Remember Janice Potter? She is the secretary over at Saint Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg who told me I shouldn't return to the parish because I had a problem with the liturgical abuses there. Most notably, the parish was omitting the Creed on Sundays. See here. She is still serving at the parish. See here.
A reader named Stewart informed us that, "Janice Potter is known on Facebook by the alias Jancanman. She has 'liked' a Facebook page titled 'Hope There's Wine In Hell.'
That page may be found here: https://www.facebook.com/winetimeanytime
Jan has also posed as a devil for a photo which she uses on various internet profiles.
In order to live our lives completely for God, we have to struggle against the principalities and powers of this world. So many Catholics today refuse to acknowledge this truth. For such people, belief in evil spirits is a matter of "superstition." Pope Paul VI, in a general audience on November 15, 1972, refuted this notion saying, "What are the Church's greatest needs at the present time? Don't be surprised at our answer and don't write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of the Church's greatest needs is to be defended against the evil which we call the Devil...Evil is not merely an absence of something but an active force, a living, spiritual being that is perverted and that perverts others....It is a departure from the picture provided by biblical and Church teaching to refuse to acknowledge the Devil's existence...or to explain the Devil as a pseudoreality, a conceptual, fanciful, personification of the unknown causes of our misfortunes...St. Paul calls him the 'god of this world,' and warns us of the struggle we Christians must carry on in the dark, not only against one Devil, but against a frightening multiplicity of them.."
Our spiritual struggle, then, is against a host of evil spirits. And these evil spirits are extremely cunning. Although they are fallen angels, they are still far more intelligent than us because of their angelic natures. Pope Paul VI, during the same audience, stressed that the Devil, "..undermines man's moral equilibrium with his sophistry. He is the malign, clever seducer who knows how to make his way into us through the senses, the imagination and the libido, through utopian logic, or through disordered social contacts in the give and take of our social activities, so that he can bring in us deviations that are all the more harmful because they seem to conform to our physical or mental make-up, or to our profound, instinctive aspirations....The matter of the Devil and of the influence he can exert on individuals as well as on communities, entire societies or events, is a very important chapter of Catholic doctrine which should be studied again, although it is given little attention today.."
Forty years later, we can still say the same. Little if any attention is paid to this critical aspect of Catholic doctrine. Mostly, I think, because we believe (in our arrogance) that we can solve all problems and difficulties ourselves. We forget Jesus' warning that some spirits can only be driven out through much prayer and fasting.
Jesus gives us power and authority over demonic forces. The demons were subject to the seventy disciples (Luke 10: 17-20). They were subject to Saint Paul and the first Christians. And they are subject to us as present-day followers of the Lord Jesus. But in order to use this power over the evil spirits, those of us who profess to be Christian must grow and develop in our spiritual lives. This means that we must strive to "live for God completely" as Archbishop Chaput reminded us. We must attend Holy Mass faithfully (and reverently), pray daily - the Rosary is a spiritual weapon which Satan fears, and spend time with Sacred Scripture - God's Holy Word.
As Christians, we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS through the shed Blood of Jesus Christ (Romans 8: 37-39). Let's live our lives accordingly. This means listening to the Magisterium of the Church with docility and submitting our minds and wills to that teaching authority which has been established by Jesus Himself. Without such obedience, how can we expect the evil spirits to obey our command - in the name of Jesus - to depart? Disobedience and sin will not drive out the demons. Only a life of faith lived in humility, taking the Virgin Mother of God as our model.
The answer to that question will determine whether we re-evangelize our culture or come to resemble the demons whose doctrines we follow.
