The Ministry of Exorcisms - Father Gary Thomas

without further ado I just would like to introduce father Gary Thomas by the Gary Thomas is a pastor of a Roman Catholic Church in Northern California and Saratoga and when he was on sabbatical started studying under an exorcist in Italy and it later became the story guidelines of the book The Rite and when talking to him today on the way here he said that in the book it's a hundred percent accurate of what he encountered it was later made into a movie in the movie is somewhat Hollywood eyes but nothing that he wouldn't somewhat could encounter and during exorcisms without further ado I'd love to introduce father Gary Thomas well good evening everybody thank you for coming tonight and I'm so grateful that so many of you are here before we begin with my presentation and then the QA why let us begin with prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit a powerful God we give you thanks and praise for bringing us here this night and we ask your blessing please upon this talk and the information that will be presented the truth of the cross of our Lord Jesus and Satan's defeat Lord we just ask your blessing upon this assembly and may everyone walk out here tonight with a sense of hope and that any anxieties or fears may be dispelled bless the work of john xxiii parish of the focus missionaries and all who are involved not only in tonight's program but in the ministry here in fort collins we ask this in prayer through Christ our Lord I want to begin by saying this is a very galvanizing topic everybody has a reaction to the word exorcism or demon or Satan and very few people really know very much about it and I was one of those folks until I became The Exorcist for the Diocese of San Jose I've been a priest for 32 plus years I have served as Exorcist for 10 how I became Exorcist had to be providential because I don't think it was by accident the the bishop decided to appoint an exorcist in 2005 it was because of a letter a mandate that had come from saint john paul ii in 2004 directed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which at that time was headed by Cardinal Ratzinger mandating every bishop in the world to train to select the priests and train them to be an exorcist and so in five our bishop began was getting requests from a variety of people to investigate certain kinds of alleged preternatural behavior and activity and so he approached my closest priest friend who is in my pre support group and at our monthly meetings we have prayer adoration scripture sharing and then we have a view the review of life and the review of life you bring in you bring in an event or an experience from the previous month and you discussed it in terms of how God may have be part of it or not part of it but how it's affecting your life as a priest and as a Catholic so this priest Kevin brings this information and says he's been at and he was perfect candidate doctorate spirituality from Catholic you it knows lots and lots about the Mystics we thought he would be the perfect candidate so a month later he comes back and he says I've decided I can't do this I haven't got time to do that and be the head of the the school the school of spirituality at the same time and so I just serendipitously spoke up and said I could do that I could be the Exorcist I believe for the personification of evil I didn't know what I'm saying yes - but there was something that was compelling me to say yes and so I was getting ready to go on sabbatical to Rome and I was already in a program but it wasn't about exorcism so I took a course in Rome which is what the book the write is based on and then I worked under an exorcist for three and a half months Carmen defeat police whose book his name is in the book as well and I observed about 80 exorcisms and that in a sense that and the course that was taught at the Regina apostille Oram in a sense was kind of the basis for when I returned and I had to come home two months early because of an emergency in the new parish that I had been assigned to because the last one I had fulfilled 12 years and was moving on and the second day I arrived the bishop sent the first case to me and so the secretary none of these people knew anything about this and because I was going to a parish was in a crisis I didn't think it was wise to say to them oh by the way your new pastor is also an appointed Exorcist and so the secretary come knocking on my door because I was in meeting with one of my first staff persons and said there's someone here for an exorcism so I thought I can't believe this is already happening I want to start off the Cross is the central most important symbol of our faith and it reminds us that though we have been saved we still need God in our lives in order for us to really understand the notion the reality the teaching of the church and our stance with regards to this figure whom we refer to as Satan we have to understand well where does Satan personified evil because that's what we're talking about where does that fall in the whole economy of our salvation story and so you have to start the starting point is the cross when we began prayer a few moments ago we began with the sign of the Cross that's in our Catholic tradition and our church is very rich in symbols but the symbols are meant to express realities they just don't stand for something in a static way the cross like all of our symbols they stand for us for a truth in a dynamic way and so Christ saved us once but the reality is for all time the reason the reason for the cross is because of Christ's mission Christ's mission was to defeat Satan sin and death and so from the time that Christ ascended and a Pentecost when the church was born the church institutionally has been doing exorcisms throughout the entirety of the life span of the church it wasn't until 1614 that the authorized ritual that most people have any sense of largely because of Hollywood was developed and most likely I would say it was developed in order to standardize a pastoral practice that had been going on for centuries because in the early church there were there was an order of exorcists they weren't necessarily clergy there was an order of Exorcist because you have to remember in the letters of Paul Paul let Paul's letters and Corinthians talk about gifts and so the gifting goes on even today and so to understand Satan we have to begin with the cross otherwise Satan is sort of this misplaced modifier who could easily be understood as a footnote to the relationship between us in God that's formalized at our baptism in Christ and is in a sense affirmed in our confirmation and celebrate it every time we come together for the celebration of the Eucharist the origin of Satan is that not satan was not a created being as satan the word satan comes from the hebrew seitan which means adversary but satan was once lucifer god's greatest angel known as the angel of light so how did all this begin it begins with the incarnation which we oftentimes simply think of as christmas but at Christmas at the incarnation when Christ embraces as the second person of the Blessed Trinity when Christ embraces our human nature and retains his divine nature it is then that the rebellion in heaven takes