“How can I be strong in my faith?”

Here are recent questions and comments from anonymous bloggers. I ask our student bloggers who are looking for things to do while they slumber at home (!) to help and answer the third question. C’mon, you all know how to help answer the person’s question, “How can I be strong in my faith?” Please leave your specific suggestions asap.

1)"A question....for the people that have demonic possession...how does this happen? I have been told you have to "invite" this to happen. We allow this by participating in various games and movies. So my question is..how does this happen to people.”

The best thing to do, Anon, is to read Fr. Euteneur’s book, “Exorcism and the Church Miitant”. He goes through all of the scenarios on how demonic possession happens to people. Here is a partial answer to your question:

“In general, the devil or any demon has not power to possess or enter a person who lives in a state of grace…Demonic evil can only operate on a person with the consent of the human will. There are two exceptions to this general rule. One is when God in His Providence allows a person in a state of grace to be afflicted by a demon…The other exception to the rule is when an innocent person becomes the victim of a satanic curse or witchcraft of some sort” (pp.36-37).

“Aside from true victimization, the ‘standard’ way the devil possesses people is through a process of subtle and perverse invitations to gain the person’s free consent. There is no inadvertent possession. Demons usually come in through some sort of acquiescence of the human will” (p.42).

“There are three main reasons why someone who confesses the Name of Jesus may have a demon. First, Christians can be slothful in their practice of the faith or vulnerable to demons through unrepentant and unconfessed sin. Christ cannot fully protect even His followers who do not invoke His protection consciously. Second, the Lord allows Christians to suffer in this way to ‘test’ or ‘prove’ them in the fires of adversity. The devil is most effective in offering that kind of spiritual testing, and sometimes it comes as internal obsessions rather than merely external forms of persecution. Third, ‘God wishes to give us a true knowledge and understanding of ourselves’ and show us how impossible it is to advance in His service without the aid of His grace.

“Some have wondered how it is possible for the devil to inhabit a body which St. Paul says is the ‘temple of the Holy Spirit.’ It would seem that God and Belial cannot exist in the same place at the same time. But an unclean spirit may enter and inhabit a body in the same way that sin may enter and stain a soul: by the human will, which gives permission for its entrance. Or to use an analogy: a demon may enter a body in the same way a Satanist may enter a church building; either through a deliberate wicked action or a free invitation. The mere fact of God’s Presence in a place does not prohibit the action and activity of human or spiritual evil though a place may be sacred” (pp.108-109).



2) “I think it's SUBconscious, not UNconscious. : )”

This was a comment from my homily on the 3rd Sunday of Advent. I was thinking that, too, Anon, when I read the following line from Fr. Benedict Groeschel, a priest and a psychologist, in his book, Courage to be Chaste: “Dreams are experiences which permit the unconscious to rise to the surface of the mind” (p.94). Webster’s dictionary does say that the unconscious is the “part of the mind containing the psychic material of which the ego is unaware”.


3) “I was away from the Catholic church for about 2-3 years and would like to know how I can be strong in my faith?”

My post, “Five Fundamentals of a Firm Faith” (10/5/10), should help on a general level. And, bloggers will offer specific ways to be strong in your faith…(I hope).