Latest / Arena Ablaze Podcast / How Catholic Men Fight Back Under Spiritual Attack

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How Catholic Men Fight Back Under Spiritual Attack · Arena Ablaze Podcast

0:03
Welcome into the arena.
0:05
This is the Arena of Blaze podcast.
0:07
I'm your willing host Marco Sandoval doing it
0:10
solo today so it's gonna be a little
0:12
different delivery for me.
0:15
On this podcast our goal is to inspire
0:18
men to join us in passing through the
0:20
gate of Mary and being found worthy to
0:23
wield the most powerful sword the world will
0:25
ever know in the spiritual battle that rages
0:28
all around us, the holy face of Jesus.
0:32
Today I'm going to be talking about spiritual
0:35
attacks and spiritual warfare but before we get
0:38
into that topic let's do as we always
0:40
do and put ourselves in in the hands
0:43
of Mary that we may be an instrument
0:44
of Mary that we may always do everything
0:49
within through and for Mary so that she
0:52
can lead us to do everything within and
0:55
for Jesus more perfectly.
0:58
I, Marco Sandoval, a repentant sinner, renew and
1:02
ratify today in your hands, O Immaculate Mother,
1:07
the vows of my baptism.
1:09
I renounce Satan and resolve to follow Jesus
1:13
Christ even more closely than before.
1:17
Mary, I give you my heart.
1:19
Please set it on fire with love for
1:22
Jesus.
1:23
Make it always attentive to his burning thirst
1:26
for love and for souls.
1:28
Keep my heart in your most pure heart
1:30
that I may love Jesus and the members
1:33
of his body with your own perfect love.
1:37
Mary, I entrust myself totally to you, my
1:41
body and soul, my goods, both interior and
1:45
exterior, and even the value of all my
1:48
good actions.
1:49
Please make of me of all that I
1:52
am and have whatever most pleases you.
1:56
Let me be a fit instrument in your
1:59
immaculate and merciful hands for bringing the greatest
2:02
possible glory to God.
2:05
If I fall, please lead me back to
2:07
Jesus.
2:08
Wash me in the blood and water that
2:11
flow from his pure side and help me
2:14
never to lose my trust in this fountain
2:16
of love and mercy.
2:18
With you, O Immaculate Mother, you who always
2:22
do the will of God, I unite myself
2:25
to the perfect consecration of Jesus as he
2:29
offers himself in spirit to the Father for
2:33
the life of the world.
2:34
Amen.
2:35
Okay, so today we're going to be talking
2:37
about spiritual attacks and spiritual warfare.
2:41
This topic is kind of raw and fresh
2:43
for me at the moment.
2:45
I'm in the middle of one.
2:47
It's kind of funny, when I first came
2:49
to join what Father Kearney was wanting to
2:53
do, I feel like I've been under spiritual
2:56
attack for probably 15 years now.
2:59
So they kind of come and go, but
3:02
everything from my marriage to the work of
3:06
my hands to starting a business and having
3:10
kind of my business attacked.
3:12
It's just kind of a way of life,
3:13
I guess, for me at this point.
3:16
But coming into this Holy Face Devotion, hearing
3:20
where the Holy Face Devotion came from and
3:24
how it's been directed at Freemasonry and the
3:28
Communists and really the world that we're living
3:31
in today, how it's kind of been hidden
3:32
for so long and how we're trying to
3:35
bring it out and reveal the power to
3:37
others around us so we can build an
3:39
army that will not only display it, but
3:43
will pray and offer the wounded face of
3:46
Jesus to God, and knowing that the fate
3:50
that a lot of the people along this
3:51
journey have suffered, knowing that you're going to
3:54
be part of that spiritual battle, that you're
3:56
going to have to be in the war,
3:58
which means there's going to be an enemy
3:59
attacking you.
4:00
So that's kind of the genesis of this
4:03
episode today.
4:04
Basically, I'm going through a situation where I'm
4:10
being attacked by people very close to me.
4:14
These attacks have happened right in the middle
4:18
of the Men in Blue Army, right as
4:21
we had a meeting of men.
4:23
So it's kind of thrown that into disarray.
