Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #471 The Reality of Spiritual Warfare; An Ignatius Guide For Everyday Living with Father Ryan Browning! (#2)

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#471 The Reality of Spiritual Warfare; An Ignatius Guide For Everyday Living with Father Ryan Browning! (#2) · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, the production of the John Paul Tour Renewal Center.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: I'm Jack Griggaard, your host, and, as always, I'm glad you're here with me.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: I hope you're doing well.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: I unpacked on Wednesday and where I usually do, theology, the body.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I unpacked an intro to introduce or reintroduce the series that Father Ryan Browning and I recorded during COVID and on the discernment of spirits, a very important understanding for those who really have eyes that are open or opening at this time and sense the spiritual battle we're in today.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: This is Lent and I decided to bring this series back to the forefront.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: So important discernment of spirits, a timeless, practical teaching passed down to us from St Ignatius of Loyola, very helpful in the evil times that we find ourselves in.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: So I hope you get a chance.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Go back and listen to the introduction that I did on Wednesday, which would have been the 13th March 13.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Go back and listen to that.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: I think it's a good setup and it's very.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I think it's an interesting way to set up the big picture so you know what's going on.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: So today I want to reintroduce this work with Father Ryan Browning, who did this for me.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Father Ryan Browning is a spiritual director.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: He is immersed in this battle, the spiritual battle that we have going on.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: He knows St Ignatius really well and these are so important to be able to understand the spiritual warfare that we're in and these rules or guides that St Ignatius of Loyola brought to us, and so, in that opener, I give you a little bit of background of St Ignatius himself, and we'll go through this a little bit as we go forward.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Here again, just a reminder and different things.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I'm just telling you you don't have to, because this is really the first episode with Father Ryan Browning.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: The first one was an intro, but I think it's an important intro, so if you get a chance, go back.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: You don't have to stop this right now, though.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: You can go forward here, but I think you still find that interesting.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: So buckle up and get ready for today's episode.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I'm excited to pumped up to have Father Ryan Browning with me today.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: He's Pastor St Thomas Moor Parish in Elgin, illinois, in Moonlights, as our spiritual director here at the John Paul 2 Renewal Center.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Father was ordained in the Rockford Diocese on June 22, 2013.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: And the teachings of St John Paul II had a big impact on his decision to, first of all, return to the church and then in his priestly life as well.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: The topic that we're covering today is spiritual warfare, and I'll tell you what I just got.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: To be honest with everybody that's listening today, father and I have been working to get the internet going and we've had some problems and some issues.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: It seems to be going good now, but I'll tell you, it's spiritual warfare for sure.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Of all the times I've been doing these podcasts now, I have not had a problem with the internet connection and boom, it was happening.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: It happened on my side.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Father had to do some adjustments on his side.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: So, father, spiritual warfare is real, isn't it?
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: It certainly is.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: It's good to be back with you, Jack.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Good to be back with you.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: I was talking to you earlier, father.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: From Ephesians 6, we're saying Paul said for our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: And yet, Father, as I'm going out and speaking to people, many Catholics I find just don't seriously take their belief in evil and their belief in Satan.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: And give us a little light on that, will you?
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's important that we recognize that we're in a spiritual battle and that has been going on since the beginning, right, the temptations of Adam and Eve in the beginning started it and then, once we ended up under kind of the realm of evil, so to speak, by the original sin, it continues to this day, and even though the Lord has, jesus, has won the war, there are still battles to fight in this world that's broken by sin, and so it's important for us to recognize like, yeah, we're in a battle and we need to understand how that works, because sometimes there are a couple of extremes that go on in the thinking of our Catholic friends.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: One could be first that there is no devil, so don't even worry about it.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: But I mean, anybody that reads the scriptures with any type of reasonable consideration will see that Jesus talks about it all the time.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: He talks about the warfare that we're in, and he battles against Satan.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: He comes to win us back, as a matter of fact, from the realm of Satan.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: And then, on the other hand, though we can sometimes get too preoccupied with evil and try to find the devil under every rock, and I think there's a good balance between those.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: That is the healthy way of going, and I think it's important to understand who God is and who the devil is, and that gives us some insight into how we respond and how we engage in the spiritual battle.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: So when you say that, Father, is there a way for us to tell when Satan is at it and when we're you know?
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, how do we know?
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: I hear a lot about anxiety and depression and those types of things, and is there a way to discern that?
