May 31: Pentecost Day

On this day, nearly 2,000 years ago, Holy Spirit, our helper, guide, comforter and healer filled the Church with power

 This year, Pentecost will be on May 31, 2020, observed on the seventh Sunday after Easter (April 12).
 Modern Christians observe Pentecost as a holiday, not to celebrate a wheat harvest, but to remember when the Holy Spirit invaded the Church in Acts 2 of Bible.
 The Holy Spirit filled the Church with power and added 3,000 new believers. The account in Act 2 reports that, after Jesus ascended into heaven, Jesus’ followers were gathered together for the Feast of Harvest (aka Pentecost), and the Holy Spirit “filled the whole house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:2). “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” (Acts 2:4). 
 This strange occurrence drew a large crowd, and Peter stood up to speak to them about repentance and the gospel of Christ (Acts 2:14). By the end of the day that the Holy Spirit came, the Church grew by 3,000 people (Acts 2:41). This is why Christians still celebrate Pentecost.
John Gill expresses the significance in his commentary: “Through this baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire, the apostles became more knowing, and had a greater understanding of the mysteries of the Gospel, and were more qualified to preach it to people of all nations and languages.”
 The Holy Spirit was prophesied in the Old Testament and promised by Jesus.  Jesus promised the Holy Spirit in John 14:26, who would be the Helper for his people.
 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
This New Testament event is also significant because it fulfills an Old Testament prophecy in Joel 2:28-29. “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.”

 Historical Insights into Pentecost
 There are three things you need to know about Pentecost that will help you understand Acts 2.
1. Pentecost was a pilgrim festival. That meant that according to Jewish Law, all the adult Jewish men would come from wherever they were living to Jerusalem and personally be in attendance during this celebration.
2. Pentecost was a holiday. No servile work was to be done. School was out. The shops were closed. It was party time.
3. There were certain celebrations and sacrifices and offerings which were prescribed in the Law for the day of Pentecost. On Pentecost, the High Priest was to take two loaves of freshly baked wheat bread and offer them before the Lord. The wheat bread was made from the newly harvested wheat.
 In short, Pentecost in the time of the Apostles was a great and grand harvest celebration. The streets of Jerusalem were clogged with thousands of pilgrims who had come from every point of the compass to celebrate the goodness of God and the bringing in of the wheat harvest.
Source: www.christianity.com
 

Church not doing enough exorcism; Vatican, bishops & priests must step up fight against devil

 Catholic Church doesn’t seem to be doing enough exorcism to stop the devil or demons from taking people away from God. Many from the laity and even clergy still doubt whether exorcism is given its due importance in the Catholic Church.

 However, that’s not the case in many denominations. “In some denominations of the 
Protestant church, exorcisms are still practiced frequently and fruitfully,” wrote late Fr Gabriele Amorth, the official exorcist of Rome, in one of his books.

 Satan or devil or demon is not a concept. It’s an active force, a living, spiritual being that is perverted and that perverts others. It is a terrible reality, mysterious and frightening. We must destroy them to save souls for God.

  While the people – including Christians -- across the world are swimming in a sea of sins, there’s hardly any exorcism done in parishes or dioceses. Priests general avoid talking about the manipulations done by Satan in their sermons. There’s a general reluctance to accept the fact that devil is active in the world, the latest example being the coronavirus pandemic raging across the world. “I must point out that too many churchmen are totally disinterested in these problems (created by Satan), and so they leave the faithful defenseless,” Fr Amorth wrote.

 Whatever exorcism is done happens in Catholic retreat centres where charismatic preachers cast out devil from people. Catholic Church can do much more, especially at a time when more and more people are rampantly indulging in a sinful life.

 However, there are priests who refuse to believe that devil or Satan is a spiritual being with a personality. Their argument is that devil is just an evil power. All this shows that Catholic seminaries should ramp up their curriculum and empower priests in a better way to loosen the grip of Satan/           

 Devil does exist and he’s moving around like a roaring lion. If you give him millimeter of space to him, he will barge in and destroy you and take you away from God. In Bible, we can find several instances when Jesus Christ cast out demons from people. Jesus has given that right to His Apostles, and through them to the priests over centuries.   