4:29
The Men in Blue Army are part of
4:31
this Arena Blaze podcast, so any dysfunction in
4:37
the Men in Blue Army affects this Arena
4:38
Blaze podcast.
4:40
The whole purpose of this Arena Blaze podcast,
4:43
the genesis of it, is to spread the
4:45
Holy Face devotion and give Father Kearney a
4:48
distribution channel to preach and kind of follow
4:51
up those who are interested.
4:54
So it affects Father Kearney, the mission of
4:57
the Holy Face.
4:59
Once this happens, the damaged path just kind
5:02
of continues to expand in ways that you
5:06
don't know and expect.
5:07
I'm sure there's plenty of people out there
5:09
who experience this on a day-to-day
5:12
basis.
5:12
So I just thought I'd talk about it.
5:15
I've been kind of interested in Father Ripperger.
5:18
I watched his two episodes with Sean Ryan.
5:22
I watched his episode with Tucker.
5:24
This has been a while ago.
5:26
I recently went back and refreshed on the
5:29
first Sean Ryan episode because there's a lot
5:30
of really good fruit there.
5:32
So I would highly encourage anybody who's out
5:35
there swimming against the current of society, trying
5:39
to speak the name of Jesus Christ into
5:41
the society, into your different arenas in life,
5:45
to go look at those.
5:47
I think the first, probably the most important
5:51
aspect is to understand the enemy.
5:55
That's like step one.
5:56
If you're going to engage in a battle,
5:58
you've got to learn your enemy.
6:00
You've got to understand how your enemy operates.
6:02
You've got to understand your defenses and where
6:05
your defenses might be weak so that you
6:08
can strengthen yourself to go into battle.
6:12
So one of the things that jumped out
6:14
the most in reviewing that episode is that
6:19
he said 23% of the Gospels are
6:21
about Christ commanding demons, casting out demons.
6:25
So a big part of his ministry was
6:28
dealing with demonic possession, demonic obsession, and we'll
6:34
get into those things, but that's astounding.
6:38
A quarter of what he came to do
6:40
in the Gospels was to deal and give
6:43
us witness with the demonic effect on us
6:46
in the world and to help us with
6:50
that.
6:52
One of the other things that Father Ripperger
6:54
said that stuck out to me was that
6:56
demonic attacks on good families are way up
6:59
in our times.
7:02
He attributed a lot of that just to
7:04
the erosion of society.
7:08
He said that the main doorway that demonic
7:12
attack comes in through is the Sixth Commandment.
7:17
Not being faithful to the Sixth Commandment, so
7:22
you shall not commit adultery, that's the Sixth
7:24
Commandment.
7:27
When you think about that, it seems directly
7:31
as if that's adultery in marriage, cheating on
7:34
your wife, which I have personal experience with
7:38
that.
7:38
I had suffered with that in my previous
7:40
life greatly, but that is just a piece
7:44
of it.
7:45
When you're thinking about the Sixth Commandment, you're
7:47
talking about not only sex outside of marriage,
7:50
so if you're married, if you're not married,
7:52
premarital sex, you're talking about homosexuality, you're talking
7:55
about pornography, you're talking about masturbation, you're talking
7:59
about, as Christ says, adultery occurs in the
8:03
mind before you ever act on it, so
8:06
you're talking about impure thoughts.
8:09
It's huge, and we're all under attack by
8:12
that.
8:13
We almost can't go anywhere in society where
8:15
we don't have music that enters our ears
8:18
that's talking about that, or a movie that
8:22
most of the movie is interesting and brings
8:25
good to us, but there are scenes in
8:26
there that interact with our imagination, which we'll
8:29
get into.
8:30
He talks a lot about imagination.
8:33
He mentioned how content has been cursed, and
8:36
that's kind of like a big piece of
8:40
the music industry is cursed content.
8:42
I love music.
8:43
I always have loved music.
8:45
I grew up in the 90s, the mid
8:48
-90s, where I was listening to a lot
8:50
of Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, and I'm
8:53
like, the 90s got the best music, and
8:55
it's the beat.
8:57
Mostly, I would always say it's the beat.