place and the rebellion in heaven takes place because our human nature is lower than that of the nature of the angelic and it meant that Satan and the angelic realm we have to worship and honor and give glory to the god man the notion of God lowering himself below that of the nature of angels was what caused the rebellion it's Michael and those loyal to the Trinity that force Lucifer and a third of the Angels according to the book of Revelation into the abode we call hell biblically speaking what prompted the incarnation because that doesn't happen in a vacuum either and it culminates with the crucifixion if you look at the Bible at the two bookends the book of Genesis and the book of Revelation in the book of Genesis Satan isn't the name the term Satan is not even used it's the serpent it is it is Lucifer who manifests himself as a serpent because he seduces Adam and Eve into believing that they can become like gods as well and so when sin is introduced it is then obviously from what we know from Genesis it is then that the human race falls out of that perfect relationship it falls out of grace and so the Father in order to try and help restore the human race calls patriarchs Abraham Isaac Jacob Moses to create the nation of God's chosen people and establishing the Covenant of Abraham with God and Moses with God and those covenants were broken over and over and over and so the father calls forth prophets zekiel Amos Hosea Jeremiah and many others whose mission it was was to be the pronounce ur of God's will and to help restore fidelity to the Mosaic Covenant and their mission fails to and so that's when the Incarnation takes place and so the one perfect sacrifice of Christ on the cross is what heals the estrangement between the human race and God caused by sin Satan didn't want that to happen and depending which synoptic gospel you read you get a different version so let me read to you proclaim for you the version of Matthew this is the fourth chapter then Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and afterwards he was hungry the tempter approached and said to him if you are the son of God command that these Stones become loaves of bread Jesus said in reply it is written one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God then the devil took him to the holy city and made him stand on the parapet of the temple and said to him if you are the son of God throw yourself down for it is written he will command his angels concerning you and with their hands they will support you lest you dash your foot against a stone jesus answered him again it is written you shall not put the Lord your God to the test and the devil took him up to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their magnificence and he said to him all these I shall give you if you will prostrate yourself and worship me at this jesus said to him get away Satan it is written the Lord your God shall you worship and him alone shall you serve then the devil left him and behold angels came and ministered to him and so when Christ comes he retains his divineness he embraces our humanists in all of its fullness in every aspect and so as we just listen to this is from the preface that leads into Jesus public ministry and so the devil wants obviously to do all he can to derail Christ and he plays on his humanity he attracts him with the notion of physical hunger he attracts him with the sense of temporal power he tries to tempt him in ways that are simply at his deepest part of his humanness it is when Christ takes his last breath that his mission is fulfilled and Satan knows that and so in the scriptures you have on the one hand Genesis where our first family are seduced into believing they could become like gods and in the last book of the Bible you have Satan manifesting self as a dragon preparing to devour the church and between those two books you have this cosmic battle going on to this present moment that's very important for us to understand the context because then I can address you in a way we're understanding that context we all have a better understanding of well who is this Satan figure in the church when I was a kid up until the beginning of the up until 1966 66 67 when the first missile came out in English in which mass was celebrated in English as it was celebrated the vernacular in whatever particular country people lived in for 85 years there was a prayer at the end of every Mass it was the the prayer to Saint Michael and it was part of the Catholic culture and so the mention of Satan in which we pray that God would keep Satan away and defeat Satan in a sense of completely that was part of our Catholic identity it wasn't like we were obsessed with this but it was part of our Catholic culture when the new missile came out in 66 67 don't know the historical reason the prayer was removed and so over time as that concept and that consciousness of Satan went away because it went out of our language the ministry largely went to sleep it wasn't until 2004 when as I said earlier when john paul ii issued this mandate that in a sense this ministry kind of like was like the gas got turned on again and people began to largely wake up the ministry of exorcism is largely a ministry of healing because every person who approaches me and this would be true of any extra system in the united states or in the world for that matter every person who approaches us is coming with an issue involving some form sometimes intense some form of suffering my role as the exorcist for my diocese is to get to the root cause of the suffering whether it is demonic or medical or psychological or psychiatric or something that's other my role is to get to the root cause and so a lot of what I do in this ministry we would call discernment what does sermon is is giving thoughtful consideration to options and possibilities that have a link between the behaviors activities and experiences of people and the movement of God and or in this case a praetor natural being whom we call Satan from the Hebrew Satan which means adversary people oftentimes think that somehow God created Satan he didn't he created Lucifer Lucifer means angel of light when Lucifer changed his role his name changed in the same way that Abram went from Abram to Abraham and Simon went to Peter because their role changed Satan is the Hebrew term meaning adversary and so in this ministry which is about healing and I like to underline that because most people the concept people have of this notion of exorcism and all of its related parts very oftentimes is largely dictated by Hollywood images now I will be the first to tell you that very very often what I experience either in a deliverance session which I'll explain the difference between deliverance and exorcism in a little bit either in a deliverance session or in a formal exorcism there is a lot of drama that you would see in Hollywood very very often and so most of the images and most of the circumstances that you would find in a Hollywood movie most not all but most are pretty accurate none of this ministry is done in isolation now I'm on the we have a school for exorcism at Mundelein seminary in Chicago and I'm on the board of the school and I was just teaching there two months ago and what I said in