Spiritual Warfare, Take no Prisoners!

[BlueKnight]

I thought I’d post to hear about the different spiritual warfare practices of my fellow catholics.

One of my favorite is prayer. I sometimes pick a celebrity and pray a great deal for them and their conversion. I figure if they convert it could be a blessing to holywood and by extension america.

Also, I pray for President Bush. And the government.

One of the things I’ve done a lot is extend the blessing of Our Lady to people. I’ve done that often.

 

[CatholicSamurai]

Take no prisoners! I like that! To WAR!!!

I pray the rosary whenever I’m able to. I’m also a fan of the Memorare and I try to pray it as many times as I can in a given day. There is a formula of prayers that I have come up with that seem effective for me at least so I use that as well.

I also pray for souls in Puragtory and seek their help in times that I am lonely or depressed or in an almost impossible situation. They are my friends.

Mass is also very important in my quest. I attend different kinds of Masses and when I say different I mean Latin Mass, Tridentine Mass, local English Mass and Eastern Divine Liturgy (Byzantine Catholic Mass).

On a side note… I am also praying for the “demise” of Planned Parenthood.

 

[MarcoPolo]

I really recommend Father Corapi’s Immortal Combat series for this one if you are really curious…although the CD set is pricey. uch:

He’s talks about the effectiveness of sacramentals. Also exorcist Father Gabriel Amorth wrote in his “An Exorcist Tells His Story” book that confession is more powerful than an exorcism. And besides sacramentals, Gregorian Chant music is painful to the devil.

 

[Coreopisis]

Interesting you mentioned this…

My warfare consists of:
Going to confession at least once per month and attend mass weekly if not more. (Once in a great while I miss for illness and things but I try not to. .)

Praying the rosary at least once per week. We always start off with prayers such as this one which is one of my favorites:

"Dear Lord Jesus, please forgive me for all the times I have not submitted to you. Forgive me for all sinfulness and for agreeing with the enemy and his lies. I now submit to you as my Lord, dear Jesus. Now I break every agreement that I have made with the enemy.

Lord Jesus, please have your warring angels remove and bind to the abyss all demons and their devices that had access to me because I believed their lies. I now ask you to establish a hedge of protection around me, over me, and under me, and seal it with your blood, Lord Jesus Christ.

I now choose to put on the full armor of God and ask that you cleanse me and seal me, body, mind, soul and spirit, with your blood, Lord Jesus Christ. Please have your warring angels bind up and remove all demons, their devices, and all their power from within this protective hedge and have them sent to the abyss.

Please have your warriors destroy all demonic, occult, or witchcraft assignments directed against me including all backups and replacements. Please have your warriors remove all trafficking people and send them back to their own bodies and seal them there with your blood, Lord Jesus Christ. Please have your angels stand guard over me and protect me from all the attacks of the enemy."

Then we pray the rosary and after that we each pick one or two people who we know personally that need our prayers and then a world cause.

 

[Coreopisis]

I really recommend Father Corapi’s Immortal Combat series for this one if you are really curious…although the CD set is pricey. uch:

He’s talks about the effectiveness of sacramentals. Also exorcist Father Gabriel Amorth wrote in his “An Exorcist Tells His Story” book that confession is more powerful than an exorcism. And besides sacramentals, Gregorian Chant music is painful to the devil.

“Hostage to the Devil - the Posession and Exorcism of five Modern Day Americans” by Fr. Malachi Martin. Very good book I really recommend it talks about how Satin and his demons use our own modern sinful weaknesses to gain control over us to loose our souls. It’s a really good book because after the exorcisms he discusses what he believes, through his work, caused the possessions in the first place and where we are at risk. (Which is essentially everywhere these days.)

This book leaves you with a real sense of war against evil and it puts into perspective just how active Satin is right now. There are certain behavoirs that he says are typical of the possessed which freaked me out because I’ve seen it before. scary.

 

[TOP]

I agree, stay close to the Mass,the sacraments, that is stay in the body of Christ. Prayer at temptations and in/for intercessions. In times of emergancy, learn how to ask for shelter in the sacred heart of that body, which is Jesus Christ. I have only been able to do it once that I recall by giving up my self and asking for His help. Don’t rely on the self. Tim

 

[Guardian333]

I am very glad to see and hear from other Catholics on these forums who are interested in Spiritual Warfare. I used to be very fanatical about this topic for it was a factor in making my faith more concrete.