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: To discern and say, hey, I'm feeling anxiety, I'm feeling this pressure.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Look, I'm going to open up in prayer anyways, and try to find some peace in that.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: But is there a way to know?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, there's a couple of things there.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Of course, we know that there are some chemical imbalances and things that go on with different types of depression and anxiety, and so it's always important to work in a holistic way with, you know, therapists and stuff and a psychiatrist for sometimes needing medication, but always in the realm of prayer.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: That's going to be a helpful thing for us, no matter what, and I think too that there's we have to be aware of the, this culture that we live in.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Honestly, I don't think we take enough time for relaxation and rest and prayer.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Like we've got ourselves so busy that anxiety is going to definitely increase.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, the evil one is very opportunistic, so he is going to latch on to those natural opportunities to cause even further.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: You know, like obviously he'll normally do it in a way that gets us into spiritual desolation, which is God has abandoned me, god doesn't love me, those type of things.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: So if you really want to look at discernment, like taking those other things into account, you want to go to St Ignatius of Loyola and his first couple of rules in the discernment of spirits.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Well, the first rule is very, very important, and it's those who are moving from mortal sin to mortal sin.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: The God, the Holy Spirit and the evil spirit works in opposite ways, obviously.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: So in one who's going from mortal sin to mortal sin, then God is going to give them a distaste for that right.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: He's going to kind of allow them to become sad and empty in that in order to get them to turn around and go to him.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: The devil in that case will work in a way to make it enticing to continue on that mortal sin and continue on that path.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: All right, so then flip it around when you go to the person who's seeking after God.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: So I would assume that pretty much most of the people listening to this podcast are going to be seeking God in some way.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Whatever place they're in and their journey, they're really desiring to follow the Lord, and so in that case, god is always going to, the Holy Spirit's always going to work by removing obstacles, giving.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: He'll talk about tears of joy, this peace in our heart.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: That's the way we know that God is at work in those things, those spiritual gifts that he gives, and that's always going to be the case, always, even if we fall into mortal sin our desire to get back up and to confess and get back with the Lord doesn't change the way the Holy Spirit's going to work in there.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Now the evil spirit is going to do the opposite.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: He's going to put up obstacles.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: He's going to cause anxiety and struggle with us trying to follow the Lord.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: He's going to try to discourage us and discouragement is always from the devil in my understanding.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: And so to recognize those two ways, that's universal.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I can't stress that enough.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it didn't really click for me until maybe a year ago or something, when I begin to see like no, that's universal.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Like even when we fall, we're still trying to follow the Lord, and so the Holy Spirit's always going to be working in this way.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: So when discouragement and doubt and shame enter into my experience, that's a temptation from the evil one, and the first thing to do, as we mentioned in the last podcast, is to turn that into a prayer and begin to battle it.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's a good way to discern.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess, to sum it up in a kind of a simple way, is that anytime I feel discouragement, anytime I feel down, I could stay in that place, or I could get depressed, get anxious, or I could start to open up to prayer and get up.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: I just think that in general you see this all the time in this culture People just give up and they're just not even trying anymore when I talk to, and I think it becomes not knowing what to do.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: In other words, our faith isn't being passed down, and so when that discouragement stuff comes, life is just about feelings.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: It's not any deeper than that.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: So it's our emotions, and our emotions are getting blown around by the wind up and down.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've been up and down five times today.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: I've been up and down five times since we got on this podcast trying to get the internet up and down.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, so that discouragement becomes powerful, and I see it in people that are very close to my life, where they turn to prescriptions and doctors and trying to mask that pain and it seems to only get worse and those cases can get very debilitating to people.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: You know, there's the need to look at it in a big picture, in a holistic way.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Sometimes, if we're not connected to the faith or it was never passed on to us, we won't know how to look for spiritual remedies and helps on our journey, and so we kind of just stick with the things that the world tells us, and if there's not, it's never going to be a complete help right, because we're still neglecting our spiritual faculties of our life, of our person, and so we need to incorporate that and begin to live that life of faith which is going to be extremely helpful, even in some of the most difficult cases of the stuff that they experience.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so this battle we came into again you alluded to right from the beginning, it comes right into the beginning, it's never really left, and so this battle that's going on all around us and we just get you know, when we get born, we're exploded into this story and we're at war right off the bat, aren't we?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I think probably it'd be good to mention at this time a couple of truths for us to keep in mind when we're finally becoming aware of the battle and desiring to enter into it.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: So now let me just stop for a second.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: When you say desire to enter into it, meaning, meaning what?
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Because we're in it already.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: So when you say that, are you meaning to confront it head on and say I'm going to do something about it?