the 44 priests and six deacons who are now the newest candidates for this ministry you cannot do this ministry uncle a buret of Lee it is intrinsically collaborative which means by its very nature you have to do this in concert with others for a whole lot of reasons number one when you discern it means you're asking a variety of questions about the person's life and you I always have to preface after we've done prayer and very often my team my prayer team I'll talk about them in a moment my protein very oftentimes meets with people before I do it just depends on how much is going on we see a lot of people not everybody more often than not people have mental issues I'm happy to report but the church's ministry of healing also I think encompasses if someone comes and believes they have a preternatural problem and they don't pass truly speaking it is highly inappropriate to say okay you don't have a preternatural problem so goodbye we don't deal with you know if we truly are functioning in the ministry of healing as Christ did and does then we need to provide the resources to help the person whether it's mental or some other issue and so on my team I have a physician who happens to be the physician for the San Francisco Giants and 49ers I did not pick him for that reason I wish I could say for the Broncos but maybe your exorcist has them from the Broncos I have a clinical psychologist I have a psychiatrist and then I have several professionals good I'm glad you've got your seats the back friends of mine from a long time ago I have those professionals and several who are bilingual because a lot of the people who come to us their first language is not English the first language is Spanish or Vietnamese or another language and if it is we got to go see if we can hunt and find someone professionally to help us with the discernment because even in the in the introduction of the solemn Rite of exorcism the church takes a very conservative position as it applies to when and how you minister to people who come with these requests I get lots of phone calls and emails and a lot of emails from all over the world a lot of phone calls in the United States and very often the phone call starts off with father I need an exorcism and my pad answer back to them is I don't do them on demand and then I say to them I'm not being sarcastic but that may not be what you need so I have those professionals that I have a prayer team three married couples and they several other people who are also part of the team and they're with me they're with me at every deliverance session and every solemn right now the difference between a deliverance and an exorcism they're both exorcisms but a deliverance is not considered a solemn exorcism a deliverance is called a minor exorcism which means that the prayers you pray are largely directed to God to expel either a presence that you come to find out about or to ask God if there is a presence to expel it the solemn Rite of exorcism is the authoritative Rite of the church as I said that goes back to 1614 that has a specific prescription attached to it and in that prescription there are prayers that are addressed to God there are also prayers that are directly addressed to the demon the language that is used for the rite is Latin it's also approved in Italian Spanish and Portuguese and correct and polish and it's also currently and being considered by the Vatican to be approved in English the translation has already been approved by the bishops of the US but has not yet been approved by the Vatican and so all of those people are all part of the pieces of the puzzle when people come and they're asked very personal questions about their life tell me about what was it like growing up in your home tell me about your relationship with your parents tell me about your experience with your brothers and sisters if you have brothers and sisters tell me about the experience of grade school high school college your current life what was the event that was the point of departure where you decided you needed to go and find an exorcist now before I was a priest if you saw the movie in the movie I'm portrayed in my prior life as a mortician that is true about the movie I was a mortician I was a funeral director I was a priest so they look who goes to a who goes to find a mortician less your personal friend of theirs you go to a funeral home because you have a need it's the same thing with an exorcist you don't go find an exorcist just to say hi who are you usually you go bless your friend usually you go because you have a need so what was the event or experience that was the tipping point that led you to believe that seeking my assistance and the assistance of my team might help you with matters having to do with your own personal life for in the discernment which is much like when you go to a physician your physician can't help you and tell you until you tell your physician what are you what are you sweating your symptoms so we're always listening I know this is kind of a funny way to express this discernment we're always listening for a doorway so you ask the questions about or your upbringing your background you ask questions about what are your personal habits do you have addictions drugs I don't care if you smoke marijuana once I want to know about it meth meth is a big doorway now very often times meth users as a side effect will have chronic hallucinations and I've had people who are meth users former meth users they've been sober but they've had chronic hallucinations because of the damage that meth does to the brain I need to know that because the first meth person who came to me I had to go find a toxicologist and say what can you tell me about meth that I should know I'm The Exorcist at my diocese whether you believe in any of that or not what what do I need to know about the attributes of meth that I should be aware of that it takes at least three years for a person to have complete sobriety as to whether or not the brain will heal and there's no guarantee that was very important information cocaine is a doorway hallucinogenic drugs are a doorway porn is a doorway it's a big one and I hear lots of confessions now where people come confessing that stronghold and it is because not only of the effect it has on our brain but it also serves as a doorway to the demonic because the demonic can also travel along electrical currents that does not mean that one's computer is possessed but what it does mean what it does mean is that those images can have a huge detrimental effect because of the effect on the brain violent video games there's a Japanese violent video so what do they do they build a golden calf that's a form of divination this is becoming much more mainstream now in the US and as it becomes more mainstreamed it becomes kind of more part of the culture to go to a party as I had a member of my parish come to me not too long ago and say my daughter went to a birthday party and they played with a Ouija board and I said don't let your daughter go back to that house again and I said I will pray over your daughter just as a precaution and it wasn't to scare her and nothing happened but when these things become part of the culture they look harmless there has been a growing