Levels of Spiritual Warfare

but when we fight them and work against them they actually become the instruments of our purification because we have to deny ourselves we have to work against them we have to build virtue contrary to that the demons actually are constantly trying to get us to commit sins to become vicious that is we have vices so that we become weak and then that way it's easier to combat us in that process they want to set up an abusive relationship with us etc but if we combat them then what happens is we begin develop virtue the definition of sanctified perfection is the adornment of the soul let's artists back up its excellence in grace which means you have a lot of sanctifying grace they define grace is the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity in your soul and this indwelling is by degree the same saying okay so you can have more and more and more of it and you can never have too much of it in fact so that means then that it's the excellence and grace which means you have a lot of it so then they ask well how do you get this excellence in grace it's in building virtue so that important fact our perfection comes as a result of diabolic influence in our lives let's face it most of us would end up mediocre at best at best if there was no diabolic activity in our lives if there was no temptation or no nothing most of us wouldn't develop any level of virtue whatsoever but the second component to that aspect is this when we have to fight against the demons it means that the application of our wills and the struggle that we do is harder and we have to exert more energy and we have to do it more strongly as a result of that we gain a level of virtue our virtue is higher than it would be if we were just kind of inculcating it on our own through a normal process of just developing virtue so excellence in grace the adornment of the soul of all of the virtues God too which virtues he wants to adorn on which Souls now technically he wants all of the virtues so we have to detain all the virtues but he chooses in particular people's lives different degrees there's only one individual other than Christ who has absolutely perfect virtue in every single virtue and that's our lady everybody else in heaven other than the angels all have varying degrees of the virtues why because God likes variety how do we know this all you have to do is look at the number of bugs he's created and you know he likes variety okay so God lucky likes variety in and so what he wants is a heaven that has a certain beauty or a perfection by a variety of different aspects to it and that all that variety comes together in a harming and perfection of the heavens that's what he's looking for but he's also they say looking before we get to actually get to the levels he was also looking for to have he chooses in a particular person's life a series of virtues or a virtue that he wants them to attain in such a manner that they will excel in it most people fail to realize that the very area that they habitually commit sins in if you're falling in a one particular area of your life on a habitual basis what that actually tells you is one not necessarily the nature of the demon that you're dealing with we'll talk about that in a minute but it actually tells you that God wants you to attain a level of perfection in that virtue because it's through the struggle that you develop the virtue and that perfection so instead of looking at it and saying you know I'm never gonna get this it should be the other way around we should be working on it harder in the particular areas that we fall in order to attain that perfection okay the entrance then the demons enter into our lies he allows demons in to enter into our life primarily as an instruments of our sanctification even in cases possession I will make demons admit Exorcist do this on a regular basis it weakens them when you force them to admit to the person they're possessing that they are actually this person is becoming holier as a result of the demon's involvement in their lives they have to fight against him they have to constantly make acts of confidence in God they have to constantly working towards God they have to work on their own healing they have to work on their own perfections or virtues or vices etc constantly because in when they're possessed there's no swimming freely you either have to fight your way out or you're gonna go down there's no mean but that's actually also true of the whole spiritual life there's not a single aspect of the spiritual life in which we must not be working on in some degree it if we're not going to attain perfection either you're moving upstream in the spiritual life or you're floating downstream there's no just treading water one of the biggest most unfortunate things among a lot of Catholics is they'd like to reach a certain plateau or they're staying out of mortal sin they might have a few venial sins are struggling with they feel comfortable in their spiritual life that might be going to Mass regularly they're receiving the sacraments and life just seems kind of comfy and they don't have to and they know that in order to rear a decay those last imperfections in their life there's gonna have to be a lot of suffering and a lot of self-denial and so they shy away from it demons don't let you do that God allows them into your life precisely to drag you one way or the other obviously God wants it allows demons in our lives not so much that he wants somebody allows them in our lives in order so that we can grow in virtue we become the instrument of their humiliation we become the instrument of their justice see when Adam ate the fruits and Eve ate the fruits God said to the serpent which is another name for Satan he said to him because you have done this you'll crawl on the ground all the days of your life and eat dust now the crawling on the ground means this that he will be constantly humiliated Beelzebub which is another name for Satan actually admitted to me once that God the Father actually goes out of his way to set him up to get humiliated why because it's his just punishment because his sin was pride so he actually goes out of his way to humiliate them the second thing is so that's he's gonna crawl all the da on the ground all the days of life any dust and then the father of the church asks them what's this dust and then they simply make the reply momento homo queer Poovey sass which is the Latin for remember man that thou art dust what that means is is that the demons are now stuck with us they hate us they don't want anything to do with us but now they are stuck with us and essentially because Satan caused our fall he is now stuck dealing with us tempting us doing those things which by the way it's true he gets a sadistic delight out of seeing us fall on us to see commit sin but he is also admitted