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Is that?
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: When you said that, In other words, you said our desire to enter into it well, we're in it, right, yeah?
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: And our desire to say, okay, I know I'm in a battle and I'm ready to face it and grab my spear and my shield and yeah, exactly.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I mean we're in it no matter what, and so there's no reason to ignore it, because that's just.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you don't realize you're in a battle, you're going to get run over.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: And so what I did mean by enter into it is like finally decide hey, I'm going to use the weapons that the Lord has given us and I'm going to enter into this thing because that's the only way to do it, because you're already in it.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: If you're not fighting for the good and for your own spiritual life, you're going to get taken out.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember, and I think it was from it was from Mary, christianity, cs Lewis, when he, you know, he had come back into his faith and he said he said one of the things he said that was really coming to his mind was that and what surprised him when he first started to read the New Testament seriously was that it talks so much about a dark power in the universe, a mighty evil spirit, he says, who was held to be the power behind death and disease and sin.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: And the difference is that Christianity thinks this dark power was created by God and it was good when it was created, when he was created, and then it went wrong.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Christianity agrees with this and Christianity agrees that this is a universe at war, and I think that sums up pretty well.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Cs Lewis has a nice job of kind of summing that up.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: But the idea was, you know, he was really surprised.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: He said, wow, I'm reading the New Testament and it spoke so much about this war that we're in.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: CS Lewis.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the reason Jesus came.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we can, you know, there are many different, you can encompass all of them in one way of speaking.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: But he came to save us from sin, of course, but he also came to do war with the devil right, to take us back.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, st Paul talks about that in one of his letters and he uses the image of a victorious Roman emperor.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: And they used to parade their those who they won the battle against.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: They parade them in these little cages through the streets of Rome to show them, like you no longer have to fear this person because we have defeated them.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: And that was precisely how St Paul envisioned it for the people that he was right to I think it was Romans of the devil being defeated and in this cage, and, like you, no longer have to fear him because he has been defeated by our Lord.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: And of course we know but it's our job to enter into that what Jesus has done and what he's offered us through grace.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Otherwise, you know, we're kind of still under his, the devil's, power if we're not under the Lord's kingdom.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember Cardinal Caffara.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: He was one of the dubious Cardinals, wasn't he, father?
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's passed.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: I think he passed away last year and I remember when John Paul tasked him with starting the Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage in the Family and he felt this extreme attack and he would talk about.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: You know, there's two.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: There's the an interior battle of your own heart, the battle of your own heart, and what you mentioned earlier, the battle in the culture, which is also bringing evil into the world.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: So you're confronting it in your own heart and then you step out the door and, of course, you know these other people are confronting it too.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: So you're, you know you have an interior and an exterior battle going on.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: But anyways, he felt that very strongly and he wrote to Sister Lucia, one of the Fatima visionaries, right, and then she wrote back.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: He was surprised.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: He just asked for prayers and she wrote him back and this is what she said.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: She said she said the final battle between the Lord and the Kingdom of Satan will be about marriage and the family.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: She said don't be afraid, because whoever works for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be fought against and opposed in every way, because this is a decisive issue.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: But then she concluded nevertheless, our Lady has already crushed his head.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: And so Cardinal Caffara talked to her a little bit, wrote her back, I guess, and they corresponded a little bit and she said, and he exemplified that this is the battle going on today, this fierce battle, that Satan has actually upped his game.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Is that true, father?
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Do you think?