For spiritual warfare, I do the following:

Pray daily, glorifying God for everything, interceding for others, and examining my conscience.
Pray the Rosary as much as possible, 3-4x/week.
Pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy
Confession at least once a month.
Make time for Eucharistic Adoration
Read, study, reflect, and immerse myself in God’s Word.
Live in the presence of God.

Here is a link to a list of my personal library on Spiritual Warfare.
carlomac.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=324

I also have the DVDs by Fr. John Corapi, SOLT, Fr. Robert Faricy, SJ, and Fr. Antonio Fortea.

My awareness of the devil peaked after watching some episodes of “A Haunting” on the discovery channel, and some of the episodes involved people’s testimonies of demonic possession. In some of the episodes, the Catholic Church intervened with the Rite of Exorcism. I was so interested that I began reading many books on spiritual warfare.

Miles Jesu - “You are soldiers of Christ”

 

[Teelynn]

Unfortunately, there are a good number of Catholic Christians who poo poo the idea of spiritual warfare. To them it is a primitive theology. This I might add includes a good number of Catholic priests. It is one of the main stratigical tactics of Satan. To get people to believe that Satan is not as responsible for the downfall of man as man is himself. To get them to believe that Satan is not all that powerful. I compare it to any war that the enemy finds us lulled into a non defense mode. A very good example is 9/11. We were asleep at the wheel. Who would have imagined in their wildest dreams that people would attack us by flying planes into buildings? Same concept.

Satan is ALIVE and WELL.

 

[brigid12]

Rosary (start day), Little Office of the BVM (am and pm), Jesus Prayer, “Hail Mary”, Scripture, Mass, Adoration, St. Michael’s Prayer (end day).

 

[Coreopisis]

I am very glad to see and hear from other Catholics on these forums who are interested in Spiritual Warfare. I used to be very fanatical about this topic for it was a factor in making my faith more concrete.

For spiritual warfare, I do the following:

Pray daily, glorifying God for everything, interceding for others, and examining my conscience.
Pray the Rosary as much as possible, 3-4x/week.
Pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy
Confession at least once a month.
Make time for Eucharistic Adoration
Read, study, reflect, and immerse myself in God’s Word.
Live in the presence of God.

Here is a link to a list of my personal library on Spiritual Warfare.
carlomac.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=324

I also have the DVDs by Fr. John Corapi, SOLT, Fr. Robert Faricy, SJ, and Fr. Antonio Fortea.

My awareness of the devil peaked after watching some episodes of “A Haunting” on the discovery channel, and some of the episodes involved people’s testimonies of demonic possession. In some of the episodes, the Catholic Church intervened with the Rite of Exorcism. I was so interested that I began reading many books on spiritual warfare.

Miles Jesu - “You are soldiers of Christ”

It’s interesting to hear how your awareness was peaked after seeing thouse shows.

My personal awareness, and my families, in spiritual warfare began with our own haunting in my house. In a nut shell our house was haunted. We all kept thinking it was our imagination until it things became violent. Eventually my son’s CD tower was thrown accross his room in the middle of the night and his cd’s moved themselves across the floor. I personally got punched by something not there. Ok, I know I sound crazy, but I swear on the Holy Bible that this happened to us.

I’ve been asked not to speak of much else of what happened and how it was resolved so please understand I can’t. Sometimes I wish I could write a book but again I can’t talk about it. What I can tell you is that spiritual warfare very real. So real in fact that I am terrified for the world. I really wish that God would allow everyone an experiance like we had because I think it would bring everyone back to church and back to him. It worked for my family. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school growing up but then stopped going to church and practicing like many people do. Having that experiance brought me and my family back to church in a hurry. We now go to mass and read the bible and say the rosary and pray pray pray pray pray every night that we are left in peace.