movement just as there was in Europe and it continues John Paul the second mandated this because in Europe the occult was raging and is raging out of control and as more people are drawn away from institutional religion or belief in a God in a personal way or they're looking for alternatives because classical religion doesn't provide either the answers or the satisfaction or the fruitfulness or something else that's missing in their life we are all spiritual beings how can I say that because we all have a soul regardless of whether we believe in God or not we're all spiritual beings and we have been given the ability to reason and the form the possibility of a form conscience and the ability to have free will and so because of that that's what separates us from the lower elements of creation and so therefore when prayer doesn't work because I'm used to getting answers to questions and dilemmas because of the push of a button which is as our society becomes our technologically advanced we've also become more isolated because I can do everything and have everything I need without other relationships including one with God but people still are searching because there are questions in our life that will never become fully addressed while we live and that is where science ends and spirituality and faith begins and so as people search the occult and the new-age are all about power and knowledge unfortunately if people's faith optic is thin then they are not able necessarily to discern out what is a practice that is healthy and helpful and what are practices that I should stay away from and very often when people seek me out they are on or another Exorcist they're on the precipice of recognizing that they have waited too far in to a reality in which they realize they're over their head and so that's when they seek the assistance of an exorcist out or they've tried other approaches to see why are they having this severe depression why are they having psychosis types events of hearing things and seeing things why are they somehow under and kind of a state of oppression over a long period of time why are they having demonic dreams or violent dreams that psychiatrists and psychologists and medication attached doesn't seem to fix and so very often I'm called because we've tried a lot of other approaches and I'm still suffering or my loved one is still suffering now the question often times I get asked is well how do you tell well the discernment is the first step and we listen very carefully for doorways and then we usually will employ what we would say are called deliverance prayers prayers addressed to God in which we ask the Lord a if there is something cast it out and B if there is something please show it to us I always believed in the power of prayer but when you are in prayer praying for illumination you see how the power of prayer and the sacraments and the sacramentals have a tremendous power not magic and not sorcery like but real power or if there is a preternatural in other words a demon or some other agent sent by Satan the reaction to the prayer or to this sacramentals the crucifix holy water and the sacraments such as the Eucharist will be palpable viewable and tremendous and so that's the discernment and so there's six classic signs that we look for as we're listening for the door listening for the doorways one and aversion to the sacred so if someone comes to church a Catholic Church or any church someone goes into a sacred place in which it is a house of prayer one of the of the aversions might be one begins to get sick to their stomach one feels nauseous receiving the body of Christ in the Catholic tradition can be a harrowing experience because either the demon will give off an odor against the sacred species the host which will be so pungent that the person cannot receive or if they do receive consuming the Eucharist will burn as they're swallowing it or if they bless themselves with holy water or even if during the consecration of the mass they will begin to have a reaction that's one possibility secondly would be during a deliverance session we never start out with a formal exorcism that's the last thing an exorcist ever does always I'll tell you why a little bit another would be during a prayer session the person begins to possess a kind of physical strength that they don't normally possess I'll give you one one X blog gave you two examples one was in Italy one was at home and I was with father Carmen and I knew nothing I mean I believed in the existence of Satan and I began to go to his sessions Monday Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons from 3:30 to 6:30 I did that for three and a half months and we saw lots of people and this one day he spoke very little I knew more Italian than he knew English so he says to me father to Gary come on Saturday a very interesting case so I show up and he's two priests he's two Franciscans one of whom I knew bring in this woman who was about four feet nine inches tall and they're having a hard time bringing her in and he said her in the chair and she is just growling and she is sticking her tongue out and spitting at the priest and she is screaming and yelling and when he started the prayer when he started the formal right it ended up having five of us holding this woman down otherwise the demon threw the woman would have probably tried to kill the priest and this is a four foot nine woman four foot nine inch woman at home I worked with a man who when he was in his mother's womb his father did not believe that the child in his wife's womb was his the family was from El Salvador and so he began out of a sense of jealousy and mistrust performing acts of witchcraft against his wife when she was carrying the baby bad the wife in turn in retaliation started performing acts of witchcraft against her husband they're divorced now when Victor was 2 he was molested by a half-brother for years he believed that he had an guardian angel around him because he felt there was some thing attached eight years ago he's 43 now eight years ago in a Cathedral I won't mention the diocese because I want to protect his anonymity he manifested at the Easter Vigil for the very first time in front of the bishop and so they ended up calling me because they had no Exorcist in that diocese and they went to a priest who's also in my pre support group in that diocese and we worked with him for four years and these were the most ferocious demons I have ever seen in my life as far as just getting him in the church sometimes would take a half an hour because the demons within him were trying to restrain him from coming in and so when during the Rite of exorcism we would have four or five six people around him and restraining him appropriately if necessary we finally got to the point of calling on Michael and the Archangels to restrain him and they do because you have to be careful you don't want to do some harm or damage the person over whom you're praying so that's another example another example would be beginning to speaking in a language you have no competency and so during prayer the person just begins speaking in Spanish or Russian or Latin or gibberish or some kind of language that has Cadence's to it you don't know what it is but