Engaging the Dragon: Spiritual Warfare in Today's World

in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit come holy spirit with thy sevenfold gifts and anoint us with thy divine light wisdom and power come lord jesus christ and anoint us with thy precious blood freeing us from every snare and stronghold of the principalities and powers of darkness o mother of god glorious and immaculate ever virgin mary come and crush the head of the ancient serpent o great father saint joseph terror of demons come and annihilate the enemies of our souls saint michael great prince and commander of the heavenly army strike down the insidious foes who seek to destroy us come glorious band of the apostles come great patriarchs and prophets come white robed army of martyrs come pure and noble throng of virgins come to our aid holy mother saint teresa holy our holy father saint john of the cross saint elijah saint elisha saint john the baptist saint therese saint elizabeth of the trinity all you holy saints of carmel are guardian angels archangels and all you holy angels and saints come repulse the attacks and deceits of our wicked enemies render them impotent and helpless let god arise let his enemies be scattered and let all those who hate him flee before him as smoke is driven away so are they driven away as wax melts before the fire so the wicked perish at the presence of god heavenly father poured down your holy spirit upon all who are gathered here watch over and protect us center for the guardian angels to direct us in the name of the father son and holy spirit grant us your blessing amen amen well i don't know that you need an interrupt in an entry interruption i'll interrupt you for sure but i i think you needed you probably don't need an introduction but just for those who who may not know father dwight although i think all of you do uh he studied at oxford and served as a priest in the church of england before he and his family were received in the catholic church he's the author of over two thousand books oh twenty books and booklets on the catholic faith and culture as well as thousands of articles for various magazines journals and websites he's a popular conference speaker podcaster and blogger follow his blog browses books and be in touch at dwight long longinecker.com and and just so you get his name right it's it's uh l-o-n-g-e-n-e-c-k-e-r longinecker and uh obviously he's uh he's a good man he's been on ewtn he and i have been on radio together before we've never done this done this sort of thing before but one of the things we came together to do is because both of us have published uh spiritual warfare books if you will um both published by sophia institute press which are which is one of the best publishers out there and uh mortal mortal combat which i endorsed uh is a fantastic book and then uh will help you pick up spiritual warfare in the discernment spirits so father dwight uh glad that we could do this together i i i think it's a it's a really um difficult time in the church do you think the need for spiritual warfare is greater in this time are you seeing uh are you seeing movements or in feeling and sensing or uh that it's a the battle is is intensifying well i'm a keen follower of history uh reader of history and i think probably i i think it's fair to say that history seems to go in in in cycles and it's kind of like pendulum it swings back and forth from crisis to resolution and crisis to resolution and when we study history we can see that there are certainly times when the sin of the world the powers of darkness and the powers of the of satan who in the secular world uh seem to surge forward and and and trying to claim more territory um very often that's when the church has has been weak through um heresy or corruption or immorality and various things um and then the cert the church will surge back and the holy spirit will bring renewal and revival so we see this back and forth and i do feel that um definitely this in the 20th century uh beginning with uh fatima and so forth and and the terrible events of the the 20th century we were in a a horrible um attack of evil then it seems we've eased off a bit for maybe 50 or 60 years although there have been terrible things happening now i think there's a surge forward again um and i do think it it goes along with the weakness very often and the complacency and the lukewarmness in the church so um these things are all interwoven so is it worse now than it's ever been um no i probably not but it's a bad time like there have been other bad times yeah i agree i agree with you and i've said the same thing in less eloquent words but uh my sense is that the battle is stronger that the enemy is a bit stronger now or uh as you note surging and and i have a connection with the number of exorcists and there's been a clear indication from them for instance father uh chad ripager who's a prominent exorcist have said that in the past what would have taken one solemn right uh has taken you know six months of doing this offering the right every week for the victim rather than just one and uh so i've heard things that corroborate what you're saying and certainly for me i i imagine for you writing mortal kombat now is part of a response to help the the people of god but for me writing spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits was motivated uh because of the difficulties that i'm seeing and and really recognizing that the spirit of judas is rising which is behind unbelief in the in the real presence in the in the one of the things in in studying church history and the lives of the saints is also to see that when this happens um god raises up warriors and raises up uh saints from the most unexpected places and so satan is sort of involved in in the the powers of the with this world and maybe attacking the cert the hierarchy of the church or the priests or whatever else because he thinks that's where the action is meantime god's working over here on the side with a totally unexpected person or group of people to raise up in kind of like a secret army and i i really think that at this time um it's the role of the laity as as never before to do to to write and to speak and to pray and to be involved in in wonderful ways you're you're a layman and you're running the avila institute and doing all this wonderful work and across america and the world we see lay people actually rising up rolling up their sleeves and doing stuff and getting involved in very practical ways in and in ways that i i'm sorry to say um that a lot of my fellow clergy and and bishops are either complacent or cowardly or maybe even don't believe in all of this so i don't want to judge anybody but i can see the on the positive side the the spirit raising up a whole whole army of of laypeople and all the people who are signed up here tonight to listen to us and speak to us are those who are interested in saying hey what's going on i'd like to learn more about this so god bless you thank you for being here well said now in terms of uh perspective a lot of people are interested in lean in when you start talking about exorcisms and and some of the most sensational realms of demonic incursion or or or um manifestation but uh that's not really where most of the work of the enemy is done what do you what do you how do you see that reality well um i i've witnessed an exorcism and it isn't something i ever want to be part of again um only because it's it's just it's a horrible thing that happens and um i have a huge admiration for the exorcist and the men who god has called to actually do that work but in my experience as well i've had a couple of um very disturbing experiences in talking with um individuals who every outward indication was that they were successful and smooth and charming and connected and wealthy and educated and just wonderful shining successes glittering successes and then i've had a brief glimpse into their life in which i felt that beneath that facade was genuine darkness and evil um i'm i'm convinced therefore that there are an awful lot of people who belong to the dark side but never manifest you know the typical sensational stuff we see from exorcisms of you know horrible voices and and pretty natural strength and all that sort of thing and um i i believe many spiritual um sort of exorcists and warriors have said yeah the the devil doesn't manifest himself in the people who he already has so um if that's the case then i think exorcism is sometimes i think exorcism is rare because the satan is not involved in very many people's lives and sometimes i think it's rare because actually he's involved in an awful lot of people's lives but he's got them completely and therefore he doesn't manifest um you might have something to comment about that yeah i mean i've been involved in quite a number of exorcisms myself as a supporting exorcist and so i've seen the worst of the worst and the suffering that comes out of that but as you as you hint at or or point to i so possession is rare the activity of the the enemy and the life of believers and in the world is really really common would you agree with that oh absolutely and um the different writers on spiritual um warfare and exorcism have different categories one is is temptation which everyone falls into and then another is obsession where a person becomes obsessed with the sin and perhaps there's a level of addiction to that sin and they're beginning to lose control of their of their will because they've yielded so much already to to the darkness but then um depending on on the categories that people have there's also a level in which um the obsession moves into um the will being taken over by the the evil forces now and now something outside the person