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, it seems like it in the culture, but he's upped his game and he's got a chance to be an intense pain in the neck right now, and it seems like he's doing it.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: It certainly seems like it to me.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, the case can be made that he's done that right from the beginning.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Right, because in Adam and Eve being created male and female and called to become one and to share in the creative genius of God, that's how God wrote into this world an image of himself, of the Father, son and Holy Spirit, that eternal exchange of love that the Catechism calls it.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: And so that's precisely right where the devil went to tempt in the beginning, right between man and woman.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we'll have this image of like the snake comes over to Eve and begins to tempt her, and that Adam's out there till, in the garden or whatever, like he's supposed to be there but he wasn't, because the next line says he's right there next to her.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: So he wasn't doing his job, which was to protect and guide, and so he just allowed this creature to tempt the wife, and so that's had an effect and it's never went away.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: It's always the battle between man and woman, between the marriage and the family, and we see it kind of intensifying, I think you would say today I'd almost call it a kind of a repaganization of the culture, to be honest.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: So we've really let our defenses down then.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: And I mean you think about all the young people.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: You know I certainly with our high school retreats and meeting with a lot of young people, it's amazing, father, to me how little we know about our faith, how little of those kids know about their faith when we give a talk with parents, how many of them well, you could see their body language.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: I mean they do not want to hear the gospel.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: I mean they're there with their kids in church.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: But when you start to talk about the reality of Christ and their life and their, you know, the idea of accepting Him and bringing Him deeply into our heart, of changing our lives there's, you can see it in their body.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you see it sometimes at the pulpit, you know.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: You just see people starting to squirm around, you know.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've kind of gotten very complacent in in recognizing that Christ can't just be an add-on to our life, but he has to be the center, like there's.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: No, I'll follow these commandments of the Lord, but you know these other ones, you know God, he'll forgive that kind of thing.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: You know, we kind of play around with Jesus a little bit to a certain extent if we think of him at all, but we're really not willing to go all the way because we're afraid I think that he's gonna take something away from me.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Now, the fact is, he might get rid of stuff in our life because it's not good for us, but he won't ever take something.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: He's gonna give you the greatest gift he can give you, which is himself.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: But we're afraid of that.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: For some reason.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: We've been hoodwinked I suppose you could call it of just thinking like, well, god, he'll want too much and I just can't do it, and we're afraid to give him what he wants, which is everything.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and when we don't, you learn and you can see it, that you can't just play around, you can't just be an add-on.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: On Sundays he's got to be everything, and that's a lifetime.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: It takes a lifetime.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: So wherever you are on that journey.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: You just have to keep taking the next step and asking the Lord to show you what it is and to give you the grace to do it.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: You don't have to do it on your own.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this battle that John Paul would speak of it very often too, it's the battle of the heart and it's deep down, it's the essence of who we are the battle of the heart between good and evil, between love and lust.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: And so often fathers, especially, have abandoned their families to this.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: They're not bringing the faith into their life and into their families and into their marriages, and the dysfunction is crazy.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: So what could we do, father?
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: What would you say to parents in general, but men too, out there, the reality of this warfare that they're fighting, and I don't know how we could make it more explicit and more real.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Now, and let me just tell you about two friends of mine, and just very quickly, and I'd like you to comment on them.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: I have two friends and they have both I don't know if the word suffering is right, but experienced oppression from the devil, and they both knew exactly what it was.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: And it happened to both of them at night and it was the point where they could not even move, they couldn't get out of bed.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: I believe one of them said he couldn't even blink.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: His eyes completely felt like it was a weight on their chest.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Both of them and these are two friends of mine that live in two different states from each other and don't know each other and they told me almost the same story and they both called me and they know.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: I know priests like you who knew what to do, but I'm not asking you what to do so much right now, but just the reality of that oppression, the reality of Satan and people's lives.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely a reality and you'll see it more.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: And one of the things I like for people to keep in mind when it comes to this stuff and you know, because this is what happened to your friends, right, they called you because they knew you would know somebody that would know what to do if the Lord allows this thing to happen in our life he never causes evil, but he may permit it and if he does, it's always going to be for our growth in holiness or to wake us up out of a lukewarm faith back to really practicing the faith, practicing our Catholic faith, and he's always going to work that stuff for the good, and we need to remember that.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Romans 8 28,.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: You know God.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: We know that in everything, god works for good with those who love him and who are called to his purpose.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: We're all called to his purpose and when we love him, he's going to use these things to make us holy along the journey.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: So I say that because sometimes we can get afraid, and I think this is sometimes why people won't enter into the battle that's already going around and begin to fight is because they're afraid of what?
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Afraid to get attacked, maybe right.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Attack them, attack their families, you know.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: And so what we needed to recognize is like, even when there are these spiritual attacks, that just you entrust yourself to the Lord, he's at work, he's going to purify you of fear.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: He's got to get rid of that fear because that's not from him and you can trust that he is at work in the midst of this thing.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're going to get attacked.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: That's just how it is.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: If you're and it's not going to be all the time, it'd be occasionally, but if you're not, then you're probably already in his realm.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Not causing any trouble for him?
