THE ACTION OF DEMONS on each of us

Whoever writes about angels cannot keep silent about the devil. He too is an angel, a fallen angel, but he always remains a very powerful and intelligent spirit that infinitely surpasses the most brilliant man. And even being what it is, that is, a ruin of the original idea of ​​God, it still remains grandiose. The angel of the night is hateful, his sinister secret is impenetrable. He, the reality of his existence, his sin, his pain and his destructive action in Creation have filled whole books.

We don't want to honor the devil by filling a book with his hatred and his stench '(Hophan, The angels, p. 266), but talking about him is necessary, because by nature he is an angel and at one time the bond of grace united him to the other angels. But these pages are veiled in fear of the night. According to the Fathers of the Church already in the book of Genesis we find mysterious indications about the shining angels and the prince of darkness: “He saw God that the light was good and separated the light from the darkness; and called the light "day", and the darkness "night" "(Gen 1, 3).

In the Gospel, God gave a short word to Satan's reality and infamy. When on their return from the apostolic mission the disciples joyfully told him of their successes "Lord, even the demons subject themselves to us in your name", he replied looking at the distant eternity: "I see Satan fall from the sky like lightning" (Lc 10, 17-18). “Then there was a war in heaven. Michael and his Angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels engaged in battle, but they could not prevail and there was no place for them in the sky. And the great dragon was precipitated, the ancient serpent, who was called devil and Satan, the seducer of the whole world; he was precipitated on earth, and his angels were precipitated with him ... But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil came down to you with great anger, knowing that he had little time left! " (Ap 12, 7-9.12).

But the sea and the land were not Satan's goal as much as man. He had been waiting anxiously for him, and had been lurking after the fall from heaven, ever since the day the man had set foot in paradise. The devil wants to appease his hatred of God by using man. He wants to hit God in man. And God has granted him to be able to sift men as it is done with wheat (cf. Lk 22,31:XNUMX).

And Satan celebrated his great success. He instigated the first men to commit the same sin that had brought him eternal damnation. He instigated Adam and Eve to refuse obedience, to the arrogant revolt against God. `You will be like God! ': With these words Satan,` He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not persevere in the truth' (Jn 8:44) he succeeded then and still manages to achieve its goal today.

But God destroyed the satanic triumph.

Satan's sin was a cold sin and pondered and guided by clear understanding. And for this reason his punishment will last forever. Man will never become devil, in the proper sense of the word, because he is not at the same high level, which is necessary to fall so low. Only the angel could become a devil.

Man has an obscured understanding, was seduced and committed sins. He did not see the full depth of the consequences of his rebellion. So his punishment was more forgiving than that of the rebel angels. It is true that the bond of intimate trust between God and man was broken, but it was not an irreversible break. It is true that man was driven out of paradise, but God also gave him hope for reconciliation.

Despite Satan, God did not repudiate his creature forever, but sent his only son into the world, to reopen the door of heaven for man. And Christ destroyed Satan's rule by death on the cross.

Redemption is not automatic though! Christ's atoning death led to the necessary grace of redemption for all men, but each individual man must decide whether to use this grace for his salvation, or whether to turn his back on God and block access to his soul.

As far as the individual is concerned, Satan's margin of influence is therefore quite large, despite the fact that Christ definitively exceeded it; and he will do all he can to divert man from the right path and to bring him down to hell. Peter's persistent warning is therefore important: “Be sober and be on your guard! The devil, your opponent, wanders around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, stand firm in the faith "(1 Pt 5, 8-9)!"

Satan infinitely surpasses us. men in mind and strength, is an intelligence with immense knowledge. With his sin he lost happiness and the vision of the ways of God's grace, but he did not lose his nature. The angel's natural intelligence also remains in the devil. it is completely wrong therefore to speak of the 'stupid devil'. The dia-volo judges the material world and its laws as a genius. Compared to man, the devil is the best physicist, the perfect chemist, the most brilliant politician, the best connoisseur of the human body and the human soul.

His exceptional understanding is combined with an equally exceptional tactic. “In the Christian symbolic, the devil is represented by a chess player. Chess is a game of ingenious method. Those who follow the chess game of universal history with philosophy must admit that Satan is a great master of the method, a refined diplomat and an astute tactician "(Màder: Der heilige Geist - Der damonische Geist, p. 118). The art of the game consists of veiling intentions and pretending what is not in the intentions. The goal is clear: the demonization of humanity.

The process of demonization can be divided into three successive stages: the first stage is detachment from God through occasional sin. The second stage is characterized by the anchoring of man in evil and his conscious and chronic renunciation of God. The final stage is rebellion against God and open anti-Christianity.

The path passes through weakness to wickedness, to conscious and destructive evil. The result is a demonized man.