is is dominating them that's the sort of domination but it's not full-fledged possession but possession can happen and manifest itself so some writers also say that the manifestation of the preternatural science can only be might only will always happen when possession takes place but it might only happen for a split second sure um and then the devil takes residence and doesn't manifest with the ugly stuff for other people the ugly stuff lasts longer i i can remember um father carlos martens saying that uh he had an encounter with a man who um had an occult encounter when he was a child and then later on only later on did the evil manifest itself um and it did only for a split second when father martens put the holy water on him the man um reared back and snarled like a a big beast or cat um and father martin's then he went back to normal seemingly went back to normal and um father martin said at that point he says at that point we realized we did not need a psychiatrist we needed an exercise so you know and very well i don't know if it's your experience dan but very often the exorcists i know are really down to earth fellas like that who um they're not sensationalists they're they're they're really ordinary guys and they know their faults and their flaws and and they uh roll up their their sleeves and get on with the messy work um yeah i have the blessing of knowing a number of exorcists from different dioceses across the country and uh they're often understated quiet holy the the one thing about them that's really beautiful and that's common across all of them is is for the most part they believe with with every they feel like they believe with every fiber of their being which i suspect is why they can go in to that kind of direct confrontation of the enemy with some level of peace yeah so in your book and and i think we really both agree with this uh very strongly you point out that there is a war and that everyone's involved whether they like it or not right yeah um you know if there's a war going on uh in in the second i lived in england for 25 years and i can remember the people there talking about the war and it was it was total war and um there was no room for for uh saying well i don't really know who saw him on you know right right the bombs were dropping around your house and your neighbors were being killed by the nazi blitzkrieg and there was no dance for you no time for you to sit around and twiddle your thumbs and say well i need to decide about this a bit further no it was pretty clear uh you were in or you were out um and i think the more catholics and the more christians realize that this is the reality with spiritual warfare the better we're going to be that this is not a time to sit around for having intellectual discussions and and and and having little polite theological arguments this you know we need to do what we can with what we have where we are yeah i couldn't i couldn't agree with you more and one thing you said when you described the war you know like a physical war uh we have the clarity of the good and evil and who's on the right side unfortunately in our time the war uh there's a whole middle ground of people that you can't quite tell whose side they're on yeah or or they're manipulated by either side right but the thing about his history shows us that um i i put a blog post up not long ago saying the devil always always overplays his hand um you see the devil's a proud spirit and he doesn't really like working undercover he doesn't really like working in secret he wants to take the main role he wants to take center stage he wants to strut out there and be the king of the world um now he's in bondage and he hates that so he overplays his hand and if you take for instance what happened in europe um in the 1920s and 30s uh he was working behind the scenes in the whole nazi um uh regime and in communism and in fascism in italy and so forth and and an awful lot of people when they first got started said hitler was a great guy he broke full employment he got every but the economy back where it should be he was bringing law and order he was bringing high family values all this kind of stuff and the same with um mussolini a lot of catholic leaders in italy actually supported mussolini and thought he was going to fight against communism and help to retain the church and all this kind of good stuff and and but then of course the devil always always overplays his hand and mussolini and hitler couldn't resist um finally strutting and killing and doing what they did and at that point all of god's people said ah aha okay he's showing his true colors we can see where the evil now is and then the two sides formed up for the great battle and i i think we're in that moment at this present time and how long it will last i don't know um of ambiguity uh and uh sort of is this guy good or bad or is this side good or bad we're not really sure and the lies are going on and the deception is going on and this is why your book with discernment of spirits is important because it really requires people to pray and to discern and to listen very carefully at everything that's going on to know their faith and to know um the truth to be able to discern the way forward yeah i think you're right i do think the times the it's heat when it heats up of course the impurities rise right when when you're when you're uh purifying metal you make it hotter and hotter and then the impurities rise moving to the top i think now the the heat is revealing and it's unfortunate uh i think at times and it's very painful to the laity i i i can't speak for the priest i know it's painful for for many priests that i talked to but the being denied the eucharist to being denied the sacraments and even the brazen rejection certainly not by priests like you you're on the other side of the battle but brazen rejection of tradition in the church uh brazen rejection and total disregard of of how it is that the church has always allowed the for instance communion to be distributed i see this as an attack and i my instinct is or i see this as revealing my instinct is as covid settles out there's going to be a number of diocese where folks are told well i don't really care what the church is always taught you don't get to receive in in the humblest way you're going to receive the way i tell you whether it be by slingshot or baggy or whatever yeah um i i think there is a filtering out that is going on and and a discernment within the within our churches we're really blessed where we are in greenville south carolina to have um our own parish our lady of the rosary but also other parishes uh here in greenville with some strong leadership and um also strong commitment of the people in the pews we we're we're spared a lot of the division and the uncertainty and ambiguity which i've sensed is in a lot of the catholic parishes around the country um so uh my hats off to to my people and my parish were very supportive um but also a lot of the community of catholic community in our town is is supportive so i i i see that but i also recognize what you're saying about the the weakness and indecision and bewilderment and confusion um elsewhere in the church all the more reason to understand the roots of evil and the roots of the conflict so clearly and this is what i've been trying to do in my book immortal combat was to actually ask the question what is the sin of the world we say jesus died to take away the sin of the world what is the sin of the world it's not just the naughty things we've done and not just the the upheavals and the quarrels that we have it's actually a a very deep level of deceit uh and um twisting of the truth uh within our whole human society and and of course within our individual hearts too you know i think might be helpful to give people a taste of your book is you know you really approached it as you noted not in an intellectual uh dispassionate way not in high theological language but you're really trying to bring uh help god's people to really understand the battle from i think very powerful analogies could you speak a bit about the analogy used to help to illustrate the sin of the world the the minotaur under the castle yeah uh throughout the book i've used um imagery from greek myth um from popular literature like um lord of the rings movies uh visual imagery from dante and divine comedy and so forth because not only to keep my readers attention which is always a worthy cause of a writer but but also um because imagination gives us access to the heart and the heart is the will and the will are the keys to motivation the words emotion and motivation um are all the same root and so uh through the imagination and and beauty and and uh visualization and the imagination we have access to the heart and to the emotions and the wills in addition to it being intellectual so but if it's only a purely intellectual theological argument and discussion um it remains at that level there's an old saying that the longest journey is from the head to the heart and in spiritual direction this is true we might know all the right doctrine and all know all the right rules but unless it makes that long journey from the head to the heart it's not going to move us there's another russian old russian saying that says the heart moves the feet the heart moves the feet and it's the emotions and the imagination which gives us access to that part of our our being to really um kick us into action therefore i use strong language in the book and i use lots of imagery in the book in order to to get to get that to happen for the reader to say whoa this is this is shocking stuff this is this is set me back here um and and really um for it to kick in and and take effect in people's lives so