Do I move my family across the country in order to be closer to a Latin Mass?” In militaristic terms, what is it that we need as soldiers in order to know what God wants us to do? Let us call it “intelligence,” shall we? Intel for short.

I propose that there are two kinds of intelligence: general and specific.

General Intelligence: A Knowledge of the Bigger Battle

General intelligence is a knowledge of reality of battle, big picture-wise. There is a powerful scene in film The Railway Man with Colin Firth. (Not a family movie. Watch it after the children are in bed.) This movie is based on the true story of the WWII British military officer, Eric Lomax, who was captured and tortured by Japanese when he was twenty-three years old. In the POW work camp, Eric and some other prisoners had managed to rig up a radio which they hid under a jeep and would listen to secretly. One day he heard on this radio that Allies were making significant advances in Europe. He immediately sneaked off to find his commanding officer to tell him the news: “Sir, we’ve got Hitler on the run.” Unlike Eric, Major Finlay had been put to work on the Burma-Thailand Railway, also known as the “Death Railway.” The man had been so overworked and undernourished that he could hardly react; the viewer is assured that he did actually understand the ramifications of Hitler being on the run when he himself shakily runs off to alert his other men. As with Eric, the news had made all the difference in the world for Finlay. For his morale.

Morale is critical in any fight but especially in ours. If we lose our Catholic morale — that confidence that we should have in the final victory — we are (pardon the expression) toast. That said…I have a present for you. A little bit of intel you might appreciate:

We are winning. We have the devil on the run.

Or, if you want the more eloquent version, here is how Fr. Frederick William Faber puts it: “Everywhere evil is being undermined by good…. As much evil as we see, so much good, or more, do we know assuredly lies underneath it, which, if not equal to the evil in extent, is far greater in weight and power and worth and substance. Evil makes more show and thus has a look of victory, while good is daily outwitting evil by simulating defeat. All the clocks that strike the hours on earth mark some new victory of the Sacred Humanity [of Our Lord] over the rebel spirit. Each grace given is a blow struck. Each Sacrament administered is a fortress taken. Each mercy granted is a gain for Heaven.”

Think what this means, soldiers. We are winning! Think often and hard on this truth: that whatever crosses you encounter, trials you undergo, apparent losses and setbacks you are afflicted with — they are just little pieces of the larger victory. That outlook is what I am calling general intelligence.

Specific Intelligence: A Knowledge of Our Role in the Battle

Specific intelligence is you knowing what God’s plan is for you at every moment, in every situation. What St. Maximilian calls obedience to the Immaculata, other saints have simply called “conformity” to God’s will, or, (my favorite)  — “holy abandonment to God’s will.” There is nothing so sanctifying as abandonment well understood. What does that mean? Abandonment means, “Whatever you want, Blessed Mother. I trust you. Only tell me what you want from me, and I will obey — no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much it does not seem to make sense.” Abandonment is the trustful, confident expression of love, and nothing pleases God so much as to see this disposition in His children. Why? Because — He is God. He does know best. This is why Dom Vitalis Lehodey says in his masterpiece Holy Abandonment: “Spiritual progress does not depend on anything extraordinary; it depends only on abandonment to God’s will.”

But, of course, in order to obey orders, we have to be told what those orders are, right? Intelligence is the receiving of that knowledge: march, halt, lie low, retreat, charge! No intelligence, no victory.

St. Thomas says that the will of God has five expressions or ways it manifests itself: counsel, command, precept, prohibition, operation. Looked at another way, these five can be simplified further to just three: God makes His will known to us through inspirations, through circumstances, and finally through commands of our lawful superiors.

Let us look at some examples.

Randy (I have not been able to find his last name), was the gentleman who took it upon himself to rescue Blessed Sacrament from desecration when satanists held their black mass on the steps of state capitol building in Topeka, Kansas, on March 28, 2025. I am on TFP‘s email list, so I got the story from them. This man had planned to rescue Host. He arrived the night before and spent that night spiritually preparing for what he felt called to do. The next morning he dressed in black to blend in with the satanists themselves, and when he saw anti-priest throw Host to ground to stomp on It, he was ready. He dove to the ground and consumed the two main Pieces that he found then started licking the pavement to preserve as many Particles as he could. He only got so far before one of the satanists yanked him back and began violently attacking him, punching him and kicking him. It was awful. But I know I am not the only Catholic who is grateful beyond words that Randy did what he did.

The “intel” that Randy received and on which he had so courageously acted was called inspiration.

Another classic example of this can be found in the Old Testament. When the valiant Judith dolled herself up, sneaked out of her city one night and into the enemy camp, befriended the enemy general, and then hacked off his head, she was following an inspiration from God. To obey such an inspiration, after we have properly discerned that it truly is from God, is one form of holy obedience — the one called holy abandonment.

How about circumstances? When St. Joseph told his fifteen-year-old bride, nine months pregnant, that after having left their home in Nazareth and hiked north over eighty miles to get to Bethlehem, She would have to deliver Her Child in a livestock shed — She bowed her head in this same spirit of trust and surrender to God’s plan. No angel had told Joseph in a dream not to inquire at the inns in town. In their case, God’s will had manifested itself through circumstances.

In the next article, we will look at the third and final means by which God’s will is manifested to us: Authority.