Halloween, Witches, Demons, and the Occult by Kathryn Marcellino, OCDS With Halloween right around the corner, we might ask ourselves if demons and evil spirits are real? The Church gives us an authoritative answer in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CC 414) which says, Satan or the devil and the other demons are fallen angels who have freely refused to serve God and his plan. Their choice against God is definitive. They try to associate man in their revolt against God. If you ever wondered if demons are just an old-fashioned notion that intelligent modern people dont believe in nowadays, or just a literary convention, you might be interested in reading a couple of somewhat hair-raising books called Interview With an Exorcist: An Insiders Look at the Devil, Demonic Possession, and the Path to Deliverance by Fr. Jose Antonio Fortea and also An Exorcist Tells His Story by Fr. Gabriele Amorth. Also there is an interesting audio interview with Dr. Gary Thomas, excorcist from San Jose Diocese called What You Need to Know About Excorcism. These books and audios are very revealing about live encounters with demons today by credible sources (i.e. priests who are excorcists) and give a lot of information on how to protect ourselves from evil spirits and what demons can and cannot do. Since we are in spiritual warfare while here on earth, it makes sense to know more about our spiritual enemies so that we can be better prepared to battle them (without really focusing on them, or being obsessed, or overly-frightened of them or blaming everything on evil spirits.) For example, did you know that angels and demons cannot read our thoughts unless we direct our attention to them with the idea of communicating with them? Did you know that there are people who are possessed today and what it takes to gain deliverance from evil spirits, curses, etc.? Did you know that there are other forms of demonic oppression besides just possession. Some dangerous things to avoid include spells, charms, curses, witchcraft, ouija boards, seances and anything having to do with the occult. These kinds of things, some of them innocently done at childrens parties, are not only strictly forbidden by the Catholic faith, but dangerous, in that they open us up to evil spirits, which are real and not just imaginary. Please dont ever let your children/teens attend parties (especially popular at slumber parties) where there are seances and ouija boards and/or playing with spells and witchcraft. Ask beforehand what will be done at before allowing your children to attend parties. Witchcraft and spells are becoming more popular due to books and movies and somehow we need protect our children from these dangers of without getting them fascinated with them or making them seem interesting to them. More from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on Divination and Magic 2115: God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility. 2116: All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to unveil the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone. 2117: All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at ones service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of anothers credulity. What is the attraction? Why do people get attracted to using witchcraft and/or the occult practices? The answer is usually that they are seeking some sort of power, control, or some kind of hidden knowledge of the otherworld or the future... in other words to have some of the power that generally belongs to God. This is a temptation. The serpent in the Garden of Eden tempted Eve and said, ...you will be like gods... (Genesis 3:5); however, when doing what the devil said she didnt become like God, but rather lost all Gods blessings. Reality is that we are creatures and whereas God did give us some power, it is limited and we are dependent on God for all we are and have. Good angels also truly exist like our guardian angels. St. Michael, the Archangel, and the other good angels battle with Satan and the evil spirits. The name Michael means who is like God (implying that no one is like God in contrary to Satans temptation.) Our guardian angel helps protect us from spiritual and natural dangers. If you are interested in scary movies and ghosts and goblins and want the real story about demons etc. you might be interested to read first hand accounts and conclusions by the two Catholic priests-exorcists mentioned earlier, as sometimes the truth is even stranger and more scary than fiction. However if we keep ourselves in Gods grace we really have nothing to fear as the devil cannot coerce us to sin. God does limit the power the devil has over us, and we are not allowed to be tempted more than God gives us the grace to resist. The devil can only do what God allows or we allow him to do. Lets refuse to cooperate voluntarily with the devil and refuse to open ourselves up to evil spirits by occult practices. There really is a hell and evil spirits, and we dont want to spend eternity there, so lets not have anything to do with the occult while here on earth. If we have been involved in something occult-related, we should go to confession, and if necessary, learn more about how to be delivered from any lingering effects through prayers of deliverance. In the rare instance that possession is suspected, excorcism should only be attempted by someone who is authorized by the Church. (Regular people should not attempt something like this on their own.) Wearing blessed medals, scapulars, holy water, and other sacramentals are also helpful when used with faith in God and not as a superstition. Halloween in our secular culture is associated with witches, ghosts, evil spirits, demons, etc. but is it really the feast of All Saints Day and this is where the name derives (i.e. All Hallows Eve). Whereas it is good to know the devil exists and evil spirits so we can stay away from them, for the most part we should really keep our focus mainly on God and good things like the Bible tells us to do. Happy Halloween and All Saints Day! Spiritual Warfare from Ephesians 6:10-16: Finally, draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power. Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all (the) flaming arrows of the evil one. * * * A Scary True Story (for Halloween) If you like to read scary stories around Halloween below is one that is really scary because it is true. At Fatima, the Blessed Virgin Mary told the three little children, Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta, that many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray or make sacrifices for them. In her Memoirs, Sister Lucy described the vision of hell that Our Lady showed the children at Fatima: She opened Her hands once more, as She had done the two previous months. The rays [of light] appeared to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned]. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke. Now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons were distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. That vision only lasted for a moment, thanks to our good Heavenly Mother, Who at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear. What struck me about the 1917 Fatima messages as a whole is that they reaffirmed so many of the teachings of our Catholic Faith including the existence of God, heaven, hell, and purgatory to name a few. What also struck me was that the messages were also objectively verified by prophecies about Russia, communism, and World Wars that came true later and the miracle of the sun seen by tens of thousands of people on October 13, 1917 including many nonbelievers, which is recorded history in the secular newspapers in Portugal. Also the childrens lives were changed to being very devout and offering many sacrifices for sinners and in reparation for sin. Their faith was real to them because of all that Mary showed them. They took their focus off the temporary things of this life and put them on the lasting things of eternity which is quite a miracle for such young children unless God had truly intervened.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 11:07:25 +0000
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