to me that it went hat one of the things that happens is every time he gets someone to fall there is an increase in his shame so that important fact every time he gets us to fall his suffering increases and this is part of God's punishment and we become the instrument of his punishment instrument of his of justice by denying him and by combating him okay so what are the levels of spiritual warfare well the most elementary level is ordinary temptation all of us suffer from it an ordinary temptation essentially occurs in this way the demons actually can introduce into our imagination images now they can't create images of things that we've never seen before they can take parts of those things in our memory and put them together in order to create different images but they can't say that st. Thomas says they can say make a blind man see color or imagine or they'd have to use something that's already there this is one of the reasons why I tell people never under any circumstance whatsoever under what ever to ever view any pornography aside from the fact that some of its being cursed now the fact of the matter is is that once you view it that material even if you ask for the grace of forgetfulness god permitting the demons can use it the demons are on a very very short leash they can literally do absolutely nothing that God does not permit and by that I mean everything from the degree of the temptation to the kind of the temptation this applies to all forms of diabolic influence they cannot do anything that God does not determine the first time I came across it was this case of this woman who was possessed the demon was possessing the woman's lower back and because they usually possess a part of it so I said to her I said to the demon I commanded the demon why are you commit possessing the lower part of the back it just isn't me I don't know and I said what do you mean you don't know oh by the way when I say it colloquy it's actually very formal in session I'm commanding the demons to tell me why don't you know right and he says I don't know he says when I entered Christ restricted me to that part of the body now think what that means that and when they enter one of the things that the church tells you when you're doing exorcisms is there's a series of questions that you're supposed to ask the demons and get the information out of and what that actually tells you is one of them which is the sign of departure is that when they enter at least the head possessor not necessarily all of them the head possessor knows the complete dynamic of the possession he may not know all the details of the process of his getting the boot but he very often knows the date and the hour when he's going to get kicked out because it's revealed to him he's told what he can and cannot do during that possession case as far as printer naturally manifesting whether he's gonna levitate or not or anything like that all of that is predetermined by cry whether he can even speak in a language is there comes time when the demon the suffering and the punishment of the demons is so extreme that the demons will literally turn to God and beg him to allow them to go back to hell then he's silenced returns silence to them because he doesn't hear their prayers but why is that it's because of the fact that they they and that what happens is is that he wants them to have to go through this this punishment now part of this has to do with the fact that - is that they even know when and when they can and cannot reveal things in order to get the person liberated so why am I going into this it's very simple you have to realize that God uses the demons like any other instrument you even the demons will even admit they are slaves of Christ slaves of Christ in fact every one of us is a slave of Jesus Christ there's only one question there's only one dividing line and that is are you willingly a slave of his or not that's the only question in their case they're not now that being the case what that means is is that there are forbidden to tell the information okay but in our lives that means that every every single aspect of their involvement in our lives is an indication to us from God what he wants us to become purified in what he wants us to excel in virtue how he wants us to work out our salvation what kind of Grace's he wants to us to beg for and achieve the prayers that he wants us to to use in order to that why because again God loves variety so uses the demons for that in temptation there's a variety of different levels temptation can come in very very subtle forms even in forms where it appears good hey you know you should just go mention to so-and-so about you know how wonderful you think their graphs is how how well they've done with their grass this year you walked over you say to the person you know you did such a wonderful job with your grass this year and the next thing you know the guy's biting your head off like where did that come from right and the reason being is is because why because his wife was just chewing him out because he spent too much his grass right okay so what does this mean it means God can the demons can be permitted in spiritual warfare to suggest even it suggests even good things to good people to cause damage this is one of the reasons why the Saints talk about the gift of the holy spirit of counsel the gift of the holy spirit of counsel is the gift by which we know what to do and what not to do in spiritual warfare well among other things and so that's one of the things to ask for is the gift of counsel but it also means that there has to be a certain humility on our part to realize that look sometimes you're just going to be used as the as the dope in this particular situation and you just have to have a certain level of humility to realize that demons can put even good ideas in your head they can very often start out very subtly fact Beelzebub tendency is a temptation his structure of temptation is identical to his nature how he manifests in possession is identical to his temptation he starts out subtly he wraps it up he then opens it up widely so usually personal in the temptation process they'll start thinking about something that's innocuous before the next thing you know he suggests the turn to something impure because he's the demon of impurity and then what he's looking for which is the same thing he's looking for in the session once he comes out strong and boldly he's looking for your reaction of fear and the reason being is because when we're afraid st. Thomas says our our mind is focused on the object of fear and we ruminate about it in order to try and figure out how to get out from underneath it and so what he does he suggested something he just suggests something especially to men of sensitive conscience once they once that impure thought is then suggested they react in fear