 Vatican should spread the message about the need to eliminate the growing influence of devil on people. Bishops across many countries haven’t done anything to strengthen the ministry of exorcism. “Bishops must realize that this ministry is entirely entrusted to their care; it’s only they who can practice or delegate and exorcism. Sadly since most bishops have never performed an exorcism, they are seldom aware of the extent of the need,” said Amorth who performed thousands of exorcism over several decades.

 The first Pope to write about the danger posed by Devil in recent times is Pope Paul VI. “We know that this dark disturbing being exists and that he is still at work with his treacherous cunning; he is the hidden enemy who sows errors and misfortunes in human history… This matter of the Devil and of the influence he can exert on individuals as well as on communities, entire societies or events, is a very important chapter of Catholic doctrine which should be studied again, although it is given little attention today,” Pope Paul VI wrote in 1972.

 “The Christian must be a militant; he must be vigilant and strong; and he must at times make use of special ascetical practices to escape from certain diabolical attacks,” he says.

  It’s very important to get an awareness of evil if we are to have a correct Christian concept of the world, life and salvation. We see this first in the unfolding of the Gospel story at the beginning of Jesus Christ’s public life. Who can forget the highly significant description of the triple temptation of Christ?

 Vatican should lead from the front. Let’s hope and pray that Pope Francis will enlighten and empower people in the fight against devil and demons. Bishops and priests across the world should become warriors of the Lord and increase the awareness among people about the traps being laid by the evil ones. Let’s hope that they will step up their fight against the evil ones and lead people to salvation.

     

Coronavirus: Time to stop death dance of Satan

 Is the world largely out of the protective cover of God? There’s reason to believe it, especially looking at the way Coronavirus pandemic is raging across the world. Who brings death? Satan.

 Who gives life? God.

  When Jesus Christ, the Son of God, showers blessings and grave on people, there can’t be death in such a scale as is happening now. How does a person or place or country go out of the protective cover of God? It happens when sins increase. Naturally. When God’s blessings disappear, Satan takes over. Satan is a killer, liar and manipulator. No wonder, devil is having his macabre dance now in the form of coronavirus.

 Has sin increased in the world? Yes, without doubt. People across the world are swimming in a sea of sins, knowingly or unknowingly that they are being trapped by Satan through different ways.

 Sin happens through different forms. Go through the Ten Commandments. All are being violated rampantly and without any fear of God. From atheism, idolatry (in the form of money, property and people), abortion, sacrilege of the marriage, adultery, homosexuality/ same sex marriage, alcoholism, drug use, amassing of wealth, slander to murders/ killings, sins have multiplied across the world.

 When people sin, God can’t act or shower His blessings unless they seek forgiveness, reconciliation and repentance. Satan knows it very well. The world belongs to Satan as Bible also tells us. Unless we repent and reconcile with God, the death dance of Satan will continue.

  Satan goes berserk when sins increase and more and more people are getting into that trap. Sorry to say sins have multiplied in the so-called Western countries and the US where Coronavirus is taking a huge toll on human lives. God’s grace and blessings are urgently needed in these regions and for that, people will have to repent and turn away from sins. Sin means death. A sinless life with Jesus Christ means eternal life in glory.    

 In Old Testament, we come across many instances when God destroyed cities and regions through flood, fire and pandemics. How can we come out of the crisis? New Testament gives the answer. Follow His words. There’s no other way.

 All these thoughts leave a big question: Has the church lived up to expectations? Doubtful. Church has largely failed in evangelizing the world. Church hasn’t done much to stop the macabre dance of Satan. Church leaders spent more time in institutionalizing the church. Clericalism is at its peak. It has adopted a corporate culture.        

 Church is gripped by a web of obsessions and procedures. “If something should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without meaning and a goal in life,” says Evangelii Gaudium.

