{"id":32855,"date":"2018-01-29T17:22:47","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T23:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/?p=32855"},"modified":"2018-01-31T15:00:58","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T21:00:58","slug":"our-lady-of-the-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/our-lady-of-the-storm\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Lady of the Storm","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Breezy Point Madonna,\u00a0<\/em><\/span>Mark Lennihan\/Associated Press<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

“NOTHING\u00a0<\/b>good ever happens after midnight,” my wife says. After nearly 27 years of marriage, this maxim has proven itself true: don’t try to sort out your difficulties when you should be sleeping.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One night, we ignored our own advice, and what seemed a passing comment turned into a bitter argument. As we’ve seen the devil try to do before, suddenly our weaknesses were blown out of proportion, our differences became gulfs, and our words became loaded weapons. Mad and sulking, I slept in the basement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

…the devil seeks to create an internal war, a kind of civil spiritual war.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u2014POPE FRANCIS, September 28th, 2013; catholicnewsagency.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

By morning, I awoke to the terrible realization that things had gone too far.\u00a0That Satan had been given a stronghold through the lies and distortions that came out the evening before, and that he was planning maximum<\/em> damage. We hardly spoke that day as an unbearable cold front moved in.<\/p>\n

The next morning after another night of tossing and turning, I started to pray the Rosary and, with my mind and thoughts scattered and deeply oppressed, I managed to whisper a prayer: “Blessed Mother, please come and crush the head of the enemy.” Moments later, I heard the distinct sound of a suitcase being zipped, and suddenly realized that my bride was leaving! At that moment, I heard a voice somewhere in my broken heart say, “Go into her room \u2014 NOW!”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

“Where are you going?” I asked her. “I need some time away,” she said, her eyes sad and tired. I sat down beside her, and over the course of the next two hours, we talked, listened, and waded through what seemed a dense and difficult jungle of lies that we had both believed. Twice I stood up and walked out, frustrated and exhausted… but something<\/em> kept urging me to go back until, finally, I broke down and wept in her lap, begging her forgiveness for my insensitivity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As we cried together, suddenly, a “word of knowledge” (cf. 1 Cor 12:8) came to me that we needed to “bind” the evil principalities that were coming against us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. (Ephesians 6:12)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Not that Lea and I see a demon behind every door or that every problem is a “spiritual attack.” But we knew, beyond a doubt, that we were in a serious confrontation. So we began to name whatever spirits came to mind: “Anger, Lies, Malcontent, Bitterness, Mistrust…” were mentioned, about seven in all. And with that, praying in agreement together, we bound the spirits and commanded them to depart.<\/p>\n

In the weeks that followed, the sense of freedom and light that filled our marriage and home was extraordinary. We also realized that this was not a matter of only spiritual warfare, but also the need for repentance and conversion\u2014repentance for the ways we had failed to love one another as we should have; and conversion by changing the things that needed to change\u2014from the way we communicated, acknowledging one another’s love language, trusting one another’s love, and above all, closing the door on those personal things in our lives, from inordinate appetites to a lack of discipline that could act as “open doors” to the enemy’s influence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ON DELIVERANCE<\/p>\n

The name of Jesus is powerful. Through it, we believers have been given the authority to bind and rebuke spirits in our personal lives: as fathers, over our homes and children; as priests, over our parishes and parishioners; and as bishops, over our dioceses and the malicious enemy wherever he has taken possession of a soul.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But how<\/em> Jesus chooses to bind and deliver the oppressed from evil spirits is another thing. Exorcists tell us that more people are delivered from evil spirits in the Sacrament of Reconciliation than at any other time. There, through His representative the priest in persona Christi<\/em>\u00a0and through a sincerely repentant heart, Jesus Himself rebukes the oppressor. At other times, Jesus acts through the invocation of His Name:<\/p>\n

\n

These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons… (Mark 16:17)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So powerful is the name of Jesus, that simple faith in it is often enough:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cMaster, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow in our company.\u201d Jesus said to him, \u201cDo not prevent him, for whoever is not against you is for you.\u201d (Luke 9:49-50)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Last, the experience of the Church in dealing with evil tells us that the Virgin Mary is a torment to the Evil One.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Where the Madonna is at home the devil does not enter; where there is the Mother, disturbance does not prevail, fear does not win.<\/strong> \u2014POPE FRANCIS,\u00a0Homily at the Basilica of St. Mary Major, January 28th, 2018, Catholic News Agency; crux.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

In my experience\u2014so far I have performed 2,300 rites of exorcism\u2014I can say that the invocation of the Most Holy Virgin Mary often provokes significant reactions in the person being exorcized\u2026<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014Exorcist, Fr. Sante Babolin,\u00a0Catholic News Agency<\/a>, April 28th, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In the Catholic Church’s Rite of Exorcism, it says:<\/p>\n

\n

Most cunning serpent, you shall no more dare to deceive the human race, persecute the Church, torment God\u2019s elect and sift them as wheat\u2026 The sacred Sign of the Cross commands you, as does also the power of the mysteries of the Christian Faith\u2026 The glorious Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, commands you; she who by her humility and from the first moment of her Immaculate Conception, crushed your proud head.<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014Ibid.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This invocation hearkens the Sacred Scriptures themselves which are book-ended, so to speak, by this battle between the “woman” and Satan\u2014that “cunning serpent” or “dragon”.<\/p>\n

\n

I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel…\u00a0Then the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God\u2019s commandments and bear witness to Jesus. (Gen 3:16, Douay-Reims; Revelation 12:17)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But it is the woman who crushes, by the heel of her Son or His mystical body, of which she is a preeminent part.[1]<\/sup><\/a>“\u2026this version [in the Latin] does not agree with the Hebrew text, in which it is not the woman but her offspring, her descendant, who will bruise the serpent\u2019s head. This text then does not attribute the victory over Satan to Mary but to her Son. Nevertheless, since the biblical concept establishes a profound solidarity between the parent and the offspring, the depiction of the Immaculata crushing the serpent, not by her own power but through the grace of her Son, is consistent with the original meaning of the passage.”\u00a0<\/strong>\u2014POPE JOHN PAUL II, \u201cMary\u2019s Emnity toward Satan was Absolute\u201d; General Audience, May 29th, 1996;\u00a0ewtn.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>