like I could fall here and that's the hole that he has rather than it having the person immediately turning to God or to our lady and saying I have perfect confidence in you so these subtle things that's how they can start out very subtly so the very lowest levels are subtle forms of temptation and then they can actually work up through it but diabolic warfare is not just in relationship to temptation I'm going to go through the higher levels but we're going to talk about how it applies to us in our own particular lives the next level is dolar which is not going to apply to us that's when they attack the Saints physically it doesn't apply to us if it does come see me because you'd be the only case I've ever seen of it I've read about them but I've never seen them alright then the next level is oppression this is where they attack people from the outside now there's two forms of oppression and I've never talked about this before but father asked me to talk about stuff in relationship to the upcoming elections and this is how it plays in this next level of diabolic influence or our spiritual warfare oppression is where the demons attack you from the outside this is when they attacked your relationships your finances they attack your property sometimes your health things of that sort so in one particular case in Memphis they think I have the gift of healing which is absurd I have no I have no charismatic gifts whatsoever people say you mean Exorcist what gift you have nothing I got nothing right and I'm serious I've walked into complete and fully infested houses my look looks good to me right okay so and then I prayed and then of course things happened but the point being is is that I have no sensitivities in that regard so that being said so they brought this man who had fourth stage pancreatic cancer to me and they said would you be willing to pray over him and I said sure now I don't have the gift of healing but I did a minor exorcism over him a week later he was cancer-free a year later they brought him back he had some other weird illness so I prayed over him that was gone a week later and so I finally told them you're under some kind of a curse this is a form of oppression right so there's curses which is a kind of a higher form of oppression but there's kind of curses and the curses are basically are designed to influence people for that and the negative but the oppression can be in a variety of different ways now there's a to full distinction of relationship to oppression there's indirect oppression and there's direct oppression direct oppression is when they actually attack your particular life they attacked you your health your relationships your finances the way the things how things are operating within your home etc so they attacked you directly but then there's a certain level of spiritual warfare that all of us deal with where we have to deal with the indirect fallout from oppression this is when things like politicians and things like that who are under the influence of the diabolic who do essentially evil things let's cut to the chase we are not living in a political atmosphere where there are differences of ideas we are living in a political atmosphere where it's good on one side and evil on another it's not a matter of differences of ideas the ideas that they throw out are just to promote their evil it's that simple if you cut to the chase of it and get down to the bottom of it there's certain people that are just nefarious they're just doing evil things and how do you know this every single thing they do maximizes damage within the context of what they're able to do this is the type of thing that actually ends up affecting us it is not rocket science in fact it's stuff that you can actually read about right on the internet that there are actual politicians international politicians and even some in this country who are actually involved in Satanism and witchcraft it's not rocket science and you can tell it by the stuff that they do okay I'm not gonna name names I can see it now it'll be all over the newspapers but the point being is is that we have to recognize that this indirect oppression that we suffer is when other people do evil things to get demons involved in culture in society in the church it's not a rocket science to see that there's a fundamental problem with evil in the church right now when you have bishops and Cardinals coming out saying that it should be okay for two men to enter into some type of civil contract with each other there is something fundamentally wrong and evil that's going on in the church okay that being said these are the things that we have to suffer we're all suffering indirectly this spiritual warfare that's occurring at that level it's very intense what some of the most intense place is a spiritual warfare that we end up having to deal with and this is again sometimes it's in the parish at the upper levels of the parish sometimes if they sometimes the priest gets attacked it's on the dough it's not the diocesan levels the vitriol the absolute hatred that demons have for bishops when you see them talking about bishops in possession cases the hatred they have for them is palatable you can literally see the hatred they have for them at the level of the Vatican it saw where the warfare we're all suffering from this warfare that's going on at that level and that's a form indirect oppression what we have to recognize of course is that the church is in defect upon Christ that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it it doesn't mean that the church can't that members can't become really sinful it doesn't mean that we can't have a holy father spouting things that are very odd and strange and even contrary to the faith because the church itself has said it's only under these conditions that we know that he is infallible and is going to tell us what we know to be the truth necessarily doesn't mean we ignore him it just means that we have to have a clear understanding of our faith and that's a very important point one of the principal ways to combat in spiritual warfare is you have to know your faith it's not good enough just to say a few prayers here and there you have to continually learn about your faith so that you don't get sucked into this this indirect oppression because if you don't it's so toxic modernism which is now the heresy in the church is so toxic it's so much in the air that unless you have a special grace or unless you really know your faith extraordinarily well you are simply going to end up in error it's that simple you have to pray for God for that but this is an indirect spiritual warfare that we all have to deal with we all have probably experienced this right when you sit here and you read some of the stuff that's going on that's coming out of the Vatican or some of these things that these