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not causing any trouble, just like it took us 45 minutes to get this podcast started, you can actually get to the point where you just kind of smile at it.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: It's like, okay, well, the Lord's doing something in my heart, he's helping me grow in trust and faith, and that in the power of his grace at work here.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: Well, you're certainly right, father.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, he got their attention.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Both of these guys he got their attention.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: One became Catholic you know, I was actually his sponsor and the other one really got serious.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: In fact, you know, priest over to his house, blessed the house and took his time over there, and so it was good things that happened.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: You know, and you're exactly right, these guys went from lukewarm faith into a very intense life of prayer and belief and scripture reading, and they were already moving in that direction, and I'm sure that's why they got attacked.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: You know, they started moving that direction and boom, they got hit.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, especially early on.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: A lot of times I'll find, when people begin to maybe convert or revert to their faith, like there'll be some obstacles that are put up and he'll try to make us afraid.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: But the fact is, God is always in control.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: The devil can't do whatever he wants.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: He's under the thumb of God and many times he'll allow these temptations or these attacks to happen because in the end the devil's gonna be humiliated by the fact that we little ones trust in the Lord so much, and he gives us the grace that we defeat him by just staying faithful to the Lord.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: So you would think in that case he would move on right.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, he doesn't want to be humiliated, right?
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Will they start looking for, you know, enemies that won't battle him as much?
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Or you know, I know, there's saints out there I think it was you know, saints like Padre Pio, who experienced a lot of satanic warfare with Satan.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Is that because they decided to go to battle and actually I know some of them actually said you know, bring it on right and we'll be there and start to help God defeat this on earth?
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Is that why the devil continued to attack some of them?
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Well, he'll continue to attack anybody who's trying to follow the Lord, but especially somebody like Padre Pio, because his life was so given over to Jesus that he was gonna bring a lot of people back to the Lord through the many confessions, thousands and thousands of confessions, and in his many gifts that the Lord had given him.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: So he attacked to try to discourage and try to keep him from doing that.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, the devil's very, extremely prideful, so he thinks he can win these battles and so the Lord allows it, so that he's humiliated and the Lord is always victorious.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: And that's when we trust him.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: And you know, honestly, like, depending on where people are out there, like just living the ordinary life of the church, right, so go into confession on a regular basis, beginning going to Mass every Sunday at least, and maybe even a little more praying every day to some extent, you know, and then beginning to live a virtuous life.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: You know, these are just the ordinary things.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: That's what keeps you safe, keeps you moving closer to the Lord and you just.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes a good image of the devil is he's like a junkyard dog, right, who's tied up on a chain, like don't get within his chain, stay out of his chain.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: He's gonna do his normal temptation.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: God allows that so that we can grow stronger and defeat it.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: But for the most part, when it comes to the extraordinary activity of the devil, when we're living the ordinary way of the Catholic life, we're protected from those things.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, and so I guess this is the problem with the culture, right, because we're not living the ordinary Catholic life.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: You know, the ordinary Catholic life would say at a minimum, right, we're gonna go to confession, you know, at least once a year, but let's call it once a month, you know, or somewhere around there.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: You know, look at, even if you don't have a mortal sin on your soul, you're gonna get the grace from the confessional.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: But mass once a week, you know?
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, how many Catholics don't go to mass once a week on Saturday night or Sunday?
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Right, for the Sunday obligation?
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: And that alone is the simplest thing you can do confession and go to mass and pray every day.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: And that's such a small amount of time.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: And yet we just leave our shields down, don't we?
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if we don't do that, we're putting ourselves in danger, because, well, I mean, first of all, god commands us to go to worship Him, and he commands us not because he needs it, because we, he knows we need it, you know, and it needs to.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: We need to get to that, that fact of like.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: I need to give God this the first hour of my week, because he's given me everything else.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Literally everything we have is His gift, and so the only thing that he's asked back is this one hour of time that we enter into worship Him, because he's the one who made us.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: He deserves worship.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: We need to give Him what he asks for, you know.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: And then that conversation with Him every day, and then that time when we fall, being strengthened through confession.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: We have to make those a regular part of our walk.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: So let's say this I heard and like to see your opinion, as I heard you know the stats on this, and this is from an exorcist that I was listening to said that just what we're just talking about here, just this common, you know, this most simple way of just normal Catholic life, is going to eliminate 90% of satanic influence.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Does that sound right to you?
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: So I mean, the vast majority of this will be taking care of just by our prayer and sacramental life.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: That's what we're saying, right?
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Yep, when somebody comes to me and they're experiencing something that's unusual, you know, and they're thinking something's going on in their life, the first thing I do is say, okay, well, how's the practice of your faith?