8:58
I don't really like the words, but I
9:00
love the beat.
9:01
It's like the Pied Piper.
9:03
Those beats lead you into your subconscious, and
9:07
the words are getting into you whether you
9:09
realize it or not.
9:11
At some point in my life, I start
9:13
saying every single song is about God.
9:18
It's a disordered understanding of God.
9:22
A lot of those songs are putting money
9:23
as an idol in place of God.
9:26
They're putting women as an idol in place
9:29
of God.
9:30
Sex in place of God.
9:33
Really, that's kind of what we're all inundated
9:35
with, so it's really no surprise.
9:40
I've mentioned it before, and I mention it
9:42
all the time, but when I coach these
9:44
girls a lot of times, I talk to
9:45
them about it.
9:46
This is the first place that Satan's going
9:49
to come get you because it's the easiest
9:50
place.
9:51
It's the earliest place.
9:52
Maybe we stole a pack of gum or
9:55
a pack of baseball cards when we were
9:57
in elementary school.
10:00
Obviously, that's a place, but shortly thereafter, when
10:05
you get into high school, we're all under
10:07
this peer pressure of sexuality, giving our virginity
10:14
away.
10:15
Once we do that, we get the yoke
10:16
of Satan on our neck.
10:18
As Father Ripperberger says in the Sixth Commandment,
10:21
this is the most easy access door for
10:25
demonic activity in our lives.
10:29
He went through seven.
10:30
I'm just going to hit on a few
10:32
of them, mainly these ones that I'm experiencing,
10:35
the current situation I'm in, or things that
10:37
I think about as part of it.
10:40
Infestation was one that he brought up.
10:43
The diabolic can get into your homes, can
10:46
get into your animals, can get into inanimate
10:48
objects.
10:49
I never really think much about that.
10:52
He later says that as the head of
10:56
household, as men, the leaders of your house,
10:59
you should never allow your sins to come
11:01
into your home.
11:03
That's something to really consider.
11:05
When we talk about pornography, for instance, if
11:09
you're in your home viewing pornography, that's opening
11:13
the doorway into your home for your sins.
11:15
Just think about that.
11:18
Then, the things you can do to try
11:21
to rectify those situations and make those spaces
11:24
holy again, bring the Holy Spirit, bring grace
11:28
into those spaces.
11:29
The first thing I would think is bring
11:31
a priest in to bless your home.
11:34
Get some holy water sprinkled around your home.
11:36
I think people don't really think about that.
11:40
Then when things like what happened in the
11:42
situation I'm in happen in your home, you
11:45
start looking around and thinking, are there things
11:47
in this house that are working against me?
11:52
Definitely, that's one to keep front of mind.
11:54
He called another one to be an ordinary
11:57
activity.
11:58
Those are temptations, plays in your imagination.
12:04
Demons can put perspectives on your imagination.
12:07
He talked about marriage where when you first
12:11
get married, you look at your wife and
12:13
you think, she's just wonderful, she's beautiful, she
12:16
does all these things for me, she's so
12:18
great, I love being married.
12:19
Then as you get married, as you're married
12:21
longer, maybe some of that newlywed stuff falls
12:25
away and the perspective on your mind is
12:27
like, she's never thankful for the things I
12:31
do, she's always on my case.
12:33
Those type of perspectives definitely just opens your
12:39
mind to think.
12:41
A lot of this is just putting space
12:44
between yourself and your emotions.
12:46
This is something that I often do.
12:48
I just told that to somebody as part
12:51
of this recently.
12:54
I just said, I need time.
12:56
I need some time.
12:58
I don't trust anything that's coming from inside
13:00
of me right now.
13:01
I don't trust much that's coming from outside
13:03
of me right now.
13:04
When I say that, what I'm saying is
13:06
my own emotions.
13:08
I don't trust my emotions.
13:09
I think they lie to me often.
13:12
That's because Satan, that's really the only ground
13:15
that he has to work is in our
13:17
emotions and our passions.
13:19
A lot of times I just try to
13:20
put distance between myself to let those things
13:23
die down.
13:26
Other people outside of you can be very
13:28
emotional about the situation.