it's not just babble another sign would be during prayers the person begins to tell things about you or somebody else with you that's why I always we always make sure we go to confession before deliverance or an exorcism or we've been recently another would be what's called foaming at the mouth where during prayer the person begins to cough in a way in which they're trying to expel something as opposed to I just don't feel very good but it goes on for a long period of time and usually what it Witcher but the person is convulsing they're convulsing the demon and it comes out in the form of sputum and that's what's foaming at the mouth is that's actually a good thing because demons are pure spirits they don't have bodies like corporeal bodies like we do they're more powerful than we are they travel faster than we are and their sense of frees free will is far clearer and keener than ours is the last sign is a distortion that would look something like a person who has epileptic seizures where the face is distorted the limbs the arms and legs are flying around sometimes the person will will put themselves into a position some kind of a body language position that looks similar to what if a stake would look like an animal planet rolled up and I've seen that often and then it's hissing in its blaspheming and it's calling you names and cursing and all of that stuff so those are the classic signs you don't have to have all six signs for us to be convinced that the person needs deliverance prayer and maybe eventually needs an exorcism but you always want to move up the chain of command so for a Catholic you get the person back into a rhythm if less they're in a rhythm you get into a rhythm of prayer daily Mass weekly eucharist weekly confession monthly just as a little commercial I think there's there's a direct correlation between why is there more satanic activity on the rise in this country and in Western civilization and the disuse or lack of use of the sacrament of reconciliation reconciliation is more powerful than an exorcism I'm not suggesting people need to go to confession every week but when we go and receive the sacrament of reconciliation as with all the seven sacraments there's grace there is there is a kind of relationship with god that's deepened that is in a sense a benefit from receiving that authoritative spiritual experience the sacraments are the canonical number is seven as you know there's lots of events that happen in the church but those seven have a unique place in our spiritual life and the more that we stay in the rhythm of conversion the more I believe mindful we are of how do we stay in the realm of the grace of God I am NOT at all suggesting that the people who come to me are bad people most of the time I'd say the vast majority of the time the person who comes to me are people who have where there is something demonic who waded into the pool looking for answers because prayer didn't work for them or some other aspect of their Catholic life didn't work for them or someone suggested it and they're doing it simply out of curiosity they're not doing it because they hate God they're look doing it because most of the time they're curious and they're searching there are times when people have rejected God and gone in the path that I've just described and then realized they went in the pool too deep and so when they come and we ask these questions and we see the results the power of prayer and the power of God in Christ is what frees them even my talk here is a very appropriate given that this is the year of mercy because Christ performed lots of exorcisms he did lots of healings he largely had two roles in his job description he taught any healed and some of those healing miracles were exorcisms now when I was in seminary 30 to 35 years ago we were we loved we where we rarely I don't think we ever talked about any of this with any depth I don't even think we mentioned Satan more than a few times in all my four years and we're trying to change that now in the whole seminary formation program not so that every priest is a trained Exorcist but that every priest ordained Alysse ought to know what to do and have a basic understanding of the language of this ministry because not only is it becoming more relevant but it's also if you don't know what you're doing or at least know the right questions to ask you can do more harm than good so how do you protect yourself because when you walk out of here tonight I don't want you walking out here going oh my god I have to really what's going to happen next Christ 60 times in the Gospels says do not be afraid 60 times he says resist the devil he doesn't say be afraid of the devil there are four ordinary means of protection for Catholics a faith life a prayer life a sacramental life in a moral life and for people who are not Catholic but Christian a faith life a moral life and a prayer life and for people who are not Christian partly not Christian at all they might be Catholic they might be Christian but not Catholic but for non-christians I think if you live a life that is in the spirit of the will of God we call that baptism by desire and you live a moral life you not only know right from wrong but you choose right over wrong and you have a form conscience and your mission in law in life is to do the very best you can with what you've been given those are our protections a faith life for Catholics and Christians at least and people who are searchers I have a relationship with God some kind now I'm not judge what that is but I'm I have a relationship with God and hopefully a personal one but at least I'm searching and a prayer life which means I'm in communication with God I talk with him I doesn't mean I have to read something out of a book per se it might be I reflect on the Scriptures it might be I take five minutes a day which is what I tell our kids every day take five minutes whether it's when you get up in the morning whether you go to bed at night whether it's in the bathroom or in the car or someplace take five minutes and just be quiet with God and talk to him and then listen so you have to just like those of you are married or those of you who aren't married but you have friends or you have a fiance or a girlfriend the people who are were closest to we've hopefully spent some time with the same thing is true about our relationship with God we have to spend time with God and out of spending time with God we then are prompted ask well what why am I here what am I doing here and what happens to me when I die I cite those every time I celebrate a funeral Mass because in our human DNA we are all creatures of origin because every created thing has a beginning except God so we ask those questions why am I here what is the purpose of my life in the old Baltimore Catechism which I think still applies why did God make me to know love and serve him in order to live with him forever in heaven so the more we have a relationship with God the more we want to be in relationship with God and the more we want to be in relationship with God we want to in a sense live as God would hopefully want us to and know what's right from wrong and live it that way and then the sacraments are like our vitamin shots I take about seven vitamins