 It’s time to seek God. It’s time for repentance. We must keep Satan and his minions out of our lives. Don’t give them control over lives. Satan has tightened his grip now: coronavirus is one example. We don’t know whether anything more is in store. But we can stop Satan’s death dance. As St John the Baptist said, turn away from sins and repent. It’s time now. There’s no other option.

 While each person individually will have to take efforts to come back to Jesus Christ like the prodigal son, church should lead from the front. Go all out against the evil one. Pope, bishops, preachers and priests have a big role to play in this battle. Let’s win this battle. That’s what God wants.

-- George Mathew

 

Lessons From Fr Gabriele Amorth’s First Exorcism

 Fr Gabriele Amorth’s very first exorcism remained especially impressed in his mind. He spoke of it in various interviews and in his book The Last Exorcist: My Battle against Satan, in which he narrates in depth what happened with so many other important exorcisms. (Fr Amorth was an exorcist of the Diocese of Rome who performed thousands of exorcisms over his sixty plus years as a Catholic Priest).

 His first solo exorcism was very particular, because he immediately clashed with Satan himself. After having as­sisted Father Candido Amantini for many years, he exorcised a simple man. The man was very young and slim and came accompanied by a priest and a third person, a translator.

 Initially, Father Amorth did not understand the reason for the translator, so the priest explained to him that when the demoniac was under possession, he spoke in English, and therefore it would be useful to have the translator present in order to understand what he was saying.

 Once the exorcism began, the young peasant did not com­municate with words or gestures; it was as if nothing affected him, not even when Father Amorth invoked the help of the Lord. But after the invocation, when the exorcist priest asked specifically for the help of Jesus, the young man fixed his gaze on him and began to yell in English.

 His curses and threats were aimed solely at the exorcist; then he began spitting at him and preparing to attack him physically; only when Father Amorth arrived at the prayer Praecipio tibi (I command you), did the demon seem to placate himself a bit. But then, screaming and howling, the de­mon burst forth and looked straight at him, drooling saliva from the young man’s mouth. The exorcist, at that point, continued with the rite of liberation, asking and ordering the demon to tell him his name and reveal who he was. Because this was his first exorcism,

 Father Amorth did not expect to receive such a ter­rifying response: “I am Lucifer.”

Thus, with great stupor, Father Amorth discovered that who he had in front of him in those moments was Lucifer in person, but at that point, he certainly could not give up or end the exorcism, so he engaged himself even more. He was convinced that he had to keep going as long as he had the strength.

 So, while he continued with the prayers of liberation, the demon resumed his shrieks, making the possessed turn his head back and his eyes roll; and he remained like this with his back arched for a quarter of an hour. Who could imagine what Father Amorth felt in those moments? Changes also occurred in the environment. All of a sudden, the room became extremely cold and ice crystals formed on the windows and the walls. The exor­cist, refusing to give up, ordered Lucifer to abandon the peasant. But almost in response, the young man’s body stiffened so much that he became hard and at a certain point began to levitate; and for several minutes, he remained hovering three feet in the air. Meanwhile, the exorcist continued with the prayers of liberation. Then, at a certain point, the possessed fell down onto a chair, and a little before disappearing, Lucifer announced the day and the exact hour that he would leave the body of the peasant.

 Father Amorth continued to exorcise the young man each week until the fatal day arrived. Then he let another week pass, and he rescheduled him. Upon his arrival, the young man seemed very tranquil, and in the course of the exorcism, he did not make any objections to the liberations, and indeed, he prayed tranquilly. Father Amorth asked him to explain how Lucifer left him, and he replied that on the day and at the hour that the devil had indicated he would leave, he began to howl like never before. Then, at the end of this, he felt new and light.

Father Amorth Speaks of the Good Angels

 Since exorcism must also be understood in the context of the good angels, Father Amorth wrote one of his columns in the weekly Credo on the good angels:

The angelic creatures who chose to remain faithful to their nature and to the goal for which they were cre­ated — that is, to praise God eternally — did a very simple thing: they remained obedient. They accepted being submissive to God the Creator, and they made their choice in the just view, not the diabolical view of feeling humiliated by this act of submission. To the contrary, in choosing to remain faithful to God, the angels were true to their nature and their end. It was an act of fidelity to the truth for which they were created by God, which is to love Him. This attitude does not humiliate them, because it does not infer a lack of something; rather, it reflects a fullness. 