Demons are more real than you can even imagine. They have powers and abilities that are beyond any of us. We truly are sheep. We are naked sheep against an enemy with weapons we can not even begin to imagine. We are nothing without God. We need him yet sadly people don’t see that. I realize now that the haunting was a gift for us in the sense that it really showed us what we are up against and we are humbled indeed.

When I think of the war that happened in my home I often think of a scene in the Lord of the Rings when Gandolf is facing the Balroq(demon of the deep.) Gandolf says to the group " there are older and fouler things than orks in the deep places of the earth." and then when the Balroq is coming he tells everyone “This foe is beyond any of you. Weapons are of no use here. Run!” And all the group looks confused and scared. We are those people.

 

[Guardian333]

Amen. Thank you for sharing your testimony. As Christians, we do have weapons and we CAN fight Satan and his followers.

Revelations 12:7-9 talks about the battle in the heavens from where Satan and his followers fell from grace and from Heaven.

Fr. Antonio Fortea elaborated on the question, “If good and bad angels are pure spirit, what kind of weapons did they use in reference to the scripture verse of Rev 12:7-9”? Fr. Antonio Fortea elaborates that the weapons of the angels and spirits are their “intellect” and “will”. For angels loyal to the Heavenly Father, their intellect is conformed towards the absolute Truth of God, and their will is conformed to loving God. For the “fallen angels”, their intellect is conformed towards the opposite of Truth, which is lies, and their will is conformed towards the opposite of love, which is pride and hate.

Therefore, to effectively fight Satan and his followers with spiritual weapons, we must perfect our love for God and we must develop clarity in our understanding of His absolute Truths. The Truth cannot be “relative” as Satan works hard to convey to people amongst the world.

The Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God Eph 6:17
Love casts out fear 1 John 4:18
Love overcomes all things and never fails 1 Cor 13:7-8
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is Love 1 John 4:7-8

According to Fr. John Corapi, Humility is the nuclear weapon against Satan because Humility is the opposite of Pride. Mary is our guide to humility, and Jesus is the epitome of Love. If we have Jesus and Mary in our lives, then we can effectively fight Satan and his followers.

www.catholicspiritualwarfare.net

 

[Teelynn]

It’s interesting to hear how your awareness was peaked after seeing thouse shows.

My personal awareness, and my families, in spiritual warfare began with our own haunting in my house. In a nut shell our house was haunted. We all kept thinking it was our imagination until it things became violent. Eventually my son’s CD tower was thrown accross his room in the middle of the night and his cd’s moved themselves across the floor. I personally got punched by something not there. Ok, I know I sound crazy, but I swear on the Holy Bible that this happened to us.

I’ve been asked not to speak of much else of what happened and how it was resolved so please understand I can’t. Sometimes I wish I could write a book but again I can’t talk about it. What I can tell you is that spiritual warfare very real. So real in fact that I am terrified for the world. I really wish that God would allow everyone an experiance like we had because I think it would bring everyone back to church and back to him. It worked for my family. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school growing up but then stopped going to church and practicing like many people do. Having that experiance brought me and my family back to church in a hurry. We now go to mass and read the bible and say the rosary and pray pray pray pray pray every night that we are left in peace.

Demons are more real than you can even imagine. They have powers and abilities that are beyond any of us. We truly are sheep. We are naked sheep against an enemy with weapons we can not even begin to imagine. We are nothing without God. We need him yet sadly people don’t see that. I realize now that the haunting was a gift for us in the sense that it really showed us what we are up against and we are humbled indeed.

When I think of the war that happened in my home I often think of a scene in the Lord of the Rings when Gandolf is facing the Balroq(demon of the deep.) Gandolf says to the group " there are older and fouler things than orks in the deep places of the earth." and then when the Balroq is coming he tells everyone “This foe is beyond any of you. Weapons are of no use here. Run!” And all the group looks confused and scared. We are those people.