The devil almost always chooses the path of small steps to guide man. Being an excellent psychologist and pedagogue, he adapts to the individual's endowments and tendencies, and takes advantage of interests and especially weaknesses. He is unable to read the thought, but he is an astute observer and often guesses from mimicry and gestures what happens in the mind and heart, and chooses his attack strategy based on it. The devil cannot compel man to sin, he can only attract and threaten him. In most cases it is not possible for him to speak directly to man, but is capable of influencing the mind through the imaginary world. He manages to activate ideas in us that favor his plans. The devil cannot even directly influence the will, because freedom of thought limits it. This is why he chooses the indirect route, through the whispers that even third parties can bring to man's ear. Then it is capable of negatively influencing our ambition to the point of provoking the wrong ideas. A proverb says: 'The blind man.' The affected man does not see the connections well or does not see them at all.

In certain crucial moments it also happens that we completely forget our fundamental knowledge and our memory is blocked. Most often these are natural causes, but just as often the devil has taken his hand.

Satan also directly influences the soul. Explore our weaknesses and moods, and want to induce us to lose self-control.

Satan does not stop adding evil to evil, until man has completely turned his back on God, until he becomes insensitive to the grace and comfort of his neighbor and until his conscience has been struck to death and he is a slave to his seducer. It takes extraordinary methods of grace to snatch these men from Satan's claws at the last minute. Because the man seduced to pride gives strong and solid support to the flight. Men without the fundamental Christian virtue of devotion are easy victims of blindness and seduction. "I don't want to serve" are the words of the fallen angels.

This is not the only wrong behavior that Satan wants to induce in man: there are the seven so-called mortal sins, the basis of all other sins: pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, l 'send-sloth. These vices are often linked. Especially nowadays, it often happens to see young people giving in to sexual excesses and other vices. There is often a link between laziness and drug abuse, between drug abuse and violence, which in turn is favored by sexual excesses. This often results in physical and mental self-destruction, despair and suicide. Sometimes these vices are only the first step towards true Satanism. The men who turn to Satanism have consciously and voluntarily sold their soul to the devil and recognize him as their lord. They open themselves to him so that he can totally take possession of them and use them as his tools. Then we talk about obsession.

In his book 'The Agent of Satan', Mike Warnke tells many details of these things. He himself was part of the satanic sects and over the years he had risen to the third level within the secret organization. He also had meetings with people of the fourth level, the so-called enlightened ones. But he did not know the tip of the pyramid. He confesses: "... I myself was totally captured in occultism. I was a worshiper of Satan, one of the high priests. I had influence on many people, on an entire group. I ate human flesh and drank human blood. I have subdued men and tried to exercise power over them. I was always looking for full satisfaction and meaning for my life; and then I groped with the help of black magic, human philosophers and serving the earthly gods and I imposed myself in all unscrupulous fields "(M. Warnke: The agent of Satan, p. 214).

After his conversion, Warnke now wants to warn men against occultism. He says that about 80 different occult methods are practiced in America, such as cartomancy, astrology, magic, the so-called `` white magic '', reincarnation, the visions of the astral body, the reading of thought, the telepathy, the spiritism, the movement of the tables, clairvoyance, dowsing, divination with the crystalline sphere, materialization, reading the lines of the hand, faith in talismans and many others.

We must expect evil, not only evil in ourselves, namely malignant craving, but evil in the form of a personified power, which desires impiety and wants to transform love into hatred and seeks destruction instead of construction. Satan's regime is based on terror, but we are not defenseless against this power. Christ overcame the devil and with great love and concern he entrusted our protection to the holy angels (first of all St. Michael the Archangel). Her mother is also our Mother. Whoever seeks protection under his cloak will not lose himself, despite all the misery and danger and temptations of the enemy. “I will put enmity between you and the Woman, between your seed and her Seed; He will crush your head and you will sneak it in the heel "(Gen 3:15). 'He will crush your head!' These words should neither intimidate us nor discourage us. With the help of God, the prayers of Mary and the protection of the holy angels the victory will be ours!

Paul's words in the letter to the Ephesians also apply to us: “After all, strengthen yourselves in the Lord and in his almighty virtue. Put on the armor of God to be able to resist the dangers of the devil: because we do not have to fight only against purely human forces, but against the principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spirits of evil scattered in the 'air. So put on the armor of God to be able to resist the evil day, support the fight to the end and remain the masters of the field. Yes, stand up therefore! Gird your hips with the truth, put on the breastplate of justice, and put on your feet, ready to announce the Gospel of peace. But above all, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the fiery arrows of the evil one "(Eph 6: 10-16)!

(Taken from: "Living with the help of the Angels" R Palmatius Zillingen SS.CC - 'Theological' nr 40 year 9th Ed. Sign 2004)