13:30
It can come with demands on you.
13:33
I just think space to let their emotions
13:36
subside so that you can see clearly.
13:39
This is a huge course of action.
13:43
I guess a battle tactic in these situations.
13:46
Perspective, I don't think a lot about that.
13:49
It's a big one.
13:51
Satan seeks and the demonic, they seek to
13:53
separate us, to separate people psychologically.
13:56
They want to separate us, husbands from wives.
14:00
Because then once you get space in between
14:02
husband and wife, then those things can be
14:04
exploited.
14:05
It's the authority structure of your home.
14:09
Husband and wife, husband's the head, he's the
14:13
leader, but his wife is right there together
14:18
helping make decisions, help leading us to Christ.
14:24
We're gonna get into this with this podcast.
14:26
It's on my list in the future, but
14:28
marriage, the sacrament of marriage.
14:35
In the Catholic Church we don't talk a
14:38
lot about spiritual warfare.
14:41
I don't know that we ever talk about
14:42
it.
14:42
I don't hear homilies and mass talking about
14:46
it.
14:46
We don't have courses that tell us about
14:49
it, teach us what to do.
14:50
It's the same way with our marriages.
14:53
It's a sacrament of the church, so we
14:55
know there's special graces.
14:58
These are areas where Jesus Christ pours his
15:02
own self into these areas of our life.
15:06
We don't often know how to access those
15:09
graces.
15:10
We don't pray for the special graces of
15:12
our marriage.
15:14
It's like a very powerful weapon that's hiding
15:19
in plain sight that we do not access.
15:22
We do not intentionally access the special graces
15:25
of our marriage.
15:26
So that's something that we all need to
15:28
improve on, and if somebody watching this knows
15:31
of a way to do that, please drop
15:34
a comment.
15:34
I'd love to explore it.
15:37
Something I'll be talking to Father Kearney about,
15:40
a prayer specifically for activating the graces of
15:44
our marriage.
15:45
Prayers for specifically activating the sacramental graces of
15:49
our confirmation.
15:50
That's another one that we don't talk enough
15:52
about.
15:53
They can also increase emotions.
15:57
They can move our emotions.
15:58
They can cause emotions in us, so just
16:02
be aware of that.
16:04
As a general rule, I always feel like
16:06
my emotions are lying to me at first
16:08
blush, so I kind of ignore them or
16:11
pray that they go away or subside so
16:14
that my mind can be clear to make
16:16
decisions.
16:17
Oppression was another one.
16:19
Oppression, those are attacks from outside.
16:22
So this is like your finances, your property
16:26
being damaged, your peripherals, your relationships, your father
16:31
-son, father-daughter, your marriage relationships, your friend
16:35
relationships, your working relationships.
16:38
These are attacks in all these areas.
16:42
Obsession was another one.
16:44
These are attacks of the interior faculties, your
16:48
imagination again, your emotions.
16:51
You're constantly thinking, you're obsessing about what am
16:54
I going to do?
16:56
What have I done?
16:57
What could I have done better?
16:59
In this situation, I've had some time where
17:01
I'm thinking, what could I have done better?
17:04
What could I have done differently?
17:06
Is this my fault?
17:09
Again, those are just gotta put distance between
17:12
yourself and those things.
17:15
Anger, fear, self-hatred, all of these emotions
17:19
are emotions that I would say are not
17:22
to be trusted at first blush.
17:25
Gotta sort through them.
17:28
One of the things that was asked in
17:30
the view was, what can we do?
17:33
What can we do?
17:36
Just to give witness, I get accused of
17:39
being self-righteous.
17:40
I get accused of thinking I'm better than
17:43
other people a lot when I talk about
17:44
these things.
17:47
That's something I pray a lot.
17:48
I take that to confession a lot.
17:51
Please protect me from being self-righteous, from
17:55
thinking I'm better because that's not my intention.
17:58
My intention every time I sit down here
18:00
is just to be a man, flawed as
18:03
I am, in the arena talking about my
18:07
life, the good, the bad, the ugly, the
18:10
things that I have learned to do to
18:12
live a better life, the things that bear
18:17
fruit in my life essentially.