yes then one of the images i use is the myth of the minotaur from greek myth and the minotaur if you don't remember um from your english lessons was uh half man and half beast he was a big muscular man with a head of a bull and he was a fierce bull a full a monster that would devour young people who were given to him in sacrifice and the interesting thing is this beastly man represents um the strength of humanity but also the dark side of humanity the dark bestial side of us and the myth this are so interesting because they operate at this deep level of our our imagination uh the minotaur is um imprisoned in a labyrinth this complicated maze of passageways and dead ends and false beginnings and so forth which is uh underneath it is in the cellar it's in the under underground uh underneath the palace of king minos and minos the word minos and the word tor the word tor is greek for bull so my no tor is a symbol of the king but his monstrous side which is buried way down deep on the surface the king's palace is full of the courtiers and full of the rich people of the nice people and full of educated people but down below is this beast and so i've used this as an image to say this is where we're going to look at the sin of the world this is the the underground level of deceit and and dishonesty and lust and greed and violence which is lurking just below the surface now i can't believe how the lord has used this book to come out at this time in our history in our nation because this is exactly what's happening over the violence we've seen over the last week or so we've seen all of the polite orderly good mannered surface of america break down and the violence that was that's always been there erupting into the surface um and it ain't pretty no and you do that beautifully in the book and illustrating giving us those emotional images one of the things we do in the we have a high calling program at the apple institute where we're preparing men for seminary in 15 dioceses inside and outside and we have a segment on holy imagination where we study where we help the guys work through lord of the rings and uh you know tolkien and uh uh louis in order to give him that imagination i think what's what's uh distressing in our time and i i i'd be interested in your comment on this is that so your position which i agree with is that story is what gets in when the intellectual stuff doesn't necessarily and the mechanism in the at least in the united states but of course probably in the world the primary uh purveyor of story now is is hollywood and absolute godless uh folks who of course you know recently the weinstein scandal but we've heard much about pedophile rings within uh politicians as well as as well as hollywood that sort of thing but the entire storytelling mechanism has been totally stripped of christian ideals or perspective yeah i'm not quite as pessimistic as you are i i agree with you but um there are time and again in the midst of all the swamp as you as you point out the good stories and good films will pop up and and what encourages me is that the good ones actually very often rise from obscurity um and stay around a lot longer than the bad ones um so there might not not be many of them but they do actually tend to stick around i'm thinking for instance of the two films by robert bolt um the mission and man for all seasons ah mission is top favorite for me yeah you see these are two great films or have become classics um because and they've been written by from you know from a really uh deep understanding of of religious issues even though they're not catholic films um another one is the gladiator which has become a classic film and it has great uh moral and christian themes running through them so what what is encouraging is that although yes you're right there's a lot of junk out there um and really bad stuff out there the the good stuff that's there does actually um survive i i i'll make a little brag here about talking i was lucky enough to meet his daughter once and i was over in oxford and my friend father john sayward is the parish priest of the church in north oxford where priscilla tolkien tolkien's daughter still lives and goes to mass every week so he asked me to cover the mass for him because he was on vacation so i i stepped in and covered and celebrated mass for him and i said to the sacristan um you know is it true that miss tolkien comes to mass here he said oh yeah she's in the front row so um i said well i'd love to meet her after math so um there she was she's a little lady she's she's i sometimes joke that she looks like a hobbit and um she she sort of was very kind and and sort of gracious in her english way and um i said to her you know i'm very pleased to meet you but i would just like to say that i think your father is the foremost catholic evangelist of the 20th century and she said oh what why do you think that and so i quoted that line from sam samwise gamgee when he says because there's some things in this world mr frodo that are worth fighting for awesome and she says nothing said oh yes that's how nice you know but this is the reason i i like to use this imagery because it does access um the heart in in a powerful way uh and of course the scriptures are not a collection of rules rules and regulations or proof texts for uh doctrine the scriptures are this wonderful saga of human stories of god's interaction with humanity from from adam and eve and father abraham right down through um to the to to our lord and and and and uh the apostles and then of course the life of the church of the story after story of these wonderful saints so this is what motivates me and i i think we need to hear more of that one of the problems with the church today though however is that uh we have separated out doctrine and theology and put that in this little box over here which we call theology and it's all intellectual and domestic and scholastic and whatever other it's sticky ism you want and over here we have sentimentality a religion which is just pure emotion and pure feelings and nothing but emotion and feelings and these two have been separated and what i love about story the right story stories is that it actually brings these two together and a good story like lord of the rings um or dante's divine comedy or louis's tales or whatever uh bring together wonderful doctrine and and moral teaching um with the power of emotion and the power of imagination and and and deliver it as a package which is also very attractive and able to be listened to um so yeah that's what sorry you got me going here about why i use that that imagery in the book no it's great it's it's great to hear a a couple of things one is um have you seen the the chosen uh series yet i i have not um i i've seen it's been very recommended yeah i would i just strongly recommend it to our audience i have to tell you know so i came i'm jewish came to christ in my early 20s and uh actually jumped from the anglican seminary to the catholic church so we have uh some connection with that in the background but um you know i remember falling in love with jesus in the sense of as the answer to my anguish as the as the uh the purpose you know the reason i i came into being and all the beauty watching the chosen has really shocked me how it got under my skin and took me back to my original conversion because rumi how he portrays jesus is so beautiful he in his humanity not denying in any way is divinity which of course is clear where do we want that go ahead we know where where do we watch it where is it available so there's some trailers on youtube but it's an actually an app i mean it's delivered a completely different way than anything else and it's crowdfunded right so it's funded by the viewers and we pay for future episodes for the rest of us to see so i'll send you a link or maybe somebody once we open up the uh maybe when we open up the chat or something or debbie will email it to you but i have to tell you i've been deeply moved by it roomie um is a catholic and uh so he's he's in the in the producers are protestant but so far in six episodes i haven't seen anything that's even a hint of of a violation of catholic theology and i think folks will will experience what father longnecker i think is speaking to with how it is that we bring about the entirety of our being into the theological reality because i think you know you talked about tomistic uh uh philosophy in theology but i think aquinas would argue that the entirety of our being should be aligned to god right so he didn't ever intend for us to take his theology and just argue find doctrinal points he would say that our passions our lower nature is all given to us by god to be aligned with him and and of course i'm not denigrating theology and saint thomas aquinas i'm just saying if that's all you have it remains on the head and you need to be involved in the faith um yeah and this is what i get to in the second half of the book is talking about how explaining how the cross of our lord jesus christ defeats evil and how we can actually live that cross um day by day and trying to give people a new perspective on on what we're doing as catholics and and the reason for it you know before we jump to that can i ask you another question about your book uh my why is it that the father of lies is in in terms of the titles of the devil why is it father of lies is really kind of dead center to the essence of satan and how he works yeah that's a that's a good question you know i i can remember one exorcist um saying that uh the the problem in in the exorcisms is that he's dealing with a liar someone who is a liar and everything they do is a lie and therefore you he said you don't know where you are because everything that this