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: And we just kind of go through that list.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, well, here's the things you need to start doing.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Here's some, here's some ways of praying Go to mass, go to confession.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: You know, confession is actually confession is a sacrament, right, Whereas exorcisms are sacramentals, so they're just prayers of the church.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: So there are miracles that take place in confession and a lot of times, if there's something going on, you go to confession.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: You start going to mass.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: On Sundays, you start praying a little bit every day.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's the rosary, you start praying every day.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: If there's something extraordinary going on, many times that will take care of it.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Honestly, what does yeah, and talking to men again, you know how many times are we, even as fathers, are we bringing pornography and things like that into our own homes and, you know, just allowing those portals?
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: You know, can you speak a little bit about that?
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: You know, these portals of grace and the portals of letting demons in, how we actually can bring that into our own hearts.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Again, if I think about this battlefield of my heart and John Paul talked about this, and this, of course, comes from the tradition of the church and the saints and the mystics and scripture, all the way back but this battle of going on within the depths of our hearts, where you were talking about prayer, and going way down into the depth where you find those two people, remember you told us that in prayer you meet God and you meet, you know, yourself there, huh, and we have this dialogue.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Well, that battle can be, you know, if we push God out of there and we bring pornography, say, or whatever it is, into our hearts and into our homes.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've opened.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: We've opened a Pandora's box, haven't we?
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's the way I like to talk about it is, there are these doorways that we've opened, and so you kind of got to go back through, usually with the help of a priest, and discern what are the doorways that I've opened in my life.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: And so maybe it's habitual sin, right, that's a doorway that we have to now continue to fight through confession and prayer.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe it is you know, pornography being one of those or just any type of mortal sin that becomes commonplace in our life is a doorway that opens it up.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Now, any, also today, you see, you'll see a lot of stuff going on with cult practices that are becoming just kind of commonplace, and those are doorways that open us up to affliction and are dangerous for us to be messing around with.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: So we've got to begin to avoid those things, and they're everywhere.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: They're just, you know, the psychics and the mediums, and yoga and Reiki, like all of these things, are dangerous because all of them have the same goal in mind it's for us to somehow control, which is always a sin against the first commandment.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: God is God and we are not, and we need to worship Him alone.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, when I think about that.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: I know those are doorways.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so when I think about closing those doorways up, you know, I mean it's really opening our hearts right, opening a channel to grace, huh, to allow grace in there, identifying it.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: But when you say the doorways, is that if somebody is feeling something particular, I mean, is that enough?
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Let's just say that I was into, you know, I mentioned pornography.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: So I'm into pornography, I'm going to confession.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: I've let this in now Confessing it.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Is that being able, is that the work you're talking about?
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: To close that portal, to bring grace into that place, you know, to start to heal those wounds?
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Is that kind of the idea?
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Confession is the place where we get them closed up right and then the healing of them will begin with confession.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: But sometimes, you know, if it's been a lot of years involved in those open doors, it'll take a little while.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: But through prayer and continued confession, maybe even some counseling and things, can be all ways that help us to shore those up and to allow the Lord to begin His healing process.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, what I found is that sometimes when you close those doors there's, you've actually recognized that they were there.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Now you've closed them through confession, you begin to pray.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: There'll be a lot of guilt and shame connected with things, and just to remember that that again is the going to be the temptations now of the evil one.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Right, he changes his tactics once we start growing in our faith and so now he'll begin to try to discourage us through, like I mean, yeah, god may have forgiven you, but like you're disgusting, like you were ever part of you know, they start speaking.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: And this is the part where we need to be well aware of discernment and to recognize that is not how God would speak to me.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: That's the question I ask myself Whenever some lie comes up around me and I'll be like.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Is that what God would say to me?
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: And when I immediately recognize no, it would not, I reject it.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: I turn and say, lord, I give you this silly thought, I give it to you for conversion of sinners and I move on.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: You know, and you just, those are the little battles now that you have to fight that are going to strengthen you, and it gives you that opportunity to recognize like I need to go through a process of forgiving myself.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: The Lord is, can forgive and forget.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Right Rosa behind his back, as scripture says.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: But we have trouble with that, and so I think I mentioned it last podcast, you know of how to pray through some of those things bringing it to the Sacred Heart and the or to the Blessed Sacrament and giving those over.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and how about the?
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: How about the cases?
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: If somebody does feel like maybe they needed a little extra help, I mean, is that what you would recommend?
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: That they reach out to their pastor, to a priest, and our most priests, father?
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Are most of them capable of at least helping somebody through most of these issues, would you say?
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Well, I think they're or they'd find the happy.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they certainly have the authority to.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: They may not know where to turn right now.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: For, you know, because let's be honest with as a church, we kind of dropped the ball for a lot of years here, and so some I was just thinking back to my own seminary, which you know, I've been ordained six years, almost seven, and we weren't really taught a whole lot about spiritual warfare or how to combat it.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: But most priests will know where to look, and the prayers.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Why do you think that is, father?
