Maybe you are still skeptical of this whole idea of spiritual warfare and whether it concerns you or not. I want to briefly demonstrate a tiny fraction of the available evidence in Sacred Scripture, the writings of the Patristic Fathers from the earliest days of Christianity, the writings of Church Councils, the writings and speeches of the popes, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church that spiritual warfare is real and you, as a believer, are engaged in it—whether you want to be or not.
Evidence from Mental Health and Medical Professionals:
· Alfred Lechler, MD, a noted German physician and psychiatrist with vast experience in working with patients victimized by the occult, observed: “People are today recognizing more and more that the demonic is by no means just some outdated biblical concept… (but is) rather a terrible reality with which one must ever increasingly reckon today." He also wrote, “...we are duty bound, when dealing with the mentally and emotionally disturbed, to stress the need to differentiate between disease and the demonic.
· Two physicians quoted by Dr. Kurt Koch in his book, Occult Bondage and Deliverance; first, a neurologist, who said, “...Sixty-percent of the inmates of my psychiatric clinic are not so much suffering from mental illness as from occult subjection or even demonization”; and then an English psychiatrist, who wrote, “If I were able to obtain forgiveness for the sins of the patients in my clinic, I would be able to discharge half of them tomorrow.”
Evidence from the Bible:
· “Behold, I have given you the power ‘to tread upon serpents’ and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” —Luke 10:19-20
· “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” —Ephesians 6:12
· “For, although we are in the flesh, we do not battle according to the flesh, for the weapons of our battle are not of flesh but are enormously powerful, capable of destroying fortresses. We destroy arguments and every pretension raising itself against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive in obedience to Christ.” —2 Corinthians 10:3-5
Evidence from Patristic writings:
· “As we do battle and fight in the contest of faith, God, His angels, and Christ watch us. How exalted is the glory, how great the joy of engaging in a contest with God presiding, of receiving a crown with Christ as judge.” –St. Cyprian of Carthage (Bishop in 249 A.D.)
· “For the rest, what else is waged daily in the world but a battle against the devil, but a struggle with continual onsets against his darts and weapons.” –St. Cyprian (Bishop in 249 A.D.)
· “As to the Devil, he as being an Apostate Angel, hath that power only, which he discloses in the beginning—to seduce and withdraw man’s mind unto transgression of God’s commandments, and gradually to blind the hearts of such as make it their business to serve him, to the forgetting of the true God, and the worshipping of Satan himself as God.” –St. Irenaeus (second Bishop of Lyon in the 2nd century)
· “Their business is to corrupt mankind; thus, the spirit of evil was from the very beginning bent upon man’s destruction. The demons, therefore, inflict…upon the soul sudden and extraordinary outbursts of violence.” –St. Tertullian (written late 2nd and early 3rd century)
Evidence from modern papal documents, writings, and speeches:
· “It seems darkness is about to fall on the world. Humanity is in the grip of a supreme crisis.” –Pope Pius XII
· “It is a departure from the picture provided by biblical Church teaching to refuse to acknowledge the devil’s existence; to regard him as a self-sustaining principle who, unlike other creatures, does not owe his origin to God; or to explain the devil as a pseudo-reality, a conceptual, fanciful personification of the unknown causes of our misfortunes.” –Pope Paul VI
· “We cannot simply regard the devil as a symbol for evil…those who suggest that we can no longer believe in such things have not thought very deeply about the 20th century.” —Pope Benedict XVI
· "I believe that the Devil exists" and "his greatest achievement in these times has been to make us believe that he doesn’t…” —Pope Francis
· "Because of the growth of the New Age Movement outside the church and within it, Catholics have some basic choices to make. We can bemoan the problem helplessly and await the Second Coming of Jesus as the only possible solution. Or we can respond to the New Age Movement with fire, vigor, and creativity.” —Father Mitch Pacwa, S.J. (from his important book, Catholics and the New Age)
Evidence from the lives of the Saints:
· “Christianity is warfare and Christians are spiritual soldiers.” —Saint Robert Southwell
· “I will not delude you with prospects of peace and consolations, on the contrary, prepare for great battles. Fight like a knight, so that I can reward you. Do not be unduly fearful, because you are not alone.” —Our Lord to Saint Faustina Kowalska
· “It is a bigger miracle to eject passion from your own body than it is to eject an evil spirit from another’s body. It is a bigger miracle to be patient and refrain from anger than it is to control the demons which fly through the air.” —Saint John Cassian
· “I have sent him [the devil] in this life to tempt and molest my creatures that they may conquer, proving their virtue and receiving from me the glory of victory.” —Our Lord to Saint Catherine of Siena
· “Let us always keep before our eyes the fact that here on earth we are on a battlefield and that in paradise we shall receive the crown of victory.”—Saint Padre Pio
· “The entrances to Heaven are open and death is subdued by life in the holy battle.” —Saint Agnes of Montepulciano
· “Be ever looking for the enemy, but do not breed a war, for this is not the attitude of a soldier but of a [rebel].” —Saint John Chrysostom
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
· “This dramatic situation of the whole world, which is in the power of the evil one, makes man's life a battle: The whole of man's history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day.” —Catechism of the Catholic Church, 409
· "Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy… called 'Satan' or the 'Devil'… Scripture witnesses to [the Devil’s] disastrous influence…who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father. 'The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.' In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God." —Catechism of the Catholic Church, 391 & 394
· “Exorcism is directed at the expulsion of demons or to the liberation from demonic possession through the spiritual authority which Jesus entrusted to his Church.” —Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1673
And finally, from St. Louis de Montfort, who provides us with our marching orders:
· “Mary will raise up apostles of the latter times to make war against the evil one. . . . But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel: that is to say, her humble slaves and poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world's esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by other members of the body. But in return for this they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity. Superior to all creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God's assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.”
We, at The Catholic Centurion, take heed of these warnings and observations, and accept our duty to participate in the battle over souls while at the same time knowing that Christ has already won the war. We accept the calling of of St. Louis de Montfort to take up cause, by the power of Mary to aid her in crushing the head of the devil and to bring about his final end, as she raises us up as Apostles of the Latter Times.