I'll tell you something I saw in a room one time that was one of the first times I saw direct demonic attack at first hand. I happened to be looking at a glass bowl of Holy Water on a bed side table and as I watched I saw with my own eyes the bowl raise into the air hover with no one holding it, just by itself and then suddenly it was thrown at very high speed and with huge force against a wall where it shattered and fell to the ground. I could not believe what I had just seen and tried to rationalise it. Maybe it was this happened, maybe it was that happened. But, no what I had seem really happened, it just rose in the air of its own volition and crashed against the wall at high speed and with great force. I actually saw the thing with my own two eyes hovering in the air, unaided. Things like this are not so bad when they red pill you. They really, really , really wake you up. Alright they scare you, they frighten you. But this is no bad thing really. I guess you could call it a woke moment. After seeing something like this first hand you don't easily go back to sleep again.
You know on the one hand we see the miracles of Padre PIo, the supernatural. But on the other hand we may also witness the Praeternatural, the works of darkness.
Padraig this is so true! It seems the evil one takes particular pleasure in attacking the holy, not by resorting to attacks by the base and ignorant, but by inspiring the righteous to quarry the saints with concealed and camouflaged venom! As you stated this has happened to many of our saints including St Bernadette and St Padre Pio. What I find remarkable is that these saints willingly accept these attacks, just as our Lord did in Gethsemane! Luke 22:42 "Yet not My will, but Yours be done."
Sometimes even very, very good, even very holy people can permit themselves to be blown in a wrong direction through lack of discernment as regards others. We need strong discernment. Perfect analogy Padraig! So many good and righteous people (seen in the proliferation of protestant denominations around 30,000 of them today apparently) have been blown off course due to undiscerned heresies! The problem is....that these unfortunate heretics often take many other souls with them.
Truly an inspired post Sam! Thank you When we pray for our enemies, the greatest prayer we can pray for them, is that they be blessed. Because a blessing imparts a means to eternal salvation! God knows the best blessings for each individual! The blessing may very well consist of a rebuke of some kind, either physical, financial, emotional or mental! Remember many of our blessings come in disguise! God will bless people with the particular graces necessary to return to Him, so they can receive His ultimate reward. We must first pray for this blessing for us and the ungodly
This reminds me of the story in the Bible of Jacob wrestling with an angel: : Genesis 32:22-31 22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. 28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,a]">[a] because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.” 29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,b]">[b] saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” 31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel,c]">[c] and he was limping because of his hip.
YES! Heresies are all around us;....... heresies have invaded the Catholic Church and we (the Militant Church) have little to no defence against them! We now must totally depend upon the Church Triumphant (in Heaven)! The Church Militant is in desperate need of clarity at this moment. But it has not come nor do I believe it will come! The general catholic population including the majority of the Hierarchy, do not want any clarification, because the status quo has been comfortable over the last 50 years (but it was always going to come back to bite us! I saw this even as a kid in the 1960's) We must pray to our Brothers and Sisters in the Church Triumphant for strength! St Joseph in your year here, in the Church Militant, be a father to us from the church triumphant . Amen
I asked my mother one time why she did not do what most other people in the street did and stand out talking , especially on summer evenings. She said she had ten children and had other things to do. I think as I get older keeping yourself to yourself seems like a good idea. Unless the person you're talking to seems really God centered. Otherwise no. Talking too much is looking for trouble. Proverbs 17:28 Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent; with their mouths shut,
People who talk a lot are like shallow streams that babble along and make lots of noise. People who talk little like deep rivers that run deep in silence.