a day those are our vitamins that's what helps us give have an armor to protect ourselves against the evil one so those you do those things and you stay in that rhythm Satan can't hurt you it's when we get away from that and we drift away and we seek other means to find purpose and meaning in life where we get in trouble Satan isn't waiting for us per se but it's those who in a sense wave a flag a blow a whistle and dabble in the stuff I mentioned before that all of a sudden the Spirit will pays attention says hey this guy is looking for a relationship because that's when a possession is all about a possession is all about a relationship very few people are fully possessed but the ones that have a demonic problem very oftentimes could be even sitting in this audience and you have a job you have a family you raise your kids you drive your car you go places you do things but there are certain things that we don't see that your family may not see but they may notice but they're not sure what to do about and you might not be either but there could be something demonically attached if you traipsed around and God waited to deepen the pool and so in our life what we're called to be our disciples be followers of Jesus and the protection is there to help us see our way clearly to the end of our life and at the end of our life we have a face-to-face encounter with Christ now I don't know what he says I've been there yet but Jonathan cross said once in the 14th century the question is the he thing's Krotz God a Christ asks is how well did you love me which makes a lot of sense because God is really much more simple than we make them out to be how well did you love me and then either God assigns us or we assign ourselves either to help her go to or heaven purgatory isn't bad it's the beginning of paradise but we're not always necessarily wearing the right clothes when we get there had that face-to-face conversation and so therefore the ministry of exorcism is all about mercy and God the Father sends the son out of his mercy and God was willing to lower himself below that of the nature of angels in order for us to have the bridge that would get us to heaven the demonic realm once was part of the angelic realm still maintains retains its nature but those who were jealous and prideful that's what got in their way they are not savable because their free will is so much clearer than ours that in the scriptures it's very clear that their choice was so was so clear to reject God that it's galvanized and so at the end of time when Christ returns they will be destroyed in the meanwhile a cosmic battle goes on why does God permit Satan to exist so that with boundaries so that we have a clear choice do we want to follow the light we want to follow the darkness Christ's and his life and his mission and the cross though it looks like a symbol of death it is a symbol of life it is a pathway to heaven and to the heavenly realm where we're all joined together again with our with our purpose fulfilled to live with God in heaven which is where we came from the alternative is pure destruction and pure desolation there are some who've chosen that already but God gives us every opportunity to turn our life around and to walk with Him into paradise thank you thank you so much father Gary Thomas we're about to start a question and answer session the mics are up here we ask that your questions remain as concise and brief as possible for the respective time also if you take time to fill these out just pass the raffle tickets as far away from the center as possible thank you so much please I just might yeah there it's working other Thomas I have a question for you um you know people talk about they have ghosts in their house or the loved one that has passed on has come back and that's who they believe it is but I always felt that when you die your spirit moves on it doesn't stick around your this environment so our ghosts actual loved ones have passed on or are they demonic spirits that's a very good question and I I can give you an answer based on personal experience I've exercised the homes of many people in my ten years as Exorcist very very often when people will call about their home they'll say I've seen a trance although I've seen a spirit or I've seen a shadow or I've seen a person walking around my house or walking down the hall or appearing in places and the question that I usually will add will ask a few questions that I usually will go out and just exorcise the house do you recognize if it is a transparency where it's very clear that's a human being do you recognize who it is has this person talked to you do you talk to it and tell me a little about the history of your home very very often when a person dies in a house especially if they've died as a result of the homicide or a suicide not always but often they can get stuck because they're not able to move forward or they may have in their life they may have committed some kind of crime whether it was ever prosecuted or not and at the time of their deaths very often they can't move on now occasionally what the house is infested with is something demonic and I'll ask the same kinds of questions and most of the time people don't know but occasionally if anybody has done any kind of ritual involving Satan or the New Age or they are called in their home it's not impossible for a conjuring of something praetor natural to show up it's just that's why I asked tell me about the history of the house some people know most people don't when it appears to be a human spirit it's usually because the person has not been able to move on for a reason now in my work as an exorcist and this is a little bit of a stretch but it's this has been true and I've talked to other exorcists about this sometimes where there is a tribe of demons there's never just one demon if there's a deem if there's a demonic problem with a person there's never one they're a tribe there's usually one that Satan assigns very powerful demon and then he will recruit that demon will recruit a whole group it could be a dozen it could be hundreds it could be thousands they will tell you because you asked them because I have the authority to do so so in the case sometimes of deliverance what will show up first is not a demon but a disembodied human being and usually and then I am having a conversation with them you don't deal you don't converse with the demons you would ask them three questions what is your name when are you leaving and how did you get in those are three questions other than that you don't talk to them because they don't tell you the truth anyway and you command them to tell you the absolute truth and they have to know their legalists so they have to play by the rules and I tell them that all the time so in the case of a disembodied spirit very often they're attached to they haven't gone for judgment the same thing is true if it's a house usually something is there stuck I'll give you a very good example that happened a month ago I had a Muslim family call me and the in the house was the mother and the two kids both grown up and the one younger daughter had a boyfriend living in the house just that cohabitation just living in a room so he emails me I guess he went on Google or