18:20
When this situation happened, we're right in the
18:24
thick of it.
18:25
There's a lot of things that are being
18:28
said and done around me that are making
18:32
my emotions go crazy.
18:34
The first thing that I could do when
18:37
I had the opportunity to do it was
18:39
to disappear and go pray my rosary.
18:42
I always reach for my rosary.
18:47
Why do I do that?
18:49
Saint Padre Pio calls it the weapon.
18:53
I have come to believe that this is
18:55
the spiritual weapon.
18:59
Again, we'll get into this at some point.
19:02
It's been on our heart.
19:03
One of the first things was, as a
19:06
young person, people who weren't Catholic would say,
19:09
why do you worship Mary?
19:11
Why do you worship the rosary?
19:12
Why do you pray this rosary and worship
19:14
Mary?
19:15
That just was such a puzzling thing to
19:16
me because I'm like, we don't.
19:19
We don't even talk about Mary that much.
19:22
I just was confused.
19:24
As I've gotten older, I'm like, we don't
19:26
worship Mary.
19:27
We worship Jesus Christ.
19:29
Mary leads us to Jesus.
19:30
Then I'm like, we don't talk about Mary
19:32
enough.
19:34
We don't talk about Mary enough because she
19:36
is such a powerful intercessor and advocate for
19:40
us, leading us to her son.
19:43
The rosary, Bishop Barron will say, calms the
19:46
monkey mind.
19:48
I find it to be that way.
19:50
Your anxiety mind, you go sit for 25
19:53
minutes or so and go through the mysteries
19:57
of the rosary, the Our Father multiple times,
20:01
Hail Mary multiple times.
20:02
All these prayers come from Scripture.
20:05
It just calms you, soothes you, puts your
20:08
mind on something other than yourself for 25
20:10
minutes.
20:11
When you come out of that, I always
20:13
receive grace.
20:14
I feel the grace in my heart.
20:16
Not only have I done something for 25
20:20
minutes, let's not think about myself, but where
20:24
special grace has come from it.
20:26
That's my first thing I did, go pray
20:28
the rosary.
20:29
After that, the next thing I did was,
20:31
hey, I'm gonna go to adoration, Eucharistic adoration
20:33
we talked about before.
20:35
I have a Eucharistic adoration chapel, perpetual chapel,
20:39
10 minutes down the road from me.
20:41
I set out my car to go do
20:42
that.
20:43
I started driving and looked in the mirror
20:46
and thought, I'm not suitable for that, which
20:49
I will say is, you know, the devil
20:52
kind of like increasing, you know, emotions of
20:57
shame probably in me.
20:59
Instead, I just went for a drive.
21:02
I'm just kind of letting my thoughts settle
21:04
down.
21:04
All these things to me are kind of
21:06
like going into the desert, isolating myself so
21:09
that I can hear, getting the noise out
21:12
of my ears so I can hear.
21:15
Yeah, so that's kind of what I did
21:16
right afterwards.
21:18
What Father Ripperger says are, you know, extra
21:20
prayer, extra suffering, extra fasting.
21:25
So fasting is, you know, not eating meals
21:27
and offering.
21:28
When you feel hungry, you offer that sensation
21:31
to Jesus as a sacrifice for special graces
21:35
for whatever your intention is.
21:37
So I love that.
21:39
I've used that to great effect in other
21:41
trials and situations.
21:42
Actually, matter of fact, right now I'm fasting.
21:45
I fasted yesterday.
21:47
Why?
21:49
There was a Mass.
21:51
So we interviewed Bob Powers, and he's a
21:55
daily Mass goer, and I said, I've always
21:57
wanted to go to daily Mass.
21:59
So when this situation occurred, the first thing
22:01
for me is, well, there's a Latin Mass
22:03
on Thursday nights, and that's an extra Mass.
22:07
I go on Wednesday mornings there, and now
22:10
I'm gonna go on Thursday nights.
22:11
I'm gonna offer that Mass for this situation.
22:14
So 6 p.m. Eucharist, I'm not gonna
22:16
eat anything.
