The devil especially hates good people who are in some way weak but remain good, who keep pursuing redemption despite their failings, using demonic oppression to wear them down to a state of despair and ultimately damnation. Christ was all good, but during His Passion and Death was very weak, and that is when the devil hated Him most. So it would seem that is why he targets certain people with demonic oppression, because they remind him on some level of Christ suffering.
Lately I’ve been talking about what seems to me like a demonic oppression of my health. GI illness, so bad having to leave a well paying professional job, then depression, then sudden neurological outbreak through arms and legs, back problems, etc, all within a few months.
I hope I am offering my suffering meekly, but to be honest some days I am not praying enough and throwing myself enough onto God’s mercy, but just enduring the cross passively. Nonetheless I am offering it up in prayer and resisting despair, while also being very weakened physically and mentally, so I seem to fall into the category of the kind of person attacked in this specific way.
This doesn’t point to me being a saint, but rather my path to sainthood, that is what seems like demonic oppression. Talking to my wife who is much more prayerful and strong in her Catholic Faith than me, she is even more convinced than me that this is what is and has happened to me going back decades, probably since high school if not earlier. I decided today to consult a priest for evaluation and spiritual direction about this.
I’m continuing with this line of blog posts because since discussing my recent sufferings, the idea of very bad suffering itself, and the Christian truths about suffering, there has been a major increase in daily blog views, for the past month or two. I see typically 100-150 views a day, which is nice to keep me motivated to write, from a Catholic and Christian perspective, to know that what I have to say seems to resonate with some people. But now most days there are over 300 views, today over 500, which makes me think that this subject is deeply important for people.
People suffer, struggle with the very notion of suffering, especially when it is great, and critically need to come to terms with it. As I am trying to do myself daily, every moment of the day lately. The problem of extreme suffering seems to be central in people’s minds, perhaps explaining the new flow of readers. I feel there are many of you reading this that are relating to my situation.
Going back to demonic oppression, per Fr. Ripperger and traditional Catholic theology, what happens is many unlucky occurrences keep happening to a person over and over, with health, finances, work, relationships, etc, to the point they are bringing serious disorder to their life, that there is a definite, recognizable pattern of this happening. The devil tempts the person to make unwise decisions that contribute to the pattern, but the pattern is generally not of their own making, but something being inflicted on them by external causes directed by the demon. The goal is to get the person to give up, choose a permanent state of despair, and then in that state to possess them.
I met a very decent, young man once who experienced tragedy in the course of three months. First, he was visiting his mother one day who accidentally tripped in the kitchen, and when she fell her neck caught the edge of a table and broke her neck right in front of him, dying on the way to the hospital. Later he felt irrational guilt that had he not been there at that moment she wouldn’t have been interacting with him in the kitchen at that moment and fell the way she did, which he admitted was false guilt as part of his severe grief. It was a tragic and traumatic experience to lose his mom that way.
The next month there was a storm that blew a tree down, going through his house from one side to the other. It didn’t just land on the roof or break a few windows. It ripped through the whole roof and walls such that the whole tree went through the interior through one outside wall and across through the opposing outside wall. It caused major destruction. And then the next month one of his students he was closest to died of cancer. It was like he was hit across the head by a steal baseball bat three times in a row. The result was he became severely depressed and suicidal. I’m not sure how much of a man of faith he was, but that sounds like he was being extremely oppressed.
Job was no doubt demonically oppressed, as was St. Padre Pio with their degrees of affliction, St. Padre Pio himself being constantly attacked at night by the devil physically and mentally. So I tend to think at least that demonic oppression, or perhaps something like it on a lesser level, is a sign the person has a certain degree of innocence the devil is trying to destroy. The more tragedy inflicted on Job, the more Job kept his faith, I am sure the more the devil hated him for it, which would also explain why he attacked Padre Pio so much because Padre Pio would not give up, but would endure all his afflictions with faith in God.
Perhaps then the height of spiritual battle over a person’s soul is seen during tragedy, the ultimate test of faith in God. Blessed Alexandrina who was bedridden, paralyzed for 30 years herself had to grow in holiness in order to achieve that level of sanctity that suggests by her beautification that she was a saint. In her biography, she confessed to acts of spiritual discouragement for the first three years of her bedridden state. She struggled to keep her trust in God until she learned to give total acceptance.
I’m sure many of you have had extreme hardship in your life, including your health. Perhaps someone with severe juvenile arthritis, which can attack joints so severely it practically cripples the young person from living ordinary life. Perhaps someone with a neurological disease like MS or Lupus or fibromyalgia that attacks the whole body in many ways, with severe fatigue, tiredness, nerve pain, muscle pain, brain fog, and depression, which by itself is oppressive. Diseases that require a lot of educating others in order to receive the understanding and support you so desperately need.
Perhaps someone suffering the breakdown of their family, or marriage, especially if you remained faithful but others turned their back on the family, cussing a major breakdown in your life, resulting in loneliness, isolation, depression, feelings of despair, all affecting many areas of their life.
My wife knew a woman who abandoned her terminally ill husband and several children, because she could not stand the stress of her husband dying, literally running off with another man to another state. The children somehow raised themselves, taking care of their dad until he died, and then I expect those still of a young enough age went into foster care.
It goes on and on, for nearly everybody at some point in their life, that is great suffering, however much they are the moral cause, or not, or however much they are being oppressed by the evil one. It is all a test. To keep on with our duties, with faith, hope, and charity, to the very end, or at some point giving in to permanent despair and separation from God.
In conclusion, Fr. Ripperger says that, as revealed to an exorcist during an exorcism by the possessing demon, the key to driving out the devil is prayer, specifically asking God to help them reclaim their own rights over their lives, and to banish the oppressing spirit. In the darkness of severe difficulty, we have to keep throwing ourselves onto God and driving out the devil’s influence, especially with official Church prayers like the rosary. And the devil especially hates the rosary and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Our lady, pray for us.