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's amazing.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: And look at when I was a kid, you know, and I know priests that are my age now, that have been around a lot longer than six years, right, and they weren't even given an emphasis on confession.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, what are we doing?
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: I mean it's, you know Satan.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: We know from Pope Paul the sixth said you know, the smoke of Satan has infiltrated the church.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: So we have the culture on one side.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: We've got even, you know, parts of the church on the other side.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: And going back again, you know we know from Christ that he said you know, I call 12 of you and one of you is basically Satan.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Right, and so that infiltration of the church is nothing new.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: But what was it that we could drop the ball?
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: And I think that's probably something as important as the sacrament of confession, the spiritual warfare that we're in.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know it's, it's all the way through.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Like CS Lewis said, if you, it doesn't take long to read scripture and you find out that we're in a, we're in a battle.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably been the devil's greatest trick is for so many years.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: The thing he likes the best is that people don't believe he exists.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Right, and I don't think about it.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: I don't think about what I do Like, don't worry, no matter what I do, like the Lord will take care of me, or I don't even think about God or any of that, and so it's he.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Just he likes to be unknown, the devil does, and to just kind of continue his temptation and make everything seem okay.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: And so I think that's part of the problem that we didn't take it serious, that for some reason we really dropped the ball on that, and you know, and people suffer because of that.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: And so now you know there are a lot of powerful prayers that we, that people, can pray themselves, but also that you know, if you're having a little bit of extra trouble, like priests can pray over you.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: The spiritual authority of a priest he can.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: He's a father and he can.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: He can pray over any body, certain prayers that can be very helpful.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I know from the, the prayers from the auxiliary Christian norm, which, which is a, which is a prayer, prayer group, really, that supports priests that are in this, in this battle, and and I was, you know, I was reading some of the one of the prayers for one of the days and, and it's amazing, it's asking all of the saints of heaven and the angels to come to our aid and mentioning things that we would, you know, normal everyday things anxiety, sadness, hatred, fornication, envy, jealousy, rage, death.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: If you think about all those things, I mean those are those.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: That's, that's an evil attack.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: And, like you mentioned before, look at, you know, we're not going to tell people not to go to a doctor, not to take meds and not do all that stuff, but at least be practicing your normal Catholic prayers and sacraments, just to make sure that that you know.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: That's.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: You know, look at it, you know we're, we're a body and a soul and and sometimes we just forget that you know.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Again, you know I feel so bad for people that just take meds and don't go to prayer.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: And again, I'm not saying that, you know, like you made it very clear, you know, go to the doctor, you know.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: You know, we're a body too and we need to be healed physically.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, Christ, when he came, was was healing physically all the time, but then he would say go and sin no more.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: You know, and I don't think it's, and I'm a simple guy it doesn't have to be much more complicated than that.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: You know, yes, my body needs to be healed and and, but then go and sin no more.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Right, let's start to turn toward the true, the good and the beautiful.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's really where we find peace, that's where we start to find that joy and bring that joy and that peace and start to eliminate look at anxiety, sadness.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Those things take, just like other things.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: They take a while sometimes when you've closed that portal, like you said, that door, you know we're so used to it, you know it's almost became our, our companion, you know.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Mm.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Hmm, yeah, it's sometimes tough to break through that, and so I think I would just offer a word of encouragement in that, like if you find yourself kind of steeped in some of that, like the Lord can be victorious and he will be.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: So don't be discouraged, don't doubt that the Lord can love you, no matter how far you you've went down that that path.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: Like there is always hope in this life with the Lord, always, always, no matter what we've done, it's important to like just begin to take those steps and find people that can help you and walk with you through it and continue to encourage you because it's worth it.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Like the freedom that Christ brings to us when it comes to those things that we've gotten into is amazing.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: I mean I'll give you one just a quick example like in in exorcism itself, like somebody that ends up in the spiritual affliction of possession, right At some point are able to go back to confession and get their soul in the state of grace, even though they may still be possessed, because that might be something that takes a little longer.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: And so if they were to die during that time, right, they're in a state of grace, they go to heaven.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Like that's the most important thing.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Our greatest evil is sin.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: The greatest evil in this world is sin, not the devil, so he can be defeated at any point in time by the Lord in our lives.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: And so that's really the key is like begin to look at maybe those attachments to different sins that we have in our life and begin to ask, just start by asking the Lord for the desire to wanna get away from it and then asking for the grace to continue to entrust yourself to him, continue to break those habits of sin, because that's really the key.