Cardinals are saying or some of the things that the bishops are saying and doing and then that the whole pedophilia scandal and all this other stuff that's going on and then the fact that they were shuffling this around this is a burden to a good Catholic and this is the suffering and this is exactly the kind of attack that the demons are willing to get if they can't get to you directly they're willing to take you down by having you Despero or give in to discouragement or disappointment or even scandal in relationship to the church what of course st. Thomas Aquinas says there's two kinds of scandal active scandal which is when you actually do something that's scandalous but then there's passive scandal and what does that mean it means when you see something to somebody do something evil and it causes you to sin or to lose your faith and he says that is sinful it doesn't matter what these people do it doesn't matter what anybody does it doesn't matter what any priest Bishop of Cardinal or Pope or whatever they do it doesn't matter you should know your faith well enough and you should not allow it to affect your faith at all it's difficult but it's part of the spiritual warfare but this is this indirect we also suffered indirectly in relationship to politics this is one of the reasons why we asked spiritual warfare you have an obligation to vote the church has reiterated the fact that John Paul to himself even said in one of his documents each citizen if they have the right to vote has an obligation to vote to vote in order to secure the common good for the society and it's a negligence to do so it's a sin did you have had an obligation to get out there and do this because why because we have an obligation as leo xiii said and as pius xi said and of all the saints has said especially the pope's in the last hundred fifty years that we have an obligation to establish the kingship of Christ even in the secular sphere even in the secular sphere and that means as citizens of this country we have an obligation to go and vote for those people are gonna uphold life that is the the values of the church uphold life protects the common good make sure that that the primary thing and this is an interesting thing one of the brainchild of Freemasonry is communism and communism and we know that Freemasonry is diabolic from the top to the bottom in fact one demon even admitted to me that the name of every single level of Freemasonry is named after a particular demon we also know at the very top levels it's actually Lucifer and it's not satanic satanic it means that you actually worship Satan but it's Luciferian which means you become your own God so we know that at the top it's Luciferian but in the communism one of the one of the triumphs of communism one of the ways the communism has spread its errors as our lady said at Fatima is that everybody thinks that the most important thing in an election is the economy no it's not the most important thing in any election is the spiritual and moral welfare of the citizenry that's the most important thing in an election the fact that we tend to think it's all about you know that the primary thing is about the economy you know it's the economy stupid no actually your stupid thing and it's about the economy it really should be about because why the only reason it st. Thomas says he says in the his work on the regenerate jiminy friendship is he says the reason that you have to promote a good economy is so that those citizens can develop virtue that's what it's there for but one of the ways that we're dealing with this indirectly and this is why we have to part of our spiritual warfare one of the lower levels is just doing our part to help culture to help the politics to help the society in relationship to how we vote and what we do etcetera we support etc those are the things we must do in order to combat the diabolic influence and that's just all at the level of oppression then there's diabolic obsession diabolic obsession is when they actually attack the person's person psychologically that is by besieging their imagination to such a degree that the person cannot think outside the box that is they cannot think outside of fear or lust or anger or things of this sort and how do you tell that between that and something that's psychological when it's psychological it's pretty consistent because it's a habit right so it's it's an it's an intellectual vice which is basically what mental illness is it's an intellectual vice unless it's caused by an organic cause something psychiatric but it's ignore its it's very consistent and it's set on or off by external stimulus somebody says something mean to you and then you react in anger that's psychological whereas when it's diabolic obsession just switches on and switches off and there's no external stimulus that indicates that it's there one of the ways that you can notice it is in people is they go to confession and all the sudden it's gone it seems it so and then after three or four days or more it sets back in and this can be about any kind of particular sin in relationship to that so there's different people are allowed why does God allow them into their lives sometimes it is actually as I mentioned it's it's obviously because he wants them to become holier through the process Saint Alphonsus Liguori said in one of his words he said this business of everybody thinking that God is gonna give them a grace all the time even at their death that is absurd in fact what he says is is that there's a certain number of saying at mortal sins and God preordained at that once that hit person reaches that point he's gonna pull the plug on the Grace and the person is just not gonna be able to combat the diabolic and but that doesn't mean of course and well how do we know this to be true we know this to be true because the traditional Church practice of praying for final perseverance and final penitence if God always gave us a grace even at our deathbed all the time to every single individual why are we at why did the church ever start that devotion wouldn't make any sense right but why is it why it's okay why am I going into this the reason I'm going into this is is that god will allow demons into people's lives sometimes to punish them it's not too common and usually it's because the person has made the decision that they are not going to get their act together I'm not gonna change therefore I want this sin I want this this to happen and so God will allow the demon into their life to afflict them to show them what the true punishment is he's literally giving them what is the product of their sin what most people don't realize is that the proper effect of every mortal sin a proper effect if every mortal sin is possession so then people ask well wait a minute even you even I have said that the number of people that possess we