Can lay Catholics command Satan/Demons in Jesus Name?

[BroIgnatius]

How do you judge whether you are in a state of grace?

We know when we are in a state of grace when the priest absolves us in the Sacrament of Confession. We know we continue in a state of grace when we have not committed a mortal sin since our last Confession. That is the teaching of the Church.

The Catechism refers to this:

1415 Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eucharistic communion must be in the state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance.

Thus, the Church says that we can be aware of loss of grace and when we are in grace. Each time you receive communion without going to Confession immediately prior to Mass, you are deciding you are in a State of Grace.

 

[BroIgnatius]

A pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of St. Joan of Arc to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges: "Asked if she knew that she was in God’s grace, she replied: ‘If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.’"

Yes, I like that quote, too. But, remember, Joan was under trial before the bishop and doctors of theology when she said that. It was to a direct question from the bishop who was trying to trip her up. Her response was a truly inspired one in answer to the duplicitous question form the bishop.

It is also a mark of her personal charism of humility, and not a Church teaching on the subject.