demon might say you can't trust did he speak the truth or not he said for instance the demon might howl and say oh don't send me to my appointed place don't send me to hell i'm going now i'm going now but he wasn't really going he was lying to you again uh and so uh and so this constant lying which is going on uh brought me to the point of of realizing that um this is the deep deception which is the sin of the world which i i also use scott peck's book the people of the lie to say the lie the lie the lie that is the problem from the very beginning lying to ourselves lying to others putting up false images about ourselves to others lying to ourselves in all sorts of subtle ways excusing our sin justifying our sin making excuses for others and constantly following the father of lies because the devil is a liar from the beginning he's a liar through and through all he can do is distort the truth uh twist the truth twist everything that's beautiful good and true that's that's what he does um and so his his um his title which our lord himself gives him the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning um is for me the summit of the the titles and the summary of the titles for the evil one uh and for the evil system in the world that we call the sin of the world the sin of the world is a complex network of lies deceit uh deception twisting the truth uh fake news if you like um lies going on all the time this is why it's just really important for catholics to read the bible to read the catechism to read the lives of the saints and to really listen deeply to these sources of our faith which ground us in the truth because if we don't we're going to be subject to all the lies that are scrolling about out there and the lies that we tell ourselves the lies that we tell others and the lies of the media the lies of hollywood as you've said and it's very important to to go to the source of the truth and ground ourselves in that truth um yeah i i couldn't agree more it's interesting i've heard uh so when i'm i do a little bit of apologetics work and i don't know if that's the right way to describe what i'm doing in the sense of arguing for authentic catholic spirituality and it's in in as you know we have a huge incursion of non-christian eastern spirituality mixing with catholic spirituality and creating a kind of a a a blend of truth and rat poison for the soul at the same time and what i what i hear regularly is wait a minute i've been in the i've been a catholic for all my life and i've taught you know this and i've done that and and i'd never seen a problem with it and i think what my answer i usually try to be patient but my answer back is so you've lived in a period where the formation in the church is probably uh you know comparable to some of the worst times and and by osmosis you're supposed to know uh what's true you can't do that you you can't you're not going to understand how to discern between the truth and the lie by just going to mass every sunday in fact you can't even do it by going to mass every day certainly that helps because that's the primary source of grace that we receive thank god at the hand of good priests like you but that doesn't if we're not purifying the heart and mind through the kind of book like you've written immortal combat or through to spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits or through directly through the writings of the great saints and thinkers of the church what's not happening is that we are not constantly taking every thought captive to the obedience of christ purifying all of the false thinking that we have and replacing it as romans 12 1 says to you know being not be not conformed to this world would be transformed by the renewal of your mind so we must engage as you say in these in these truths or we're going to be deceived well our lord says in his great high priestly prayer in john 17 he says father sanctify them in your truth your word is truth and the word sanctify means to set aside for holiness in other words to purify ourselves uh we need to be sanctified in the truth thy word your word is truth and of course being brought up in an evangelical protestant home that line your word is truth meant the bible um read the bible learn the bible we had to memorize bible verses and that's all well and good and i'm i'm really grateful actually um although there was lots of error in that protestantism uh from my from now from a catholic point of view there was a lot of good in it and the the bible background that i received was a real good foundation for my for my catholic faith um and however catholics go on to understand that when this was in john's gospel and john also is referring to the word as jesus himself so sanctify them in your truth your word is truth and jesus says i am the truth therefore deeply plunging ourselves into jesus christ himself through the sacraments and through our devotions uh is also the way that we ground ourselves in the truth and this is a deep mystical experience i'm so grateful for the work of the avila institute because um you're bringing spirituality to ordinary catholics in a way which is alive and real real which is what we desperately need to be able to um be in the truth in this unified way not just with head knowledge but with heart knowledge and with action um in a way which which will help us to steer clear of all the lies that are out there yeah i'm grateful you said that because one of the things that we attempt to do is extend the reality of mystagogy into mystical theology and learning so i always tell students if you're going to hold ideas off at a distance and sort of mull over them this isn't going to work for you if you want to in if you want through the saints to encounter god and to encounter the reality of his presence among us then you're in the right place but i don't care if you memorize where saint teresa of avila was born you know how how many convents that she established or where she traveled what i want you to do is meet the god that she met and through which radically changed the world through her teachings and when we do that when we live that reality we're a light in the midst of all the darkness let me ask you another question about your book so you were speaking about truth and and and the the central tactic of the devil is lies and i would say the secondary one is just is uh is division lies and division i would say is the is the top two and jesus said i'm the way the truth and the life as you mentioned and he said you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free so just immersing ourselves in these truths that you teach in this very good book immortal combat uh that that just come out through sophia confronting the heart of darkness the reality of coming to freedom uh the experience of coming to freedom in essence and i this is a tough one to ask and so forgive me for stumbling around a little bit but a lot of catholics are born in in into the catholic church if you will and they're baptized but they're not they're not taught that there's a that you really have to make a choice now you're some people might say well your protestant background is is bleeding in dan and my answer is no no it's replete in the catholic mystical tradition mary did have to say yes and that yes is the most important thing that we can offer to god but if you could father tell us from a catholic lens what does it mean to say yes to god what does it mean to encounter christ crucified which you talk about beautifully in the book and why and how does that work in the catholic realm i mean tell the listeners here what they need to do to really enter into this deeper reality of who jesus is and how to live in that context okay i'll do that by sharing a very personal experience and i sometimes get a little bit choked up when i i tell this story but um i was five years old when i came home from church one sunday night and i guess the preacher must have been talking about hell or something like that but i i said to my mom um when i got home i said i'm five years old right and i said uh mom i want to get saved i i i want to go to heaven well she knelt down with me and she said you need to say to jesus that you're sorry for your sins and that you want to accept him as your savior and he won you want his his forgiveness and i did that at the age of five and there were tears for both of us um but that stayed with me and some people say oh oh you can't tell a five-year-old to do that well nobody did tell me to do that i asked for it so that's the first step the individual has to not be pressured but to be brought to the point where they want to do this simple action of repentance and faith and people say well how does that happen in the catholic faith it happens every time we go to mass we should be saying to confetti or and bringing our sins and repenting and receiving forgiveness and receiving jesus somebody said a protestant said to a catholic um do you receive have you received jesus into your heart and the catholics said yeah in my stomach too other words they've received the lord at the eucharist and it every eucharist should be this conversion experience this meeting of jesus and confession um my mom later many years later after i was catholic said well what is this about confession so i explained to her i said mom it's as simple as what we did when i was five years old the person comes in and kneels down and they say to the lord they're sorry for their sins and they want to receive his forgiveness and accept his forgiveness in their life and i think where we have failed in the catholic faith very often is we have been dominated by this uh proper doctrine which is ex that the sacraments operate ex our ex aparri operato in other words