usually we usually see we usually vet somewhere between 600 and 800 people a year the society that I'm in for diabolic influence and out of that six to eight hundred only three on average two or three a year or possessed so you're talking about a very much less than one a half of a percent so but all these people are committing mortal sins today you see that in the culture and so why isn't it that so many people are possessed because it's very simple goes back to the principle God controls the demons not us so even when we open up the door it's up to God to determine whether is gonna allow the demon to step through the door whether it's going to be good for them or not ultimately sometimes he does allow it but very rarely it's very rarely does he allow the demon into the person's life as a punishment but it's part of it is to clue the person in look this is what you've chosen this is what you wanted and this is what this is the effect of your sin this cultural thing is a very key point because one of the things is and this is one of the the real problems there is a false understanding of freedom of religion out there first of all religion is the sub virtue to justice and in religion is the virtue by which you render God his due so technically speaking there can be no freedom of religion that isn't about God so the Satanists and the and the the which is to say well this is freedom of my religion it's not a religion you're calling it that but it's not a true religion because a true religion has to do with God so there's that problem but the fact is is that and this is one of the reasons when you have a false understanding of freedom of religion what ends up happening is is that the Satanists and the staff which we see it they're using it now to bring lawsuits and things against various states etc in order to try and promote abortion because abortion is there a their sacrament so and this is once once it gets into a culture then it becomes extraordinarily difficult to get out of the culture our culture is in a particular precarious situation underneath Satan there are what we call the five generals the five generals are the five demons that are immediately hierarchically underneath Satan and they are the ones who execute his plans in some cases they call it the table because it's basically they get to divide up certain things the first demon under him is Baal Baal you know Satan actually is the demon of impurity but Baal is a demon of impure his principal function is to get cultures to succumb to impurity primarily through fornication once the fornication sets in then what happens is is that the perspective that the conjugal act is ordered towards children is lost from that arises the idea that sex should be recreational and that it you can use it for any any way you get pleasure that's fine so ball lays the groundwork we saw this in our own country was called the free love movement they lays the groundwork the next thing he tries to do is although in our country he managed to pull something off that was rather extraordinary the next thing is is after that as we read from st. Paul God delivers men and women up to their lusts and men will start to Swan to sleep with men and women with women which basically means what once the spirit of fornication sets in which by the way I don't know if you noticed in the new right they removed this from the spirit of fornication deliver us from the litany of saints at that very time that the free love movement gained ascendancy what we pray for is what we get you don't pray for it you're not gonna get it after that then what happens is is the culture that next three demons show up the first is Asmodeus he's the demon of homosexuality and men then there's the demon of Leviathan and which is the demon of homosexuality and men but of the masculine kind these are the women who are heavy on the heels we would say okay then there is the spirit of Lilith which is the more seductive form of female homosexuality after those after those have gained a sentencing a culture which by the way if you look at the cultures every single culture is pushed in this direction okay so historically not just ours but historically this is always the progression once you have fornication you end up with contraception and in the upshot of that is is homosexuality and then abortion Baphomet is the fifth one and he's the demon of child sacrifice abortion in our culture think of this they shot down the fornication laws and so they delivered us into the hands of Baal they should then they had Roe versus Wade and delivered us into the hands of Baphomet and then they allowed gay marriage and so now our country politically is in the hold of the top five demons in Hell other than Satan they delivered us into their hands that's where we're at okay so we're all in this spiritual warfare this is a level that we're all dealing with let's face it a hundred years ago people in that culture weren't dealing with the level of spiritual warfare that we're dealing with the types of spiritual warfare don't change it's just the amount of it and the more sin that people commit the more empowered the demons become and then the worse it actually gets so diabolic obsession can be of various kinds people once asked me how many people in the United States do you think are diabolically obsessed and I said if I had to estimate the adult population I would say twenty eighty five percent roughly two weeks later after I said that they actually came out with a statistic the kids between the ages of 18 and 25 22 % of them either have or currently seeing a psychologist then there's diabolic possession which is rare it's very rare as I mentioned it's less than you know half a percent of those people who even show up to us but possession is is becoming more and more of a problem we're seeing it in the sense that we're seeing it even in the media and in the culture if you actually look at or listen to the some of the women specifically the women although the men are in faulted into in Hollywood and in the music industry they are openly talking about what's called an incubus that they have an incubus with is basically a demon they have sex with they're openly talking about it and many of these women are actually possessed you see it by their psychological patterns because the psychological patterns are very distinct between possession diabolic influence and things like psychosis and things of that sort they have very distinct even though today I add to the untrained eye they look the same they're very disdained but the possession is actually of two kinds partial so that's another level so there's partial possession and that's where the person has periods of lucidity so I'm sure many people here watch The Exorcism of Emily Rose it was actually based upon a true story the woman's name was Annalise Michelle