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: See, the devil wants you to get in mortal sin and he wants to keep you there because you die in mortal sin.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: That's hell and that's what he would want for the tormenting us.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: And so when you start to move away from that like even in the worst case scenario of possession, like in a state of grace, like hey, I'm gonna be all right, the Lord will eventually liberate me from this and through that process, which is pretty painful and tough, they become very holy, very, very holy.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: And that's I mean.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: For me to see those stories is just to recognize how close God is to all of us and how powerful he is and how much he loves us, he never.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: You're never too far away from him.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: You've never ran far enough to outrun God.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: He loves you too much and he will continue to fight for you and work within your freedom so that you will come to him.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: And so, wherever you're at, go to him.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: Well, father, we're getting close to the end of time, but and sorry about the internet I know we didn't cover everything we want to, but we'll come back again and do that.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: But I just because we're approaching Lent and because we've been reading James and you just mentioned about habitual sin, and even the smallest habitual sins are that festering and it's amazing what happens from there.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: It's like somebody that just takes a couple of drinks and is prone to alcoholism, or smokes just a little pot, right, and is prone to drug addictions.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: It does, it's moving on.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: But that habitual, that everyday thing, and so with Lent coming, we hear it so often Jesus even said that can only be taken care of with prayer and fasting.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: And I think fasting for me in my life has been so important because it gives you that day or two, whatever day you're fasting, or during the week, or giving up something for Lent, now, for 40 days, to break those habits and those little things that are bothering you.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: What a great opportunity is right now just to say here's the two or three things or the one or two things that are habitual for me, even if it's reality TV or whatever it is that's bothering you, just to give it up.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and fasting like the whole point of fasting.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: It's hard, but the whole point of fasting is that it strengthens your will for saying no to things that are maybe not bad in themselves but that could be attachments for you.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: And, honestly, when you're fasting I don't know about you, but when I'm fasting I think of God all the time.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes, Because it's like man, I am so, so hungry.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: I do this for you, Lord.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: I do this for you, yes, for sure.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: So it really does help us to focus on him.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really really powerful to do that.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: And that's a great point that fasting itself should be a little difficult, because those are the times you continue to open this channel up to grace, to God himself Every time.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: You know I had, there was a guy that was having a problem with images.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: You know, he said I never struggled with pornography but my imagination is so much that if I see a woman, that image, I can turn that image into almost a pornographic image in my mind.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: And you work with me some time ago with this, given binding prayers and stuff to this gentleman.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: He was an incredible case of coming out of it, but that's what he said.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: He said you know, jack, the good news is, he said.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: He said you know I'm healing.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: You know, the tough thing was I am praying 50 to 100 times a day as he continued to open up.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: But it was a huge thing and it happened pretty quickly for him because he said he was he was in reality praying all day long, you know.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: So He'd go all in.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: He'd go all in, hey father, before I let you go, can you give us a blessing and maybe give us just a little advice for Lent coming up, anything on your mind?
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think for Lent one of the key things is find something to fast from.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, you got your two days of fasting that the church prescribed, so do those.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: But find something to fast from, whether it's media or this or that, and recognize that it's in those times where you crave it that those are opportunities to just offer up a quick prayer and that keeps us connected, more connected, with God and it strengthens our will to keep choosing the good, which many times in the spiritual life is a difficult good, versus the easy things of the world.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: And then the other thing would be to just use some of that time then to increase your prayer and conversation with God, because that'll never steer you the wrong way.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: Just keep it simple, keep it doable so and never get discouraged.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Even if you fail at some point within there, just start again.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Discouragement is never from the Lord.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's beautiful.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: Father, thank you so much, and can you leave us with a prayer that's gonna bring us right into this wonderful Lent and season?
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Sure, I just ask Almighty God to pour out His blessing upon us and all the listeners may continue to move our heart to wanna let go of those things in this world and be focused even more on the things of heaven that can draw us ever closer to Him throughout these 40 days of Lent and prepare us for receiving anew that great gift that God has offered us in the passion, death and resurrection of Christ.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: May Almighty God bless all of you, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Amen.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Hey, Father, thank you so much and thanks for your patience.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Thanks for hanging around.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no problem, thanks, jack, All right.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: And to everybody listening.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Please remember to rate the podcast and please consider supporting us financially so we can continue to keep the doors open here at the John Paul Tour Renewal Center.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: Happy Lent everyone.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you, MUSIC.