they will work god will work through his sacraments no matter whether you feel it or not and no matter whether the priest is holy or not god is there jesus is there it's an objective truth you receive his forgiveness whether you feel forgiven or not well yeah that's true it's part of our catholic teaching and thank god that it's true and it does not rely only on our emotions but i think that and very often that very objective legalistic understanding of the sacraments has held a lot of catholics back from actually also encountering the lord in a subjective way a way which is life-changing in which yes there might be some tears and there might be some genuine sort of grief at their situation and um we need a little bit more of that in the catholic faith where where the reality of the sacraments we're receiving are are matched up with the subjective subjective experience and i would say to anybody listening if you have not had that subjective experience if you have not had that uh what what the i think the wesley's called that that distinct warming of your heart as they called it if you've not had that experience of the lord in the sacraments and in prayer ask for it yeah ask for it but be prepared to receive it because it might break a few things in your life you know the holy spirit comes in and um sometimes he has to rearrange the furniture you know yeah that's not always a pleasant experience so be careful what you ask for but if you want to experience the the reality of the sacraments in reality the faith reality of the holy spirit open your heart and say lord i want to receive that i really do um yeah so you've asked what i would say and and if it's too evangelical and protestant forgive me no no this i always say that these things are so clear in the mystics uh one of the things that saint john of the cross says is in in his ascent mount carmel is that if you want to really follow jesus you need to immerse yourself in his person in work which would be you know something like daily lectio divina in the gospels so that you can fall in love with him and that love is the completion is is the movement of your entire being your intellect and your will and your emotions toward him but if you don't do that immersion you don't do that work you will never come to that place and if you don't ask for that encounter that encounters what changed many of the lives of the mystics which then changed the world around them was that encounter with jesus like you're describing and people can see it behind behind me is my image of um saint teresa of lizzio and one of the earliest books i wrote was saint benedict and saint teres the little ruler away and saint red when you read saint therese you encountered the same warmth of love for the lord and this she was genuinely converted like this like all the saints were and she speaks about it from the heart um and it's so winning because of that amen so you said uh or in your book you talked about what saint paul uh proclaimed when he said we preached christ and him crucified i think that's an important point to spend a bit of time on us on on uh with our audience tell us a bit about why that's so important yeah first of all um after discussing what the sin of the world really is i go on to explain why it is the cross of christ which is the only thing that could have broken that spell and broken that bondage of the sin of the world because the sin of the world is a such a complex network of lies everybody believes it and they don't even know that it's there and so jesus comes in and the cross actually breaks that from the inside out i explain how that happens but therefore if the cross is the victory over evil then our lives are meant to be living the cross jesus said take up your cross and follow me you cannot be my disciple unless you take up your cross and follow me sin paul says we preach christ crucified he says i am crucified i die daily i am crucified with christ i long to know nothing but the cross of christ so therefore he hammers this home all through the rest of the new testament and the lives of the saints would say the same uh therefore the second half of my book is an explanation of how we actually do that that every aspect of our our catholic life is a living out of the cross in the world today we see it most clearly and obviously with the lives of the martyrs or people being persecuted for the faith the cross is being lived out within the body of the church through their sufferings but it's also being lived out in all of our trials and sufferings in life and also uh in all of the actions that we do in the devotions that we do it's an identification with the cross and bringing that victory over evil into the present moment and making it live in my life and in your life this is a mystical thing which is very difficult to communicate to modern people who tend to be very practically minded uh and see things in a very sort of dot-to-dot connection to connection kind of way instead we're talking about a deep mysticism here in which individual christians are locked into and experiencing and living the mystery of the cross and yet we say this in the sacraments to be baptized to be baptized into the death and resurrection of our lord to receive the eucharist it is to receive the crucified the body and blood of the crucified lord um and so i go into this and explain how each of the sacraments is a living of the cross and each of our devotions and our prayers and our actions are living the cross in the world it's i don't know dan if you thought it was a a new way of looking at things it's maybe it's a new old way but it's one you can tell i feel pretty pretty strongly about yeah no it's very good and you've done a great job folks make sure you pick up immortal combat confronting the heart of darkness i'd also ask you a favor and and i'll i'll i'll put this one i think both of these books are important for this time uh spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits please share these things with people you know i tell people uh when i i do live streaming on the ewtn's facebook page we do divine intimacy radio and i'm always telling them that there's a great pressure against what we're trying to do there's pressure against father father dwight every every priest has demons chasing them around in general faithful priests i should say and what we need is you guys to to be to help us push back the darkness we need you to say and you know what i'd love to you know what i'd love to see tomorrow i'd love to see a bunch of you who already own this book go on to my feed or my facebook page or father longnecker's facebook page and show that you're reading it take a picture of yourself reading it do the same with this one i love to see those you know on your coffee table i like to see a little background you know but show the titles clearly because people you know facebook now you can't get anything else unless you pay so we really need you guys to join in to help us get this good information out or it won't go anywhere now i want to talk to the martyr mark the i'm sorry the martyr the monitor maybe she's a martyr um debbie if you can make sure that the chat is now unlocked and what i want to begin to do is have you guys start typing up your questions for father longnecker or for me uh it's the most fun i think of these kinds of meetings is to get your direct questions because then we can really help to apply the material or the wisdom of father dwight uh to what you're struggling with or questions that you have so there's it's sort of no holes barred you can ask anything you want um and the first question we have father which is a great one uh why is it so hard to root out habitual sin say that again why is it so hard to root out habitual sin i i think it's very often uh because people are trying through their own efforts to deal with the sin itself and the sin itself was almost always uh an outward symptom or an outward habit or an outward um manifestation of a much deeper problem especially if it's a habitual sin and the if that problem is very deeply rooted um it can be rooted right back into the experiences we've had maybe as children or even earlier before we were born i believe in my book praying the rosary for inner healing i go into some very interesting things about um the the wounds that we can receive very early on and remember a habitual sin is almost always a false attempt to find some kind of comfort or some for some kind of security um that we were lacking and someone has said every sin is is a lack of love in one way or another and so we unless we have the ruins of the sin dealt with just see yourself sheer self-control will probably not work we need self-control and discipline but it's probably not the thing which is going to really cure it uh instead i would suggest pray a novena uh to the holy spirit uh take some time out for fasting and prayer and give yourself a set period of time maybe nine days of an of a novena maybe a three-day fast or something like that where you say lord i plead with you heal the root of this sin if i need to show me what the root is and let the root of that sin uh be revealed to you through prayer and through silence and through contemplation and then take it to confession and ask for for the forgiveness for that it might be something that you didn't even connect with the sin let's give you an example um let's say you have a problem with habitually you losing your temper and being totally annoyed and irritated and it's irrational you don't know why you're so irritable and why you're so angry all the time but it just comes up and it's over little things but you know that's not really the problem it's just anger well if you go through this time of asking the lord