Spirit Daily - Daily spiritual news from around the world

We live in a time when both prophecy and reports of spiritual warfare have risen together -- really, skyrocketed, to a crescendo.

"I wanted to share something that happened on the night of the second debate between the presidential candidates," writes Sister Elizabeth Anne, in our stack of mail. "Our community, Little Sisters of Saint Francis, lives here in Danville, New Hampshire. We are a contemplative community, although not cloistered. We have three guest-retreat houses where we welcome priests, religious, and laity for times of prayer and rest.

"On the night mentioned above, one of our guests who is staying in Divine Mercy House had the following experience. We do not have television in either our convent or the guest houses; therefore, our guest Joni, who is from North Carolina, was listening to the debate on her radio. Someone asked the candidates: 'If you are elected, what sacrifices will we have to make?'

"At that very moment, 9:30 p.m., all the lights in Danville went out! Suddenly and without warning, we were plunged into total darkness. Joni was startled and as her eyes tried to adjust to the darkness, she noticed a 'glow' on the kitchen windowsill. As she looked at this 'light' in the darkness, she realized it was coming from a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes which is made of soapstone and therefore absorbs the light.

"She was struck by the thought of what she had just heard on the radio, and then the sudden darkness and the sight of Our Lady glowing in the dark and the only 'light' that was visible. She felt an immediate sense of peace and comfort. When she shared this with us the following day, I thought you might enjoy the beautiful and simple way that our all merciful God, through His Holy Mother, seeks to bring us His blessed assurance that they will always be with us, no matter how much darkness there is around us."

The manifestations of darkness are many. In New England Mary Delia recalls how the devil seemed to speak directly through a man who entered her religious gift shop and was intoxicated. "All day long, I was passing out to customers a leaflet on how to start a prayer group and giving out rosaries and telling them that each prayer group would help diminish Satan's power in the area," she says of an event some years back. "Well it was almost 8 p.m. and I was getting ready to close when two couples walked in. Then this young man walked in staggering. He was overwhelmingly drunk and was swaying and trying to talk but couldn't (the man was blocking the doorway and looked like he was going to fall through the plate glass picture window).

"Finally I said 'can I help you? ' and although he did try, he couldn't even answer. Then his eyes rolled to the top of his head so you could only see white; he slammed his fist on the counter; and his face contorted horribly as he said in perfect English, 'Don't you know who I am?'

"Still not understanding what I was seeing, I said 'who are you?' His answer was 'My name is Satan and I rule the world.' Then he went back to the drunken state he was in earlier. As I picked up the phone and dialed the police, I noticed my four other customers with their jaws dropped in horror. The police came and took him away and then my dear customers said that the man was possessed because he had given up his free will by being so drunk. It was then that I realized that 'the guy in the red suit' doesn't like cenacles and didn't want to give up his territory. Well, that whole incident just made me more determined. I put a St. Benedict's medal over my entrance door, and the next time he came in very drunk, he was perfectly polite, walked outside, and took on two officers who arrested him. The power of prayer -- and the use of sacramentals: it's amazing! Please share this as it may deter someone from getting intoxicated and may even inspire some to start a prayer group (two or three people) and help clean out an area."

At our final retreat this season -- in Las Vegas, another war zone for sure -- we will again ask those attending specifically to do that: spread blessed salt over the area. We ask that this be done (and particularly this time of year) everywhere.

A woman from Manasquan, New Jersey, has informed us of a rash of suicides, including that of an honor student and start athlete, at a high school there -- where there are the usual drugs and also witchcraft. The season of Halloween is the season to pray for our youth. (Please pray too for this school, and the many schools where teens have turned to the occult after reading certain books.)

"I heard the most awesome sermon today by a Father Martin from Nigeria," writes another woman named Nancy. "He was explaining the fact that the devil never comes as we would imagine him. He said the devil was in the First Book of Genesis when he tempted Eve. We would never recognize him like: 'oh, there is the devil.' or 'here is the devil.' No, he comes hidden to us, hidden in compassion, like when St. Peter said: 'no Lord, I would never let that happen to you,' and Jesus says: 'get behind me Satan!'

"This visiting priest is now studying in Rome. I heard the word 'devil' more times in his short ten-minute sermon then I have heard in twenty years from our pulpits on Eastern Long Island. What a sermon! Father said we are afraid to tell our children about the devil -- we are afraid to tell teen agers -- yet this is his greatest weapon: to convince people that he does not exist! And so today we have the devil in immorality, politics, financial ruin, abortion, and gay marriage. How do we get rid of him? By prayer and fasting. All Christians must pray and fast to get rid of him."

Write your bishop about the dearth of information concerning the dark side -- the need to warn the flock.

What about the devil's hand in prophecy?

"Predicting the end times is the most persistent and dangerous heresy of Protestantism," noted another viewer named Parker. "Luther's own false end-times panic fueled the Reformation (Pope and Catholics were 'antichrist' and the 'Whore of Babylon' of the Apocalypse), and to this day Protestantism is encumbered with bold false predictions of 'the end.' Such error represents a massive, concrete threat to Christianity. When one is dedicated to such short-term thinking, one ceases to plan, build, and envision the Christianization of our communities and nations and future. A well-known evangelical radio preacher famously preached: 'You don't polish brass on a sinking ship!' -- thereby denying the validity of any involvement in history.

"When Protestants became convinced that Jesus is coming in 1988, or next month or in 2012, they cease to be of any use to the development of godly communities and the expansion of Christendom throughout the world. To the contrary, they spread endless slanders about Catholics and government leaders. Even worse, the failure of their predictions to materialize causes many to abandon the faith (agnostics track false end-times predictions as proof that Christianity is verifiably untrue!).

"The main reason that Protestants err on this teaching is that they don't follow the general understanding provided by St. Augustine, St. Eusebius, and St. Thomas Aquinas. The greatest doctors of our Catholic faith preached that Christ's Olivet Discourse (Luke 21/Mark 13/Matthew 24) pertained primarily to the destruction of Jerusalem and salvation of the Nazarene disciples of Jesus at AD 70 (this effectively launched the Catholic Church while bringing Old Covenant Temple Judaism to its historic close). Protestant evangelicals, apparently unaware of this understanding, always falsely assign the passage to whatever generation they find themselves in. The result is always dramatic, fatal, error -- and such error has huge consequences."

And so we see the need for balance.

Have those passages from the New Testament (let us re-read them) all actually materialized?

Very debatable.

But good points: caution and more caution, as darkness (and confusion, the devil's hallmark) swirl around us.