whatever and found me he emails me and tells me they have this problem in the house so I called him and asked a few questions then I went out to the house and the young daughter the youngest daughter she's probably mid to late-20s and the boyfriend were there was a couple it was the day after Easter so I said well tell me what's going to me about what you see and how long this has been going on she said I see a woman who's dressed in white with gray hair and she just appears in the living room and she sits there and I don't she doesn't talk to me I don't talk to her she appears and she'll just stay but she says that's the same woman we had on our previous house and she says but what's happened now is there is a transparency of a man but he doesn't he's ISIL how tall is he he's a normal he's not particularly tall but he's he appears to be a man it's a shadow you can see everything but the face so I said well tell me about what happened in your prior house well the mother and the father divorced over physical and sexual abuse and sexual abuse done against the two daughters and they have never had the daughters have never had any real relationship with the father from the time when they were abused and the divorce took place and so he died and after he died all of these manifestations began happening in the house so I said okay it's possible that it could be your dad and maybe your dad met another spirit along the way not impossible and maybe somehow your dad is a match to you because the new house they moved into which had been like six months same problems so I said it's not the house it's you and your family that's where the attachment is so I exercise the whole house and I went around you go around the entire house there's a ritual for a home or a thing different from exorcism of a person I did all of that and then I severed the ties between the daughter and I said I want your mother's name your sister's name and anybody else in your immediate family and I'm going to sever the tie between you all the ungodly holy ties between you and your father's sister and your father your mother and your father etc and then I asked her a number of other questions and I severed all of those times now you do that because when you sever the ties it releases in the spirit world if somehow there is a right to an ownership of a thing or a person you have to sever the tie in order to break that ownership and so I we spent about an hour there so I I said you know if you need to call me I'm going to be on retreat here's my cell so the next day I get a phone call you really took those spirits off okay so I offered mass on retreat Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and then I went home to the parish and Saturday and the following Monday I offered mass six days in a row for the father after the first day all of the manifestations stopped and the mother and the sister came to see me last week to thank me so either he was stuck there out of guilt or he was stuck there out of anger and rage and either way didn't matter so I severed the tie between the father and the tie of guilt and the father and the tie of rage and then in the masses I offered at the retreat house with the nuns and the others on retreat I specifically offered the mass for the intention of this man by name and any ties that are keeping him that I had that have a stronghold and then I used the cross which I use often I'll say in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I sever with the sword of the Cross the tie between in this case I use the cross and I do this in confession a lot too when someone comes in and they have a kind of stronghold a kind of sin that they just can't get rid of is usually an addiction or it's the sin of unforgiveness or rage or anger or pornography or another addiction I will use the cross and say I use the crush to crush the stronghold of and take the debris of the struggle then bind it to the cross of Christ but when I pray those sick offered those six masses they said after the first day we had no more problems so very very often those are real deals and usually the soul is stuck there's something that's preventing the person from being able to go to the other side and hopefully even though he's a Muslim he's able to go to Christ and be judged and hopefully the mercy of God will help them go ahead please I'm sorry are we ever allowed okay I've met in some programs where would they've taught us how to do rebuking prayers or how to rebuke Satan directly and recently I watched a show on EWTN where they've done a study or they had a conference and they said we really aren't supposed to utley people directly rebuked Satan is that so what what's your what is that I mean and who's allowed to do like a deliverance prayers okay let me answer the first question first in the second question second I don't that I see no reason why you cannot pray as I think because of our baptism we have the license we have a license to say in the name of the Lord Jesus I command you leave my house or leave me alone or leave my grandchild alone or what you have the right you know the legal you have the you have the legal spiritual license to say that so I don't see any reason why you cannot say in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ a rebuke Satan or a rebuke reject and renounce something that it that may be coming against you or someone whom you love I don't see any reason why you can't do that as far as deliverance prayers go I would be cautious only insofar as hey you don't want to do them by yourself be I think you should seek out a prayer team or a prayer group that has had some experience with doing this and then I think you ideally you should be under the authority of a priest who's got some knowledge of this but laypeople and I've told the priests in our diocese and other diocese priests can pray prayers of deliverance but you do need to know what you're doing I don't think I would address Satan in a direct way but you can say in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I Satan leave me alone I think that's appropriate but I think if you're going to go and you're going to pray over somebody who may have some kind of preternatural condition or other kind of oppressive oppressive condition I would do that with supervision well this new committee said that's apparently going to train on the parish priest too you know in this in this area said we should not because when we rebuke them directly that were we're going into battle with Satan and it's sufficient just to say God would you rebuke people informing okay I just was wondering okay where that's going in well I think as I said I don't think there's anything wrong with you doing that in a direct way as a person about yourself but if you were to do that over someone else I would do that directly in concert with the authority of a priest and a team okay thank you fine I hope that helps sure please hi it is but you can have to really speak almost like you're swallowing it okay but don't swallow it please so my question is somewhat two parts so first part if you know somebody who you believed to be under demon demonic attack oppression possession infestation what-have-you a who do you call and be while you're waiting for