she was possessed twice actually the movie didn't get it right by the way which she was possessed twice first in 1967 and then she was liberated about if I remember right about 1970 69 or 70 she was liberated three months later our Lady appeared to her and said would you allow the possession again so that many would come to knowledge of it and she said yes she became possessed again she ended up dying from it because the demons shut down her ability to eat which they can do God permitting but during her periods of lucidity she would spend hours in front of the Blessed Sacrament making reparation and praying for the clergy in Germany because at the time this is some from 1970 roughly until 1972 the German priests were going off the rails at that time she offered up her possession all the pain and the suffering that she went through because when demons manifest sometimes a person just blacks out but sometimes the person feels every single thing that the demon is feeling or going through or experiencing and so it's literally like going through a torture session that's one under the reasons why it's hard to keep them on focus or on track but she offered all of that up for the clergy at the time Christ actually told her according to the memoirs Christ actually told her that she would eventually be raised to the altar is another way of being said she would be canonized she was an extraordinarily holy woman which tells you something you can be possessed and it doesn't say anything about whether you're in the state of grace or not because possessions in the body sanctity or holiness that is the sanctifying grace is in the soul they're in two different locations so there's this different different levels so then if you look at the different levels of which people actually have to do with it so back to the priest so all of us have to deal with these things indirectly there's people out there in your life that you probably don't know it that are actually possessed they just seems psychotic or they're just like why is that person always doing evil or whatever the case is okay but then in relationship to priests so I'm going a bit go back to that observation I made priests say you know I admire your work but I would never want to do it myself and I said do you hear confessions and they say yeah well it's a little late for that isn't it confession is actually more efficacious in most cases than solemn exorcism if someone has an unconfessed sin and they're actually possessed if once they go to confession the legal hold okay let's back up what that means the legal hold the demon has on them is broken that means this every time you commit a sin or every time you make a choice you either bind yourself to God to the choice of the good or you bind yourself to the demons and evil the term absolution absolve er and Latin literally means to dissolve or untie or to remove the bond of justice because injustice you've taken yourself underneath out from underneath God and place yourself underneath Satan's for your sin and as a result of that you're connected to this guy now and so when you go to confession it breaks that tie that absolution there you're no longer bound to your sin or the effects of and this brings up a very important topic so let me finish this one though so pretty sight tell priest look if you're hearing confessions you're already doing minor exorcisms and you don't even know it and a lot of times they'll come in and people will go to confession and all the sudden it breaks part of the reason we know this to be the case too is because one of the things that the priest who taught me exorcism he said hey by the way there's this thing called fishing and I'm a fly fisherman so I'm like I got quite interested and he said this is what you do if you're sitting in the confessional and Pew and you know there's people out in the church and they're not coming to confession start saying a binding a prayer against any demons from keeping them from going to confession it's like clockwork you'll do that within the minute within the minute somebody will step into the confessional father I wasn't going to go to confession today but and what that tells you is is that demons can actually convince people and sway them regarding their own spiritual development this is one of the reasons why the church and the Saints throughout history it's only been in the last 40 or 50 years that people have this idea that somehow or another if they have a positive emotional reaction to some spiritual thing that it's of God that's what Martin Luther thought in fact he actually made it the criteria just at the time when God since Saint Teresa of ávila and John of the Cross to the church who completely departed from that and said the emotions cannot be trusted why because the demons have access to them they can cause the emotions and I've seen it they can cause positive emotions in relationship to certain pious practices but they can also block them as well so you can't follow your emotions that can't be trusted you have to follow reason enlightened by faith that's what we should be following so one time when this one woman who is possessed said well I just feel like I said wait a minute let me get this straight you know that demons have control over your emotions you're basing your decision off your emotions which is a real big problem because in possession work you're constantly trying to get the T that psychological separation between the person who's possessed in the demon because the demons gotten into them psychologically is messin with them and you've got to get that psychological separation because if you don't the demon can hide behind that you can't get anywhere okay so I tell the priests if you hear confessions you're absolving people of that tide that they have to these demons and it breaks the cold that the demons have on them and as a result of that the demon is going to retaliate against you this is why even good priests sometimes will just go through these periods where they're being attacked assaulted internally in relationship to it as an exorcist the only difference probably between me and most priests who are unwilling to get involved in this area which by the way if a priest wants to get involved I'm like hey I'm not so sure most good exorcist are the ones who got drugged into it kicking and screaming but their difference is is this it's a boxing ring it's a boxing ring in several ways one it's warfare you're gonna take a beating every one of this is in the boxing ring every one of us is gonna take a beating in some way or another from demons there's gonna be some suffering there's gonna be something that they're gonna do to us it's just the nature of our existence after the fall but it's also our opportunity for for raising our place in heaven so the difference is is that I realized okay taking your