Speaking of demons I was told a story by my former boss. We had to attend a meeting about 3 hours from our office and he was driving. I asked if he minded if I prayed the Rosary while we journeyed and he was fine with that and told me this story about the Rosary: When he was little, he lived in a Catholic orphanage and there were people that worked there and stayed overnights with the children. One of them was an avid rosary prayer. One night my boss was about 8 years old and kept hearing a noise in the hallway by the room of this woman. He felt compelled to step in the hallway and make sure there was no intruder. When he did, he saw an animal like creature viciously ripping the lady's rosary slowly apart, and the noise he heard were each bead hitting the floor. He screamed, the police were called and the place searched, but no one believed his story and no intruder was found. When he told me the story, he no longer attended church and was living in adultery at the time but he prayed the rosary with me, saying he knew ONE thing about it for sure, that demons HATED it. Of course I prayed for him daily from then on that he would return to the faith but I really believed his story. He seemed very self conscious too about it and had not told many people.
Your mother was a wise woman, and you learned a very important life lesson from her. My own mother is very much the same, very family centered and little socializing. I have followed in her footsteps. As I have grown older, I let many friendships drift away, and I do carry a bit of guilt over this, but I prefer the company of family and those who love Our Lord.
Family resembles the Blessed Trinity, the Father , The Son and the Holy Spirit happy and at home in its own company. Which is why attacks on the family at the moment from without and within the Church are so serious.
Age has taught me this. Best to keep silent unless your purpose is to practice charity. Idle conversations have been occasions of sin for me.
I don't doubt it for a minute. Next to Holy Mass i think the Rosary is the cryptonite to the evil one.
St James teaches that the person who controls the tongue had achieved perfection. I suspect the only way to get there is not to use it very much. James 3 Taming the Tongue 3 Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. 3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
https://thepathlesstaken7.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-revenge-visited-upon-brother-andre.html THE REVENGE VISITED UPON BROTHER ANDRE BESSETTE The Holy Cross Brothers - the religious order to which Little Brother Andre belonged - were often asked by families to prepare a dead body for burial. It may sound an odd practice to us, that a brother in a black cassock would do something that was very murky, and you and I may beg to know if there were no undertakers at the time of the latter part of the 1800s. But indeed there were undertakers, but many of the Catholic folk could not afford it, or they were so pious that they only wanted holy hands to clean their loved one after his or her demise. A man who lived near Brother Andre had been very devoted to the doorman, and he asked Brother Andre to promise that in the event of his death, Brother Andre would prepare his body for death. The time came when the man went to God. He died in the morning. His wife was anxious that he be prepared for death as soon as possible, and when Brother Andre said he could not come until late afternoon, his wife objected because she said rigor mortis was about to set in. But Brother Andre consoled her with, "There will still be time this evening." When Brother Andre was finally able to break away from his many duties at the college, he entered the dead man's house to find that the body was stretched out on a white sheet. Andre began "the toilette", and when he had to take the dead man in his arms, he saw the head change position, and he beheld that the body was just getting hard, like the man had just died that minute. "I believe he waited for me to lay him out," Brother Andre later reflected. That night, Brother Andre could not get a minute of sleep. On the night after Andre had been like a modern-day Tobit and prepared a body for burial; he was pestered by the demonic. Malevolent noises were heard, his personal possessions would move and clatter about. As in the life of Padre Pio, a hideous black cat would appear out of nowhere - which was the devil taking the guise of a feline foe - and the devil in black fur would stalk Andre. "The devil does not like me to do these good works. He is trying to frighten me," was Brother Andre's explanation. Unlike Padre Pio, however, Brother Andre developed something of a a fear of cats. What strikes me and even shocks me a little is that such scare tactics of the satanic were visited on Brother Andre after he had performed the good and holy work of preparing the corpse of a Catholic for burial. The satanic wanted to intimidate Brother Andre from ever doing "the toilette" of a dead person again, which goes to show that preparing the dead for burial is so holy a good work it invites certain demonic revenge. There is also the fact that Brother Andre was the only one of the brothers who was singled out for such tactics as portentous noises, clattering of objects and the evil one in fur charging at him. Brother Andre was a living saint, a miracle worker, and when he prepared a dead body, that body became a relic, and were the satanic to cause Brother Andre to suspend his holy work of preparing a body, they would in effect be preventing the creation of a relic.