to reveal it to you he might reveal it to you for instance that it has to do with i don't know something that your mom did to you when you were seven years old and you thought that didn't really matter but maybe it did because in the seven-year-old imagination in the mind it was locked away as a real hurt and wound you well if that's what the spirit reveals to you might bring it to confession and find that the lord is actually healing the root of the sin which then the habitual sin eventually evaporates because it was only a symptom of that deeper problem to start with very good that's a short answer but i hope that helps i'll add a couple of things one one of the reasons i'm so grateful for the priesthood is a confession a lot of people don't realize that confession is actually more powerful than exorcism the purpose of exorcism is to is to beat up the demon to free up the will of the individual to fight and it's a sacramental but what father dwight can give you in confession is more powerful than that so frequent confession uh there's a great little book called a confession it's fruitful practice which is a it's a tiny little booklet doesn't even have a spline it's published by tan and it is an amazing treatment of confession and learn how to better orient your heart and mind to that sacrament not because that sacrament doesn't just provide forgiveness of sins it provides strength against the sin so you can think of it sort of like a trampoline so it's not like you walk in your thud and you get forgiven it no you walk in and and the harder you go at it the higher you're going to bounce out of it so when you're when you're properly dispensed then the other thing about confession is that very often uh i will tell people uh can confession itself is so beautiful because um god knows the relationship between the external sins and the root sins and that just by bringing those external sins to confession um it is kind of like that weed killer that you put on the leaves but it goes down and kills the roots yeah okay um and if it's a habitual sin don't be ashamed of bringing it habitually to confession yeah because the habitual sin the habitual confession will actually begin to minister and and even if you don't go through this session i was talking about of trying to find the root cause even if you just bring it to confession and the the the absolution will go on to the leaves and go down to the root and bring the healing amen and thank god again for the priesthood and for giving your life to the to the church in your priesthood father that you could uh be a part of setting the captives free in that way one other thing i'd say is i i put together one of the things about habitual sin is uh that perpetuates a lack of awareness the church teaches the idea of a near occasion of sin and often people don't think enough about how to break patterns of sin and so they they're not aware of what are the things that trigger the sin father spoke about past wounds but it can be circumstances people and then when you become even more aware of that you begin to be aware of things that drive you to the near occasion of sin and uh for that i put together something called a habitual sin combat worksheet you can find that out of at possiblyva.org or possiblyva.org and it's in the sojourners group but if you go join sign up there it's free and it's just full of uh resources and it helps you to begin to think through how is it that i'm why is it that i'm constantly falling so there's the sin the near occasion and then things like wounds that father's talking about discernment of spirits can be very powerful in helping you fight habitual sin as well so the next question father is are the laity allowed to pray the long version of the saint michael prayer you got me there yeah me too uh my my priest who's uh has some some knowledge of this realm uh indicates that isn't to be prayed uh for uh by the laity um but i i i haven't studied it well enough recently to be definitive so we'll leave it at that um anne asked how can we support you in preparing men for seminary uh well financially you can support us we have parishes like the diocese of fairbanks which is a mission pair mission diocese that doesn't have the money to pay and so we turn their guys away and tell them too bad no that's not true we say come bring them anyway and we'll figure it out and we'll raise the money so that's how you can help us prayer is the most important thing you know pray pray for good priests like father dwight we do that in our community every day pray for us at the avila institute but beyond that uh financial support you can do that out at spiritualdirection.com if you go up to the top right there's a little donate button there and you can donate to us that'll help fund cost us about five thousand dollars a year to put a guy through our program and that helps him to get ready for seminary to discern the priesthood and uh and what we hear from from seminaries is that the guys who enter in after going through our program are way different and way better prepared way more likely to be successful in getting through seminary of their ordination and also making it through the first five years of priesthood because our we have a pre a current problem in society and that is that there's no more catholic culture so essentially we provide the ramp up to that uh difficult work of the seminary so financial and and prayer would be great um patricia how do you speak this in your parish so father obviously this is for you so how do you i think she's asking i don't know if she's asking how we do it or how you do it but i know you're you're pretty outspoken your your blog which i follow and see regularly you don't really hold a lot back um and you're you're pretty clear in what you think you don't know how much i do hold back well you're i you're at least very prudent and clear i'll say that what was the question again how do you speak about this in your parish and and i you know i i'm i don't know if you have an answer for that maybe she's asking maybe she can ask a clarifying question if she means how to how did the lay people speak about it in their parish do you mean speaker you mean speak about spiritual warfare maybe that's it why don't we answer that question well it varies from the parishioners um i see one parishioner here janice uh hey janice who is what actually one of my parishioners and she's very keyed into spiritual warfare and spiritual direction uh and a range of parishioners are also very motivated in their prayer lives and and in and in supporting all of this but then of course there's a a whole gamut of people who are right down to those who are fairly complacent about the faith but they still come to mass um you know every week and then there are others and people are moving along that continuum of course and it's our job in the parish to be able to motivate those who are um more tuned in and more involved in their spirituality to invite the others to join their prayer groups and to join the the men's group and the ladies group and so forth to be able to nurture and catechize and encourage people so that's part of parish life and um we're lucky our parish is is i i believe a very vibrant parish um full of really committed lay people there are parishes in a a needy part of town with prostitution drugs and and um uh low very challenging socio economically and racially but are people involved in in um you know the the food pantry and in the mother teresa house and the missions as well as the prayer and the spirituality and the school so um we're really blessed really really blessed with a lot of lay people who are keen keyed up on these things and tuned in yeah and i would also just say i've never been to father's parish but i've seen pictures of it and it's absolutely beautiful and i think he's also an exceptional example in our time about how the ordinary the form of the mass in particular can be celebrated faithfully and i would strongly recommend you visit there and i really want to come visit you sometime father you need to come to lead a retreat i'd love to do that we should do what on uh discernment of spirits yeah that'd be great um yeah our parish also the the church building that we that we have there if you go online it's our lady the rosary um greenvillegreenville.com i think is the website you see pictures of it but it was really exciting how our people rallied around to build a church that in the bible belt in greenville south carolina which um is built in a traditional style uh and is a church that is beautiful and simple but it's in its beauty and dignity and our people are we're a small parish and not a wealthy parish and our people rallied around to um really believe in this project and it was very encouraging in our building committees at the start of the prop um process i said to them what kind of church do you want to build and they said we will in church it looks like a catholic church i said well i thought this was just nostalgia you know um oh we'd like a church we're saying glass windows because we were brought up with one when we were kids no and our people said we want a church that looks like a catholic church because we're in the bible belt and we want our church to make a catholic statement so i was like just knocked back by that because they knew the right reason for building a beautiful church not because it's pretty and we like pretty things but because it was it was a a visible statement in a needy community of um a beauty truth and goodness uh in brick and stone and the beautiful thing is i've had comments from the non-catholics who live around our church who are a lot who are hispanic and african-american and and so forth and they'll see me and say you