 The angels have continued to be faithful to their nature, which refers them directly to God the Creator, the one who has inscribed in creation the laws that He considers best for the good of the creature. Thus, the way we read it in the book of Revelation (12:7 and further on) is the way it occurred. There was a giant war between the angels who remained faithful to God and those who rebelled against Him; in other words, the [good] angels against the demons. In those passages, the Bible tells us that the Archangel Michael led the angels into battle, and the rebel angels were guided by the dragon (the devil) and at the end were defeated. As a result, and I cite from memory, “for them there was no longer a place in heaven.”

 Something happened here that the Bible does not declare, but that I have no reason to doubt: the demons created hell — that is, they put themselves in a situation, in a state, that placed them in opposition to God, and in doing so, harmed themselves. Their new condition, known in the Bible as “hell,” means that the dev­ils are forever excluded from paradise — that is, the vision of God, and the goals of enjoyment and eternal happiness for which they were created.

 Therefore, the demons are definitively condemned; for them, there is no longer any possibility of salvation. Why? Because their intelligence, which is much superior to ours, since they are pure spirits, makes their choice definitive, because it was done with full awareness and is therefore not retractable. But the demons do not wish to take back such a choice.

 The same is true, but to the contrary, for the angels who have chosen God and enjoy Him in eternity; and it is also true for the saints, those who are already admitted to the eternal vision of God. And this is true also for us, who are called to sanctity here on earth and, if necessary, in purgatory.

How the Demon Enters Souls

 The journalist Marco Tosatti asked Father Amorth which are the paths preferred by the devil when entering the soul of men. Amorth responded:

 There are four methods the demon utilizes to enter souls; one regards saints, and two are extremely rare. When the demon tempts a person who seems holy, he attempts to make him renounce his godly ways. This case is extremely rare. The other extremely rare case is that of leading a person into a complex of extremely serious sins in a way that is nearly irreversible. In my view, this was the method [that Satan used] with Judas Iscariot. . . . The most frequent case — and I put it at 90 percent — is that of the evil spell. It happens when someone sustains an evil caused by the demon that has been provoked by some person who has turned to Satan or someone who has acted with satanic perfidy.

 The remaining, 10 to 15 percent — I do not have an exact number — regard persons who have participated in occult practices, such as séances or satanic sects, or have contacted wizards and fortune-tellers. These forms of Satanism are widely diffused, and I think that today they are spread by stars and celebrities who have a huge following… I have nothing against rock music; it is very respectable music; I am against satanic rock.

--  Fr Marcello Stanzione

 Published in www.catholicexchange.com

 This article is adapted from Fr. Stanzione’s introduction to a chapter in The Devil is Afraid of Me: The Life and Work of the World’s Most Popular Exorcist. It is available as an ebook or paperback from Sophia Institute Press.

Confronting The Devil’s Power

Confronting The Devil’s Power

Pope Paul VI - 1972

WHAT ARE the Church’s greatest needs at the present time? Don’t be surprised at Our answer and don’t write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of the Church’s greatest needs is to be defended against the evil we call the Devil.

Before clarifying what We mean, We would like to invite you to open your minds to the light that faith casts on the vision of human existence, a vision which from this observation point of faith reaches out to immense distances and penetrates to unique depths. To tell the truth, the picture that we are invited to behold with an all-encompassing realism is a very beautiful one. It is the picture of creation, the work of God. He Himself admired its substantial beauty as an external reflection of His wisdom and power.[1]