Amazing experience. Horribly amazing, I might add. Probably not as unusual as one might think. (although there are more skeptics than not even those among the clergy) You are correct that an experience such as yours would most definitely bring one back to The Lord, in a quick hurry! Make a true believer out of you. I happen to not question this kind of thing beyond a shadow of a doubt. It has never happened to me (thank you Lord!) but yes, in the end it would be a blessing in disguise to many. As for me, I can just somehow “feel” the reality of Satan’s presence, without having to experience his reality. Don’t think I have the need to thank you very much! I believe it was John Paul ll (correct me if I’m wrong) that said, “If one does not believe in Satan and his reality, then one cannot believe in Christ and His Gospel.” If you have read anything about Padre Pio,(and a number of our great saints actually) he used to be physically assaulted by the Evil One almost on a regular basis. Never fear him, he told us, but put all your trust in Christ Jesus, through your complete weakness and humility, He will always protect you. I am sure you probably have Holy Water around?

I, together with my family have been praying more and more, sometimes with almost an urgency for the past year. I contribute this to the evil that is escalating in the world, and “feeling” this with concrete evidence but mostly with spiritual eyes. Sometimes if time permits, (doesn’t always for me believe me!) I will say 2 rosaries a day. The Blessed Mother is the conqueror of Satan.
The rosary is very powerful indeed. Pray and sacrifice. Leave the rest to The Lord.

Blessings!

 

[Coreopisis]

According to Fr. John Corapi, Humility is the nuclear weapon against Satan because Humility is the opposite of Pride. Mary is our guide to humility, and Jesus is the epitome of Love. If we have Jesus and Mary in our lives, then we can effectively fight Satan and his followers.

www.catholicspiritualwarfare.net

Huh. What you say about humility is very interesting. Per my experiance I think Fr. John Corapi is right but I never made this connection until you wrote it. This is so hard because there is so much I want to tell you to back up this.

I think I can tell you this tidbit. At one point I was physically assaulted. I tried fighting back physically, not acting scared, not being scared. everything. I even tried just walking away. The assault continued until I fell to my bed completly defeated and at that moment I stopped trying to fight back and accepted that I might die. I prayed in my head to God and told him that I am nothing without him and that I am weak and helpless against this enemy. (My words were not so well put together at the time.)

The very moment that I accepted this humility and prayed the attack stopped instantly. I’ve always wondered what made the attack stop because I felt I was going to die. It must’ve been the humility???

I see things on TV alot how they say if you have a haunting to just tell it to go and it has to listen to you. They also say that you can use sage in your house and that will make them go away. Some people even say you have to ask them what they want and that is the only way to figure it out. I can tell you that this is all WRONG and these people have no idea what they are dealing with.

I wish I could go on those shows and tell them how stupid they are being. NEVER talk to them. The problem is you don’t know if you are dealing with a demon or not and if you are may God help you. I know I was dealing with demons and they are no joke. Demons are liars and htey might go away to humor you for a little while and then come back so that you’ll talk to them again and invite them in.

Really scary stuff.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Yes! Take no prisoners!!

I try to pray the Rosary every day, but there are some days when I have failed. I also try to attend Mass weekly (starting a year before my RCIA class, too, and no, I didn’t eat the ‘cookies!’), though I missed a week when my BIL was in the hospital.

I pray before and after meals, sometimes silently, sometimes not.

But another thing I do is pray one minute every night at 9 PM EST, for our troops, and for a return to a Godly nation. This practice is from an email sent me months ago by my godfather and I thought it was an excellent idea. Though the one minute usually turns into more like five.

Though I have the attention span of a med fly and am easily distracted by shiny things, I am also fairly combative.

 

[CatholicSamurai]

Might I add, along with prayer, fasting. Prayer and fasting go hand in hand really. I normally fasted once a month because it was a requirement of the group I joined. Since then that has waned and I am slowly coming back to fasting again. Now I do it at least twice a week.

 

[TOP]

Amen. Thank you for sharing your testimony. As Christians, we do have weapons and we CAN fight Satan and his followers.

Revelations 12:7-9 talks about the battle in the heavens from where Satan and his followers fell from grace and from Heaven.

Fr. Antonio Fortea elaborated on the question, “If good and bad angels are pure spirit, what kind of weapons did they use in reference to the scripture verse of Rev 12:7-9”? Fr. Antonio Fortea elaborates that the weapons of the angels and spirits are their “intellect” and “will”. For angels loyal to the Heavenly Father, their intellect is conformed towards the absolute Truth of God, and their will is conformed to loving God. For the “fallen angels”, their intellect is conformed towards the opposite of Truth, which is lies, and their will is conformed towards the opposite of love, which is pride and hate.