beating is just part of the process right you just have to be willing to take your beating and fight this thing and you know you're gonna get attacked and you just have to be willing to suffer through it and be willing to go through that so the key thing is that willingness to suffer and that's the thing that demons don't want you to master they will use every form of fear possible to keep you from being willing to suffer because if you're willing to suffer there is nothing in your spiritual life that you cannot but if you are unwilling to overcome that fear of suffering that horror of suffering is they used to call it in the in the catechisms the horror of suffering if you're unwilling to overcome that you will never reach the heights of perfection so you're in the boxing ring you know you're gonna take your beating you might as well just man up and deal with it and that's the real issue is is that priests have to realize that the minute they're ordained the targets on their back and they're gonna be taken the beating digital question is this how much you willing to do it for the sake of those under you and that's the real question okay so as an exorcist jar you're dealing with a high level of spiritual warfare yeah you are it's pretty high is it constant no even God gives us refreeze people will very often ask me father what do you do for to get away from it all I tell my smoked cigars and drink scotch all right so it's not my situation do you realize it yeah once in a while Mike why do you do that because I refuse to allow demons to rob me of a normal life and that's what demons are trying to do they Envy our lives they Envy the good that we can enjoy and so as a result of that they want to rob us of that make us think all these things are evil these things are bad when employment factors as long as you're in moderation or fine but the point being is is that too you have to be able to leave work at work this brings up a very key point in spiritual warfare st. Peter said be vigilant and watchful for the devil goes about seeking someone to devour that's what you have to be vigilant now vigilance isn't going to seek it out it just means you keep an eye on it so if the spiritual if something spiritually disordered arrives is up in your family or something if the demons kind of pop up their ugly head that's when you cut their head off not before you don't go around looking for them because if you look for them they'll find you and so you have to you have to avoid that so the levels of spiritual warfare can be very high probably the highest level of spiritual warfare though it's actually the person who's possessed and actually who has decided to cooperate with the will of God and fight their way through it they're actually they are in fact I've even told some of the people that have been possessed I say ok now look at when you get to heaven you have to be nice to me because you're gonna be your holder than me which means you're gonna be above me and you can boss me around so you have to be nice to me when you get to heaven ok because they are some of the holiest people I've met and it's through that spiritual warfare that they gained that level of holiness I've seen a woman who was possessed by Beelzebub go6 top he's that Beelzebub's another name for Satan go six months the demon of impurity the demon of impurity goes six months without committing venial sin venial sin so when we see consider ourselves aw I'm struggling in my spiritual life we don't have a clue these people's spiritual Bal and warfare is on a level that none of us ever experienced and yet God gives them everything necessary and that should give us confidence and hope right it should give us confidence that it doesn't matter what the level of spiritual warfare what the attack is what the onslaught is whether it's in me or whether it's in my family or whether it's in the church or in society or in the culture and politics it doesn't matter in the end god is the lord of history God has control over it and God will be the one to determine what we can do with it and how we can overcome it and that just means that we have to cooperate with him if he wants the demon in his life in your life and usually everybody's got one usually most families in my experience most families have generations persons that the parents or somebody committed and it gets passed on from generation to generation is a form of temporal punishment due to the sin that's all part of the traditional Catholic teaching some people think oh this is all Protestant no it's not it's actually part of the tradition of Catholics all you have to do is look at Adam and Eve we all got stuck with the generational spirit Satan from their one sin right it's just that some people get passed on the specific things the other thing is too is is that God wants your sanctification now that tells you something how much demons are involved in your life and attack you tells you the level that he wants you to obtain in heaven that's what that tells you if you have absolutely no demons in your life which is unlikely but if you've got just little guys running around that's a bad sign right the sign that you're not gonna probably get too high right whereas if you're struggling you're fighting your way through it etc this is one of the reasons when I see families who have a strong Catholic faith and they're being besieged I look at them and I think to myself God wants holiness out of that family more than it does others because that's really what's going on there I'm not suggesting that demons are good no they're completely evil their will is completely bent on evil and one of the things I've gotta dispel because it's all complete nonsense is this business that says oh at the end of time nobody's going to be in hell because God's going to give people the choice first of all that is directly contrary to revelation it's directly contrary to the words of Jesus Christ he said very clearly that the fires of Gehenna are eternal where the worm dieth not which is another name for that your conscience will eat at you for all eternity it will not end it's a formal part of church teaching that it's a permanent once you're in hell it will last for the rest of eternity the second thing is is those in Hell their wills are fixed they can't change even God isn't going to give them the grace to change anyway because that's what the church is decreed but the second thing is is that they can't changed because their will is fixed in evil you see this with demons you'll sit there and say okay let me get this straight so you were created to have the beatific vision yeah and you were created to have this phenomenal knowledge and help people in this way yeah and you decided that you were gonna do that and you knew the effects of your sin yeah and you knew this was gonna be eternal yeah and you