the pastor of that church up there i said yeah they'll say thank you for investing in our community and boy that that's that really makes me you know proud proud of our people that's awesome debbie deborah has a question it says is a layperson allowed to bind or cast out a spirit in the name of jesus i in the name of jesus can i cast out a spirit of anger um this is a question which is controversial because we're talking about a difference between the deliverance ministry and the um the an exorcism and lay people are not permitted to conduct exorcisms indeed a priest who is not licensed and authorized by the bishop is not permitted to conduct an exorcism an exorcism is a very someone compared exorcism as kind of spiritual open heart surgery it really requires special permission special authority uh and no one's meant to to dabble in that and to go into that territory because um it it's dangerous spiritually however the the ambiguity comes in because very often people in the deliverance ministry which is an aspect of the healing ministry will talk about the spirit of anger or the spirit of um lust or the spirit of greed or whatever and they use language that sounds like they're talking about demons that are there and they say i cast out the spirit of anger sometimes this can get ridiculous i can remember one charismatic prayer group there was a child who had a habit of thumb sucking and and the people were casting out the demon of thumb sucking okay so this is where there's all kinds of fuzziness and and bad teaching going on so i i discourage lay people from encoura participating in that ministry because very often what we call a spirit of anger or a spirit of alcoholism is not really a demon we're using demon type language to talk about what is uh a human failing or human addiction sometimes it's a human failing in human addiction which has uh might have a diabolical um aspect to it a diabolical influence on it uh but again this calls for for real experts to be able to discern this to priestly expert but it'll require a psychologist or a psychiatrist also be able to discern exactly what's going on so no i i would say lay people should not although they're not i don't think they're legally banned from it doing it for the church instead lay people should pray for the lord to heal that person and to reconcile that person and to lead them to a point when they ask for forgiveness i i think that's wiser you know to provide uh not a different perspective but to add a little bit to that the father ripper who's a very prominent exorcist in our time has noted and and i was taught this in in in terms of exorcism that echoing what father longneck longinecker said and that is that you can only do that where you have authority and so the bishop has to give a priest authority and that's the power demons are very legalistic and if you attempt without authority to speak to a demon you are in trouble in my opinion yeah because the demon may know that you don't have the authority and may uh attack you or attack your loved ones which is you know you don't want to go there so um the other thing i would stress is that uh exorcism and deliverance prayers are not magic uh the priest uh who's administering healing and deliverance and exorcism he's not a magician he's not in there to he always needs to have the engagement of the will of the person who is being ministered to so um you can't go into somebody else and say i'm casting out the spirit of anger from you as if that's going to solve the problem the the person themselves who has a problem with anger needs to also be their will needs to be involved and and uh be asking for the deliverance and asking for the healing because our human will um he we need to engage the person's will in this process that's why when people come to me for healing ministry or deliverance ministry uh sometimes they will come for a third party father you need to come and and pray prayers of deliverance over my son i say i would like to have your son but he needs to come and ask me for that help and and so this is one aspect which we sometimes forget um and it's frustrating for those of us in ministry because i wish i didn't have a magic wand but that was not part of the ordination right uh and so we need to also remember that the lord wants to engage our will in this process yeah a little bit more on this uh as well the there are two kinds of prayers with respect to demons and there's technical language of imprecatory deprecatory but i'll use common language common common language would be like a petition prayer so that that kind of prayer everyone can pray which is archangel michael defend us in battle be our protector against the wickedness and snares of the devil may god rebuke him we humbly pray do thou prince of the heavenly host so we're asking god to do the work right so that's one kind of prayer then there's a command prayer and that's the one you get in trouble with if you don't have authority now father ripper contends that where you have authority you can do that and and father longnecker if i understood you right i think i heard this and what you're saying in the sense that it you can fight directly now i tend i you can fight directly in terms of your own struggles or with with a child you can you can do that when they're when they're when they're desirous of you praying over them but generally speaking i do not like to use command prayers in those contexts even when i have authority though as you note it's not prohibited but i would never use it for someone else where i had no authority yeah the command prayer can be used against against diabolical spirits um we don't seek to engage their will but what i'm saying is we don't violate the will of the person who is suffering and even in a small even if it's only in a small way the person needs to give consent and needs to say i want this ministry to take place sometimes people's will has been very damaged and sometimes they're under psychological bondage and they can't give much of much consent but the consent needs to be there even if it's only as small as being able to recite a prayer with you our smallest be able to say please help me or something like that but the will needs to be engaged because god cannot violate a person's will perfectly stated that answered tammy's question she said talk more about oppression and the connection with trauma and mental health uh you know i've you know in terms of the lines it's difficult because i you know i i helped a seminarian who actually became an atheist when he was in seminary and we went through this process where he left seminary and said i need help he was docile so that's one he said i need help two he was docile i said stay in the sacraments you know don't change a thing so he stayed in daily mass even though he said i don't believe i taught him discernment of spirits and it helped him a little but it didn't quite get him free then i uh and i explored in his life whether or not he had trauma he had no trauma so he had no trauma and discernment of spirits wasn't helping the same the sound foundational catholic uh participation in the sacraments wasn't helping so to me it's like okay we're in a mental health realm so i found a catholic psychologist she tried behavioral methodology with him and it didn't help then we went to medication and guess what the guy is just happy as can be why because he had a chemical imbalance so as father was speaking of earlier you can start casting out demons here there that guy had a physiological issue that caused his mind to be out of control and sure do i think the devil was probably messing with him yeah but that wasn't the essence of the issue the essence was chemical imbalance any other thoughts and this is why keeping ministry yeah this is why in the healing ministry we um stop and listen to this person very carefully and we if they have a doctor and they do have a history of mental illness we we talk to them about that if they have relational problems we talk about that uh if they have um uh mental problems uh intellectual problems or um emotional problems we talk about that because the human person is a very complex network of all these different influences and the diabolical is only one aspect which may be there so to us to assign everything to the devil is is um is very unprofessional and and uh not not thinking but it is wrong to rule out the the diabolical because that is one of the elements and all of that it's it's wonderful to work for instance with professional psychotherapists and mental health professionals and physical health professionals who understand these things a lot of them dismiss it but when you find one the ones who do it's a great joy to under work with them who understand the complexity of the human person and can work with you to discern what what is really needed and when these other things are ruled out and it is a diabolical influence or a spiritual influence the effects and the power of the church are extraordinary and and that's what we should expect you know and and i have to just as a testimony that's how i i came for you and i came out of abuse and my mind was out of control emotions out of control for a long time at a pretty severe level and my deliverance came through uh authentic catholic spirituality through relationship with god and that happens a lot i i have we have a number of uh psychologists psychiatrists in our programs at the avila institute and also in our community in apostle eva and the the more devout they are the longer they the more they immerse themselves into authentic catholic spirituality and life they would come to realize that's the greatest power so that has to always be at play foundationally for anyone to be free then you can deal