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Spiritual Warfare: How To Learn About It & Why You Should
Photo by Vijesh Datt on Unsplash
Evil is everywhere
The Devil is real. Evil is everywhere.
We all need to be on guard. Temptation is like humidity in the southern United States. It’s awful and it’s not going anywhere and it always brings you down.
I’ve been burned in the sands of my own sufferings. Hindsight showed the exit ramps into those valleys to be…
Sin—pure and simple. And what got me out? God’s mercy—pure and simple. Whether it restored me through this avenue or that avenue.
This. Is. Spiritual. Warfare.
Spiritual warfare
Yes, spiritual warfare is the stuff from movies like the major Rite of Exorcism and things depicted in horror films. And it’s the everyday unglamorous stuff. Like “doing the right thing” and going to confession.
As follows were my two most concrete experiences of spiritual warfare in recent memory:
Protestant relatives saying a house felt better after I sprinkled holy water about the place.
And more cinematically…
A priest prayed a prayer of exorcism over me to break any soul tie with a person; I’d been suffering over a heartbreak for eight months. My conviction is that that prayer of (minor) exorcism did for me what a lifeguard does for a drowning person.
We should educate ourselves on spiritual warfare
Spiritual warfare matters. Our Lord Jesus exorcised demons.
It is advantageous for us to educate ourselves on this subject in order to grow in holiness. Vigilance against evil, and growth in holiness, go hand in hand.
Speaking of vigilance against evil, for parents I suppose it’s kind of like sex education…Do you want your kids hearing about it from someone else first? Or the internet? Or would you rather be the one to teach them so that they’re formed in accordance with your own values system?
Let’s make sure we’re reasonably informed about spiritual warfare, so we can be our best for the youngsters in our families and communities. Just like youngsters have questions about the human body, they’re going to have questions like:
- Is yoga okay?
- Can I wear this Halloween costume?
- Why are we sprinkling holy water?
We should have answers. And we as adults have the same questions oftentimes!
So yes...spiritual warfare education = Important.
How we can educate ourselves on spiritual warfare
Thankfully, there’s a gem of a publishing press that's dedicated to educating Catholics on spiritual warfare. It’s a fantastic resource for accessible books on assorted topics under the spiritual warfare umbrella (English and Spanish, print and digital, available on Amazon). I hope you like knightly imagery, because it's...
Slaying Dragons Press
Slaying Dragons Press has a treasure trove of Catholic books. Slaying Dragons Press’s crown jewel is the namesake Slaying Dragons series. It’s a trilogy of books with endorsements from the likes of Monsignor Rossetti and Bishop Strickland.
The titles of the books in the trilogy are self-explanatory:
- Slaying Dragons: What Exorcists See and What We Should Know
- The Rise of the Occult: What Exorcists and Former Occultists Want You to Know
- The Occult Among Us: Exorcists and Former Occultists Expose the Nature of This Modern Evil
There's even a book for the youth! Swords and Shadows: Navigating Youth Amidst the Wiles of Satan
Read a book. Because when you're reading, you're not on the internet. The internet is dangerous, i.e. curiosity is dangerous. I heard author Charles Fraune advise: Do NOT look up these things (i.e. the occult) on the internet.
What I learned
I read the entire Slaying Dragons trilogy and I learned a great deal. A personal highlight for me was learning of the reality of spiritual authority; i.e. priests have spiritual authority (such as the priest praying the prayer of exorcism “over” me and not “with” me or “for” me), husbands have spiritual authority over their wives, parents have spiritual authority over their children. Our society may balk at authority and authority figures, but spiritual authority is real, even if we can’t “see” it.
As for community, a key takeaway for me from the Slaying Dragons trilogy was the tragic depth and breadth of the suffering of people ensnared in the occult. People seek solutions or enhancements to their lives, dabble in stuff, and then they're on a slippery slope to the mouth of a monster.
Parish talks
Something exciting about Slaying Dragons Press is their parish visits! You can invite Slaying Dragons Press founder and author Charles Fraune to speak at your parish. I’ve heard him speak three times and the listeners were captivated.
May we educate ourselves on spiritual warfare so our hearts may be kept captive for Christ!
Chelsey Kennedy writes at Seeking the Mercy in the Mundane on Substack.
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