someone to arrive what do you do well when you say you're waiting for someone to arrive are you like expecting this like an EMT to show up within five minutes know what you're doing the meanwhile yeah what do you do in the meanwhile if if contacted if you have if you know someone whom you believe has this condition a do they want to be helped they have to want to be helped if they do not want the help of the churched and honestly no amount of prayer if they're dragged kicking and screaming to the priests exorcist or the priests who maybe has gifts of deliverance or whatever no amount of prayer is going to is going to relieve the person because God doesn't interfere and free will if they want help and you believe that this person has the condition you're describing I would contact the congenital of your local diocese and ask your vicar general how what is the protocol I need to follow or go to your local priest and ask your priest what is the load what is the protocol I need to follow in helping my friend get some help that's what I would do and in the meanwhile if your friend isn't is if your friend is a Catholic and they're not churchgoers get them back as best you can into a rhythm of prayer and the sacraments that's that's the first step and I think you always in in the insert of the protocol the last as I said before the last thing an exorcist does if there is something preternatural going on is a formal exorcism if I can use deliverance prayer and free the person completely I will do that sometimes out of not so much convenience but out of you want to do the deliverance prayer for a period of time after such time if you think an exorcism will actually work more efficiently you can do that but it's only after you've really kind of gone up the protocol so I'd say either talk to your local priest or you could call the local vicar general of your diocese and they'll put hopefully they'll put you in touch with the Exorcist okay and you said that the person has to want to be helped yes what if they're a relative of yours and they do not want to be helped but you cannot you are tied to them and you know they're in a demonic place unless they want to be helped the rule of thumb is and I mean I've had I've said to folks if they do not want to be helped God isn't going to interfere in free will okay I hope that's helpful yes please you want to do demon pull this pull it down no no no just pull the Mike down why do demons choose to possess people demons choose to possess people for two reasons one demons are parasites and from the time that they rejected God they are gradually dying and so we provide a kind of artificial life for them that they otherwise do not have secondly because they have one goal they already know they've been defeated they've been defeated from the moment that Christ died in the cross their goal is to take as many of to hell and condemnation with them is possible so the possession is to fold a because it gives them life and to because they want to isolate us away from the opportunities for salvation that are ours but by isolating us away and drawing us into a deeper dark reality with them they want us basically to be condemned with them thank you okay okay I know this that there's a lot of hurt in our society you want to speak closer to the microphone please I know that there's a lot of hurt in our society what can we be doing as laypeople to try to encourage people to get help well I think what you can do first of all you can pray for them and then you can say to them that each diocese should have a kind of protocol whereby when these kinds of situations arise there's hopefully a response available to them a lot of the people who email me from around the United States are usually people who don't know that there's a protocol or they've contacted their diocese and sometimes they've hit a brick wall and they don't know where to go so sometimes what we will do is we'll put them in touch if there is an exorcist in that diocese we'll put them in touch via email with that Exorcist and if there's one if there isn't one we'll put one put them in touch with somebody who's relatively close by I could just be closer to the microphone I've noticed a lot a lot going on around I've also have travelled in different parts of the country and there are some areas where I've noticed a lot more activity than others mm-hmm well I mean I think each Bishop in each local church have to deal with it as they see fit okay thank you we have time for one more question and father Gary Thomas will be available afterwards hi hello father good evening to you good evening I don't have a lot of personal experience with this but I've heard of mediums before people who talk to spirits or so they seem so I wondered if you consider mediums to be a doorway to demons or evil spirits or if they're an appropriate interaction with souls that are still on earth my problem with mediums is that you don't know where the medium has gotten their power now there are people who are gifted in other words they can read minds they can they have a sense of the future they might even be able to see spirits of dead people and demons there are people who have that ability my problem with the mediums is a where do they get their power and be who are they in touch with because it's a form of divination there is a lot of I've had people call me who have and I've had people come and see me who've been to mediums and what that has done to them that has open them up whereby the tie between them and the medium created the possibility of something demonic and so that's why I always say you need you need to stay away you need to stay away from that because you're using an artificial means to go around God I'm not suggesting that mediums are people doing things in bad faith sometimes mediums are frauds something they do this for money exorcists don't do this room we don't do we don't take a dime for any of this sometimes if they're not sometimes there are gifted people sometimes you know they are very sincere but I tell folks I would not do go there you're you're tying yourself to someone who may have it the person may have gotten their power from a demon themselves so that's why I say it's a form a divination and that's why I tell people to avoid that okay before you was this helpful was this okay okay if you when you walk out of here tonight I just want to say one more thing when I've said it already do not be afraid Christ has won the battles go on the war has been won that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be vigilant against evil in all of its forms there's a condition of evil there are events that are evil but there is also in our belief system there is personified evil and it's been brought down through the ages all the way from the time of Scripture so this is not medieval this is not mythological this is not you know symbolic Satan is real but if you stay in the realm of what I disguise what I presented already you have nothing to fear resist the devil live a life all of us together in solidarity always staying in the grace of God and always having our sights on heaven you you

Channel: St. John XXIII Catholic Church

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Published: Thu Apr 21 2016