22:17
I'm gonna keep myself completely empty for the
22:20
Eucharist at 6 p.m., so that's why
22:22
I fasted.
22:23
But as part of that, every time I
22:25
feel that hunger, it connects me to why
22:28
I'm doing it.
22:29
It's a prayer that I'm offering up for
22:32
this situation, for the people involved in this
22:34
situation, so that God's grace may cover them,
22:37
and that they may be converted and brought
22:39
back into communion with God.
22:42
So that's a wonderful thing.
22:45
Also, that's extra that I do.
22:48
You know, pray for your families more, seek
22:52
virtue more was another thing he said.
22:55
Prayer book, which I forgot to get my
22:57
prayer book out and bring it with me,
22:59
but I carry Father Ripperger's Deliverance Prayers book,
23:03
Deliverance Prayers for the Laity.
23:05
I carry that book with me, and it's
23:08
something that's kind of new to me.
23:09
When I started this Holy Face journey, I
23:12
got that book, and I started using it
23:15
before I would go do the procession, and
23:17
then I pray the prayers after.
23:19
Now, this particular time, after doing the procession,
23:22
I didn't pray those prayers after, even though
23:26
I told everybody around me, pray those prayers.
23:28
Make sure you pray those prayers, because Satan
23:31
does not like what we're doing, and so
23:33
you need to protect yourself.
23:35
So pray that you'll be sealed in the
23:38
precious blood of Christ, that he will seal
23:41
you and protect you from attacks of the
23:45
demonic.
23:45
I didn't do that, and lo and behold,
23:47
Monday, these things come to me.
23:51
So that's a very good one.
23:53
I'd like to put a link to that
23:54
on the prayer, on the episode.
23:59
But those prayers, I pray them before and
24:01
after I come to these episodes.
24:03
Anytime in this situation, there are people who
24:06
need protection around me, so I pray for
24:09
those.
24:09
It's very important to use those prayers in
24:11
the proper authority structure.
24:13
So as a father of my family, I
24:14
can pray those for my wife, my children,
24:17
but it's got to be under your authority.
24:22
Pray the Rosary every day.
24:23
That's something I do every day.
24:24
I've done that for, oh, it's probably been
24:27
four years now.
24:29
I said in a past episode, my wife
24:32
witnessed that to me, and she prayed the
24:34
Rosary for me every day, so I started
24:35
praying it.
24:36
I prayed it this morning.
24:38
As a matter of fact, today I went
24:39
to Eucharistic Adoration.
24:41
I needed confession.
24:42
I had been to confession since this happened.
24:45
I went to confession before I came here.
24:48
So staying in a state of grace is
24:50
so very important.
24:51
I celebrate the first Saturday's devotion, so Our
24:55
Lady of Fatima asked and requested that every
24:58
first Saturday that we go to Mass, we
25:01
go to confession, we spend 15 minutes meditating
25:05
on the mysteries of the Rosary, and we
25:07
receive Eucharist at Mass.
25:09
So I do that, so I go to
25:10
confession every month as part of that.
25:13
But like I say, I've said before, every
25:16
two weeks I feel like I'm dying of
25:18
thirst, and so when something major like this
25:20
happens in your life, go to confession as
25:23
quickly as you can.
25:25
You need the special graces.
25:28
St. Relics was another thing he mentioned.
25:31
Sacramentals.
25:32
I mean, I wear a brown scapular, my
25:38
crucifix.
25:39
I wear this Lorraine cross.
25:41
It's been blessed by Father Carney, so I've
25:44
got St. Benedict's medal on my sacramental.
25:50
I got St. Benedict's medal, miraculous medal.
25:52
I wear those things with me all the
25:54
time for extra protection.
25:56
Holy water and oil was another thing that
25:58
he mentioned that you can use.
26:00
He also said that St. Michael is the
26:02
guardian angel of the elect, so that's, you
26:05
know, that's all of us that believe in
26:08
Jesus Christ.
26:09
We're the elect, so St. Michael prayer, pray
26:12
that often.
26:14
He's there to battle Satan and protect us.
26:17
He said to lead good and holy lives,
26:20
always be striving to do what is good
26:23
and to lead holy lives.