knew you'd be suffering all these things yeah and you do it again yeah they can't change they don't want to change they have chosen through their choice they have chosen to attach themselves to the sin that they wanted permanently for human beings that are in hell that permanency comes at the time of their death so either when you die either your will is fixed in the good or it's fixed in the evil there's no change and so this business of eventually it's all sentimentality it's all based on false understanding of mercy and justice Oh God is so merciful don't give me that the point being is is that we have to recognize that God laid this landscape he could have done it differently but God loves a good fight a really good fight you know even as human beings God kind of gave us a natural inclination for that right you see that you know when when and I'm not suggesting that you go out and watch boxing but guys would go out and when there's a good boxing match and there's just blow after blow and they're just going after each other and one guy just finally gets the better of him you know everybody's standing up and sharing that God's the same way everybody in heaven is the same way they love a good fight right and so but the difference is is this you know in the movies when you go to the movies on these exorcism movies which I can hardly sit through them but when you watch them what ends up happening is is they always show the action is going in the dynamic is the exact opposite when an experienced Exorcist steps into the room with another date with a demon the demon is scared to death and the reason he's scared to death is because there's a 500-pound gorilla standing behind the priest and that gorillas name is Christ who's about to beat him so badly that he will get to the point where his threshold of pain is so bad he will simply shut down and can't function he knows that's what's coming he knows it's gonna go badly he knows he's gonna get humiliated he knows he's going to have to do and say things that when he gets back in hell he's gonna get ridiculed over he knows all that so he's scared to death but that should give us the courage to recognize that when it comes to our own spiritual battles Christ is standing behind us as long as we are standing with him so what does that mean Christ actually said to the Apostles actually with the disciples when they came back they said to him they were all joyful and they said that the even the demons obeyed us in your name and he said to them he said count not the fact that the demons were subject to you don't be glad for that reason be glad rather that your names are written in heaven does that mean it means that the more intense the person's spiritual warfare is in their life the it's actually a greater sign of predestination if they cooperate with Christ through that process but then Christ also said you count yourself as useless instruments useless I can't tell you how many times demons will say in session you can't make me do this no I cannot one time it during one of my conferences someone asked me how many people have you liberated I said none I haven't liberated anybody no christs liberated lots of people in my presence but I haven't liberated anyone because I don't have the power to liberate anybody only Jesus Christ acting through me through the Exorcist or through you can he liberate you or people in your family or what have you the point being is is this is that it's we are useless and it's only when we act all that christ act through us and then we're gonna end it on this line one time during one of the sessions that i had this woman was possessed by a demon of fear and what christ was asking from all of us we found out is that everybody work on humility everyone from the exorcist of the one who's asked everybody around to work on humility and so at a certain point i got the demon manifested and i was making him say the litany of humility and at a certain point about a third of the way through the thought i think it was a grace I'm gonna chalk it up to a grace came into my mind get out of the way and I got this distinct impression it was Christ telling me it's not your place to draw people to you your job is to draw people to me and to stand out of the way and that's when I began to realize and when the demons would say you know you can't make me do this no but he can when you say he can which by the way it's kind of interesting cuz demons if you just say he can they know what that means they mean he refers to God if you say she can refers to our lady so they can make you do it I can't make you do it but that tells you even in your own spiritual warfare you have to realize that you have to get out of the way let Christ work for you and work on the humility and then you will be very powerful in relationship to cleaning up the demons in your own lives and the lives of your family once the demon looked at me and he's and relationship to our lady he said her power is in her humility now think about what that means that means this it means that when we are proud we're weak why are we weak because we take control whereas when we're humble we let Christ operate through us and he has infinite power he's omnipotent and therefore can accomplish anything and so it's through that humility it's her humility that made Our Lady's so powerful in the end it's even for humility now that makes for that perfect instrument of her son the perfect instrument the perfect instrument is the one who did the instrument does or the tool does exactly what you wanted to do when you want it to do it and that's what our lady was and still is she always does God's will when ever and in the manner that he so determines and puts herself her aside and never ever counted the personal cost ever so humility you have to work on humility it's a grace it has to come and you have to ask our Lady for it these are the different levels we're all dealing with it now I'm not suggesting that you sit down and figure out okay I'm like this level I'm not suggesting that what I'm saying is is that if God brings you if there's a demon that God allows into your life and he brings you to a level of spiritual warfare don't cower from it just ask right Christ make me strong give me the willingness to suffer keep me humble and then help me to keep the course and if you do those four things ask for those four things you will keep the course you will attain that crown of glory that st. Paul talks about okay and if you'll kneel I'll give you a blessing Benedict showed a omnipotentis Patri fili it's pedestrian superval system on its Emperor almond

Channel: St. Mary of Pine Bluff Catholic Church

Views: 118,016

Keywords: Spiritual Warfare, Fr. Chad Ripperger, St. Mary of Pine Bluff

Id: dyH7MUnP5Ic

Length: 61min 30sec (3690 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 05 2018