Therefore, to effectively fight Satan and his followers with spiritual weapons, we must perfect our love for God and we must develop clarity in our understanding of His absolute Truths. The Truth cannot be “relative” as Satan works hard to convey to people amongst the world.

The Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God Eph 6:17
Love casts out fear 1 John 4:18
Love overcomes all things and never fails 1 Cor 13:7-8
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is Love 1 John 4:7-8

According to Fr. John Corapi, Humility is the nuclear weapon against Satan because Humility is the opposite of Pride. Mary is our guide to humility, and Jesus is the epitome of Love. If we have Jesus and Mary in our lives, then we can effectively fight Satan and his followers.

www.catholicspiritualwarfare.net

Good post. This better explains my comment on giving up the self and finding shelter in the sacred heart. Tim

 

[passioncrosslov]

Unfortunately, there are a good number of Catholic Christians who poo poo the idea of spiritual warfare. To them it is a primitive theology. This I might add includes a good number of Catholic priests. It is one of the main stratigical tactics of Satan. To get people to believe that Satan is not as responsible for the downfall of man as man is himself. To get them to believe that Satan is not all that powerful. I compare it to any war that the enemy finds us lulled into a non defense mode. A very good example is 9/11. We were asleep at the wheel. Who would have imagined in their wildest dreams that people would attack us by flying planes into buildings? Same concept.

Satan is ALIVE and WELL.

I think the #1 thing in this spiritual warfare is self-knowledge; know your weakness and strength. If one knows one’s weaknesses and guard against them, Satin would have a harder time to mess with him/her. The unfortunate thing in our modern world is that we tend to take everything as a joke, and long behold Satin manipulates his way through under the disguise of humor, vicious humor, with no conscience.

 

[fnr]

I thought I’d post to hear about the different spiritual warfare practices of my fellow catholics.

One of my favorite is prayer. I sometimes pick a celebrity and pray a great deal for them and their conversion. I figure if they convert it could be a blessing to holywood and by extension america.

Also, I pray for President Bush. And the government.

One of the things I’ve done a lot is extend the blessing of Our Lady to people. I’ve done that often.

For me, it’s more about trying to build the City of God. In everyday life, I try to keep fidelity with the truth, no matter how it affects my career. I try to make sure that the poor are included in thoughts about how my employer’s business might affect people and the environment. I pray the Rosary, not as often as I should.

One thing I don’t say is “take no prisoners.” I dislike the terminology of warfare. Yes, our Lord came to bring a sword, and himself overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the temple, but even that was not a “scorched earth” campaign.

I find that people are most likely to open up to me and listen when I open up to them and listen. Seeing the image and likeness of God in everyone is the hope I carry with me.

I guess for me the bottom line is that for me “spiritual warfare” really comes down to two terms: integrity and empathy. Upholding my own values, while at the same time seeing others who may disagree through the eyes of love.

 

[BlueKnight]

I just want to add…

Don’t get paranoid and don’t be impressed with the power of the Devil or his actions in the physical world.

The really terrifying things is losing one’s soul or seeing him capture and rule over a soul of a loved one, friend, or beloved. That is true torment.

I highly recommend blessed sacramentals in the home and constant prayer for God to rule in our hearts and the hearts of our family, friends, and beloved ones.

Personally, the Blessed Mother has literally saved my rear end on many occassions. Old Sparky usually attacks me at my work place. The thing is, Old Sparky knows where are weaknesses are and he is relentless. It is only in total surrender to Jesus, humility (which I lack in spades), and extreme spirituality that we have any hope.

Keep your body strong. Do something physical that has a holy purpose and spiritual context. Keep your mind strong, get good sleep at night, relax, and don’t dwell on things.

BK

 

[St_Gabriel]

Frequent confession & communion, blessed sacramentals, bible reading, praying the holy rosary, fasting and the prayer to St. Micheal are my weapons. Knowledge & trust of the Divine Mercy of Christ. Any spiitual attacks beyond that, I go to my parish priest for advice.