26:26
You know, I think sometimes we forget to,
26:29
we just don't talk in terms of a
26:32
good and evil, and it's like when we
26:34
call something as evil, a lot of people
26:37
get offended by that.
26:39
Really, evil is a lack of good, is
26:42
all it is.
26:43
I mean, and these battles that we're in,
26:46
as St. Paul says, our battles are not
26:48
against flesh and blood, they're against the powers
26:51
and principalities.
26:53
So we are earthen vessels, each one of
26:56
us.
26:56
We have the ability to channel Jesus Christ
27:00
into the world.
27:01
We also have the ability to channel Satan
27:03
and the demonic in the world.
27:04
Like, we're, there's a battle raging over us.
27:08
You know, Satan can only act upon the
27:10
world through us, essentially.
27:14
Christ seeks to act in the world through
27:16
us.
27:17
We're the body of Christ, the church.
27:19
So it's so very important to stay in
27:22
the sacraments.
27:25
You know, as we go through these different
27:27
types of demonic effect, I can look back
27:31
on my life.
27:32
There were times where I was the source.
27:37
You know, I was doing things.
27:39
I was being tempted and falling subject to
27:43
temptation and doing things that were wreaking havoc
27:45
in my life.
27:47
At this point in my life, of course,
27:49
I have temptations, but I just am much
27:53
more aware of it.
27:55
Thanks be to God.
27:56
I seek the grace of God constantly.
27:59
So, thanks be to God, I don't fall
28:02
in those temptations like I used to, by
28:07
His grace and grace alone.
28:09
And so I feel like Satan moves into
28:13
your peripherals.
28:15
You know, Father Ripperger mentioned this, and so
28:18
he's gonna use your work.
28:19
He's gonna use those close to you.
28:22
He's gonna use other methods.
28:24
If he can't get to you to be
28:26
the source, he's gonna find other ways to
28:28
be the source.
28:29
So it's, you know, always encouraging, being a
28:32
leader in your family, encouraging your family to
28:35
go to confession regularly, to be in the
28:37
sacraments, to receive the Eucharist regularly.
28:41
It's just huge as a Christian man in
28:44
this world, knowing that, as Father Ripperger said,
28:49
good families are in the eye of Satan
28:53
the demonic.
28:54
They're attacking us.
28:55
The family is under tremendous attack.
28:59
So, by doing this, he says, you can
29:06
be a conduit of grace to others in
29:09
your family and outside your family.
29:10
It's very important to be that.
29:12
And as fathers, you know, our role is
29:15
to provide protection for our families.
29:17
We are the proper authority under which our
29:20
family resides, so we should always be doing
29:23
this.
29:23
And as part of this that occurred to
29:24
me, that I spent a lot of time
29:28
praying for specific members of my family, but
29:32
there are other members of my family that
29:33
I have not spent enough time praying for,
29:36
and so it's a wake-up call.
29:38
Like, I need to pray for all those
29:42
members of my family, all those Christian brothers
29:45
and sisters who have fallen away, because as
29:47
we know, as part of this devotion, it's
29:50
not the death of the sinner that God
29:52
desires.
29:53
What he desires is their conversion.
29:57
So, after I went to confession today at
30:00
the Cathedral, we have this beautiful sculpture of
30:03
the Pieta in the foyer there.
30:05
I walked through there, and I was looking
30:06
at the Pieta, just kind of spent a
30:08
moment there just looking at it, and just
30:10
thinking, you know, watching, looking at Jesus in
30:15
death, laying in his arms of his mother.
30:20
So, you know, oftentimes in our world, when
30:24
we hear the word death, we think of
30:25
mortal death, we think of, you know, somebody
30:28
who's no longer living and buried, and, you
30:31
know, we don't see him any longer, but,
30:33
you know, death is truly a spiritual death,
30:36
so when we think about he doesn't want
30:39
the death of the sinner, he doesn't want
30:41
people in spiritual sickness, he doesn't want people
30:44
to be outside of communion with him, he
30:47
doesn't want people to be in an estranged
30:50
state from God.