Christian vision of the universe

Then there is the interesting picture of the dramatic history of mankind, leading to the history of the Redemption and of Christ; the history of our salvation, with its stupendous treasures of revelation, prophecy and holiness, of life elevated to a supernatural level, of eternal promises.[2] Knowing how to look at this picture cannot help but leave us enchanted.[3] Everything has a meaning, a purpose, an order; and everything gives us a glimpse of a Transcendent Presence, a Thought, a Life and ultimately a Love, so that the universe, both by reason of what it is and of what it is not, offers us an inspiring, joyful preparation for something even more beautiful and more perfect.[4] The Christian vision of the universe and of life is therefore triumphantly optimistic; and this vision fully justifies our joy and gratitude for being alive, so that we sing forth our happiness in celebrating God’s glory.[5]

The mystery of evil

But is this vision complete and correct? Are the defects in the world of no account? What of the things that don’t work properly in our lives? What of suffering and death, wickedness, cruelty and sin? In a word, what of evil? Don’t we see how much evil there is in the world-especially moral evil, which goes against man and against God at one and the same time, although in different ways? Isn’t this a sad spectacle, an unexplainable mystery? And aren’t we-the lovers of the Word, the people who sing of the Good, we believers-aren’t we the ones who are most sensitive and most upset by our observation and experience of evil?

We find evil in the realm of nature, where so many of its expressions seem to speak to us of some sort of disorder. Then we find it among human beings, in the form of weakness, frailty, suffering, death and something worse: the tension between two laws-one reaching for the good, the other directed toward evil. St. Paul points out this torment in humiliating fashion to prove our need a salvific grace, for the salvation brought by Christ,[6] and also our great good fortune in being saved. Even before this, a pagan poet had described this conflict within the very heart of man: “I see what is better and I approve of it, but then I follow the worse.”[7]

We come face to face with sin which is a perversion of human freedom and the profound cause of death because it involves detachment from God, the source of life. And then sin in its turn becomes the occasion and the effect of interference in us and our work by a dark, hostile agent, the Devil. Evil is not merely an absence of something but an active force, a living, spiritual being that is perverted and that perverts others. It is a terrible reality, mysterious and frightening.

Seeking an explanation

It is a departure from the picture provided by biblical Church teaching to refuse to knowledge the Devil’s existence; to regard him as a self-sustaining principle who, unlike other creatures, does not owe his origin to God; or to explain the Devil as a pseudo-reality, a conceptual, fanciful personification of the unknown causes of our misfortunes. When the problem of evil is seen in all its complexity and in its absurdity from the point of view of our limited minds, it becomes an obsession. It poses the greatest single obstacle to our religious understanding of the universe It is no accident that St. Augustine was bothered by this for years: “I sought the source of evil, and I found no explanation.”[9]

Thus we can see how important an awareness of evil is if we are to have a correct Christian concept of the world, life and salvation. We see this first in the unfolding of the Gospel story at the beginning of Christ’s public life. Who can forget the highly significant description of the triple temptation of Christ? Or the many episodes in the Gospel where the Devil crosses the Lord’s path and figures in His teaching?[10] And how could we forget that Christ, referring three times to the Devil as His adversary, describes him as “the prince of this world”?[11]

Other New Testament passages

The lurking shadow of this wicked presence is pointed up in many, many passages of the New Testament. St. Paul calls him the “god of this world,”[12] and warns us of the struggle we Christians must carry on in the dark, not only against one Devil, but against a frightening multiplicity of them. “I put on the armor of God,” the Apostle tells us, “that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the Principalities and the Powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness on high.”[13]

Many passages in the Gospel show us that we are dealing not just with one Devil, but with many.[14] But the principal one is Satan, which means the adversary, the enemy; and along with him are many others, all of them creatures of God, but fallen because they rebelled and were damned[15] — a whole mysterious world, convulsed by a most unfortunate drama about which we know very little.

Man’s fatal tempter

There are many things we do know, however, about this diabolical world, things that touch on our lives and on the whole history of mankind. The Devil is at the origin of mankind’s first misfortune- he was the wily, fatal tempter involved in the first sin, the original sin.[16] That fall of Adam gave the Devil a certain dominion over man, from which only Christ’s Redemption can free us. It is a history that is still going on: let us recall the exorcisms at Baptism, and the frequent references in Sacred Scripture and in the liturgy to the aggressive and oppressive “power of darkness.”[17] The Devil is the number one enemy, the preeminent tempter.