with so with that seminary and that's what we dealt with first was what does the spiritual landscape look like let's make sure that's all solid now if that isn't solving the problem then uh there's some other factors that are that are extraneous to that that need to be dealt with as father the importance also of belonging to the um the local community is is very very important sometimes people will uh come to see me because they have a problem they want to receive the lord's healing but maybe they are not catholic or maybe they belong to a different catholic parish and i'll say well we can talk but you know you need to belong to this parish and they think i'm being territorial and trying to steal sheep from another from the priests it's not that at all um it's that we said to them part of your healing is actually coming to mass here with these people uh who are worshiping together who are praying together with me and with you and it's a weekly daily process which you need to belong to you you can't just stop at the catholic church and ask for a quick healing like you'd go to mcdonald's and get a cheeseburger okay this is it doesn't work that way this is a holistic ministry uh which is part of the spiritual life and part of your daily life and daily routine and belonging to this community here so if we can we welcome people into the community to belong and we give them someone to help to mentor them and so forth um but you know it it's difficult to get through to people that that's what it's what it's really all about yeah and i yeah i agree with you so i want to just remind folks uh father dwight longnecker has written an excellent book called immortal combat and i've written one called spiritual warfare and the discernment of spirits and i think it's a difficult and challenging time we i'm pessimistic about the world and the flesh and the devil but i'm not pessimistic about the power of god i'm very optimistic saints always emerge in this time and the darker it is by the way even a dim bulb is bright in a dark room so listen light it up and get a hold of some of these works dig deeper in your faith and i know you'll you'll grow and and you'll do well marta says i wholeheartedly recommend spiritual warfare in the discernment of spirits our prayer group is reading it now it's powerful i look forward to father longnecker's book and by the way marta just as a an offer i do what are called drop in so if groups are studying my book i'll agree to do something like this for your in your last meeting where you've compiled questions and i'll do q a so if you're interested in that debbie will put the email of our event coordinator down there kristin priola and we can schedule that for your group it's a lot of fun uh i think the last question father will probably have time for is how do you root out the sin of pride my priest told me to practice the virtue of humility but i don't know how to do that come on virginia just be humble yeah uh pro my pride is my humility is the thing i'm most proud of um no you know i i define pride in the book as the underlying assumption that i'm right the underlying assumption beyond all things that i'm right and if i'm right you're wrong um pride is not shouldn't be mistaken with arrogance which is a symptom of pride or boasting which is a symptom of pride or vanity aren't i great a symptom of pride um pride is the deep much deeper um sin and assumption that i am right and everybody else is wrong so the very uh essence of correcting pride is to have a penitent heart to be to repent because at the very foundation of repentance is saying to the lord i'm not right completely i need help there's a problem uh and as soon as we say that pride begins to evaporate i would therefore say um if a person actually is saying they have a problem with pride they're almost halfway there of getting it accomplished because people who are really proud don't know they're proud they don't think they're proud okay because pride is at the core of pride and self-righteousness and self-righteousness is what me i'm not proud okay but a person who says um i'm i'm proud i have a problem with pride they're on the way to to conquering it right there because they're able to say they have that problem they may be also mistaking pride with um vanity which is uh just a more shallow symptom of pride or with boasting um or putting other people down those are all symptoms of pride but if a person admits that they have a problem with pride they're already on the right path you said something earlier i just want to echo it because i believe it wholeheartedly virginia and all of you who struggle with with sin or habitual sin it is inevitable that if you remain in the sacraments that you're practicing daily mental prayer that you're following jesus taking up your cross that means exercising spiritual disciplines it's inevitable that you will be made more and more whole to the degree that you draw near to jesus you will be healed to the degree that you draw near to the grace that he gives out of his own person in and through the priesthood in through the sacraments in and through communal life as father mentioned you will be healed it's inevitable absolutely i would just add one other thing about the habitual sin if it's truly a habitual sin to the extent that we we don't have complete uh our will over it in other words if we if we're coming away from it saying why did i do that i didn't want to do that i this is something came over me that means that it's we're in a form of bondage for whatever reason maybe a deep root in our life somewhere that needs to be healed and god has mercy on that god god looks on us with pity not with blame he says here is a person who is in bondage even if there was an element in which we said yeah i'm going to do it anyway uh okay but if there's an element of habitual sin in which we're in bondage god wants to heal that and he will be very patient and merciful until the final healing is given wonderful so we're going to wrap this up so the two books that we're talking about tonight are father dwight longinecker's immortal combat confronting the heart of darkness and my book spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits both published by sophia institute press one of the best publishers in our time the entire staff of in sofia institute press and i know this because i have a close connection to them they're all sold out for the lord all uh deeply committed catholics and it shows in the kind of the books they're producing i want to do a couple of things one i'll tell you all that you're gonna get an email it'll have father dwight's um father dwight's information where you can find more about what he's doing about what he meant think he was very generous in mentioning the work we're doing we'll give you some of that so we'll give you some good stuff in an email that uh that you can follow up on on what you've learned here in in order more books please give them away but what i want to do as a thank you to father and really as a representation of what it means to be a good and holy priest in an incredibly difficult and confusing time i'd like you father just to sit back and relax i don't even want you to pray with us i just want you to receive okay because you don't get to do this very often you're always being drawn upon i want you to receive i want everyone here for us to pray that a hail mary prayer for the lord to bless him and and in our thanksgiving for for him and for the good that he does both in his parish and through his work in the church and helping be a light in a difficult time so we pray and then when we're done with that father we will ask something of you which is that you give us your priestly blessing as we as we conclude in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit for father dwight and for all good priests who are striving to be holy and to be a light in the darkness and who are often being assailed some who are tired and beaten up give them strength give them peace protect their prayer time help them to always draw ever more deeply to your heart through mental prayer help them to guard the time they need to rejuvenate because they're asked to give so much with so little often we pray with these intentions that you would raise up good voices like father dwight's that that their voices would resound above the noise that you would bring to repentance those who are in the church who are sowing confusion and discord and that you would silence those who will not repent we pray this for father dwight because he's one whose voice needs to be heard more clearly hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb jesus holy mary mother of god pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen father your priestly blessing please the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of christ and of the and then the peace of the holy spirit in the name of the father son and the holy spirit amen god bless you thank you for the invitation it's been great to be with you all tonight it's been a blast father thanks for doing this and uh god bless you and all your future endeavors and i hope to come see you sometime to uh uh further east thank you god bless you all god bless you all

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Keywords: Dan Burke, Catholic, Spiritual Direction, Avila, Faith, Apologetics, Meditation, Spiritual Direction Training, EWTN, Divine Mercy, Spiritual Guidance, Readings, Books, Advisor, Warfare, Church, Radio, New, Rosary, Answers, Saints, God, Catholic Worship, Catholic Teaching, Catholic Prayers, Podcast, Catholic Faith, Roman, Authentic, Contemplative

Id: 0Ds0q5rShlk

Length: 87min 37sec (5257 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 17 2020