30:52
We've got to be praying for their reversion
30:55
and full communion with the church to come
30:58
back, and so I'm gonna spend a lot
31:00
more time doing that in the coming months
31:03
and years.
31:05
Just a word about this little sculpture here.
31:10
I love this sculpture.
31:12
I love the flight to Egypt.
31:15
It's such a mystery to me.
31:19
I've often wondered, or you read the Scriptures
31:21
and you read, you know, the beginning of
31:25
Jesus's ministry all the way from the beginning
31:28
of the Annunciation, and just like, you think
31:32
that when you're serving the Lord, when you're
31:36
trying, when your intention is to serve the
31:38
Lord, to speak the name of Jesus Christ
31:41
into the world, and in this case the
31:45
Holy Family bringing him into the world and
31:47
raising him up, you think that life's gonna
31:51
be easy.
31:52
It's, you know, how could it be difficult?
31:55
You have, you have God incarnate on your
31:59
lap, but as you know from the biblical
32:02
stories, it was anything but easy.
32:04
In this particular story, I, especially during COVID,
32:07
I would think about what happened immediately before
32:10
this, where Herod came and he was seeking
32:14
Jesus, and he put to death all the
32:16
two-year and under-year-old first born
32:20
males in the city, and this is why
32:23
they were, their flight to Egypt was to
32:26
leave the place so that Jesus would be
32:28
protected, right?
32:31
And so I've thought, well, you know, Jesus
32:34
could have snapped his fingers and made none
32:36
of that occur.
32:38
Like, why did that occur?
32:39
I don't know.
32:40
It's a great mystery.
32:42
It truly is, but I would look at
32:45
that sometimes and think, well, he had a
32:48
destiny, his own, his own work in the
32:51
world, and so he had to go do
32:53
his work, and whatever else was going on
32:56
around him, obviously he was aware of it
32:59
and in control of it, but, you know,
33:03
another example of this is in the temple.
33:06
When they find him in the temple, he
33:07
says, tells them, well, didn't you know I'd
33:10
be about my father's work?
33:11
So they were experiencing anxiety, searching for him,
33:15
not having an easy life.
33:17
He's not telling them what he's doing.
33:18
He just goes and does it, and then
33:20
he says, I must be about my father's
33:22
business.
33:23
And so I think this is a wonderful
33:24
image for me when these type of things
33:27
come up, and I think, maybe I shouldn't
33:29
be doing this.
33:31
Maybe I need to do something different.
33:34
I just think, no, this is the Lord's
33:38
work.
33:39
I believe in it.
33:42
I see the evils in the world, and
33:45
I want to make, I want to do
33:47
something to move the needle.
33:49
So this is a beautiful piece that reminds
33:52
me of that.
33:53
Okay, so in wrapping this episode up, I
33:56
would just first and foremost ask for your
33:59
prayers.
34:01
Anybody watching this, please pray for me.
34:04
Please pray for Father Carney.
34:06
Please pray for the propagation and protection of
34:09
this Holy Face mission, of all that we're
34:12
doing, and there's so much that we're working
34:14
on.
34:14
This is just a piece of it.
34:17
My heart's moved to do so many things,
34:20
from the Holy Face chaplet that we're working
34:24
on, that has the Lorraine Cross and the
34:27
actual shroud of St. Veronica's veil image of
34:33
Jesus, to just many different things.
34:35
And so I know that as we work
34:37
through those things, we're going to continue to
34:40
come under this kind of withering attack.
34:42
So I would just say pray for those
34:45
protection for those things, and know that, you
34:50
know, I'll always add, as part of my
34:52
Decades to the Rosary, I add prayers for
34:55
the Blue Army.
34:56
Anybody past, present, future associated with Blue Army
34:58
men and Blue Army softball, but also this
35:03
Arena Ablaze podcast.
35:06
Praying for all those who take in this
35:08
content, and pray that you'll go do these
35:12
things in your life, and that, you know,
35:15
when these situations come up, that you will
35:18
be able to see what is at play,
35:25
that you'll be able to step back from
35:26
it, and that you'll be able to pray
35:30
for the protections that you need to go
35:33
into this battle.