So we know that this dark disturbing being exists and that he is still at work with his treacherous cunning; he is the hidden enemy who sows errors and misfortunes in human history. It is worth recalling the revealing Gospel parable of the good seed and the cockle, for it synthesizes and explains the lack of logic that seems to preside over our contradictory experiences: “An enemy has done this.”[18] He is “a murderer from the beginning, . . . and the father of lies,” as Christ defines him.[19] He undermines man’s moral equilibrium with his sophistry. He is the malign, clever seducer who knows how to make his way into us through the senses, the imagination and the libido, through utopian logic, or through disordered social contacts in the give and take of our activities, so that he can bring about in us deviations that are all the more harmful because they seem to conform to our physical or mental makeup, or to our profound, instinctive aspirations.

Ignoring the Devil

This matter of the Devil and of the influence he can exert on individuals as well as on communities, entire societies or events, is a very important chapter of Catholic doctrine which should be studied again, although it is given little attention today. Some think a sufficient compensation can be found in psychoanalytic and psychiatric studies or in spiritualistic experiences, which are unfortunately so widespread in some countries today.

People are afraid of falling back into old Manichean theories, or into frightening deviations of fancy and superstition. Nowadays they prefer to appear strong and unprejudiced to pose as positivists, while at the same time lending faith to many unfounded magical or popular superstitions or, worse still, exposing their souls-their baptized souls, visited so often by the Eucharistic Presence and inhabited by the Holy Spirit!-to licentious sensual experiences and to harmful drugs, as well as to the ideological seductions of fashionable errors. These are cracks through which the Evil One can easily penetrate and change the human mind.

This is not to say that every sin is directly due to diabolical action;[20] but it is true that those who do not keep watch over themselves with a certain moral rigor[21] are exposed to the influence of the “mystery of iniquity” cited by St. Paul[22] which raises serious questions about our salvation.

Our doctrine becomes uncertain, darkness obscured as it is by the darkness surrounding the Devil. But our curiosity, excited by the certainly of his multiple existence, has a right to raise two questions. Are there signs, and what are they, of the presence of diabolical action? And what means of defense do we have against such an insidious danger?

Presence of diabolical action

We have to be cautious about answering the first question, even though the signs of the Evil One seem to be very obvious at times.[23] We can presume that his sinister action is at work where the denial of God becomes radical, subtle and absurd; where lies become powerful and hypocritical in the face of evident truth; where love is smothered by cold, cruel selfishness; where Christ’s name is attacked with conscious, rebellious hatred,[24] where the spirit of the Gospel is watered down and rejected where despair is affirmed as the last word; and so forth.

But this diagnosis is too extensive and difficult for Us to attempt to probe and authenticate it now. It holds a certain dramatic interest for everyone, however, and has been the subject of some famous passages in modern literature.[25] The problem of evil remains one of the greatest and most lasting problems for the human mind, even after the victorious response given to it by Jesus Christ. “We know,” writes St. John the Evangelist, “that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one.”[26]

Defense against the Devil

It is easier to formulate an answer to the other question- what defense, what remedy should we use against the Devil’s action? — even though it remains difficult to put into practice. We could say: everything that defends us from sin strengthens us by that very fact against the invisible enemy. Grace is the decisive defense. Innocence takes on the aspect of strength. Everyone recalls how often the apostolic method of teaching used the armor of a soldier as a symbol for the virtues that can make a Christian invulnerable.[27] The Christian must be a militant; he must be vigilant and strong;[28] and he must at times make use of special ascetical practices to escape from certain diabolical attacks. Jesus teaches us this by pointing to “prayer and fasting” as the remedy.[29] And the Apostle suggests the main line we should follow: “Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. “[30]

With an awareness, therefore, of the opposition that individual souls, the Church and the world must face at the present time, we will try to give both meaning and, effectiveness to the familiar invocation in our principal prayer: “Our Father . . . deliver us from evil!”

May Our apostolic blessing also be a help toward achieving this.