The Biblical response to a nation in crisis.....

Breitbart is reporting:

A Christian group called American Renewal Project will host a major prayer meeting this Saturday at the North Charleston Coliseum to “pray and fast for America.” The six-hour event, which is being billed as “The Response SC,” will feature South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal as two of the day’s speakers.

A press release for the event states that the biblical response to a nation in crisis is “to gather in humility and repentance and ask God to intervene.” It describes the meeting as “a historic gathering of people from across the nation to pray and fast for America” that hopes to draw some 10,000 people to “worship God, seek repentance and pray for reconciliation, reformation and revival.”

The encounter, which will be live-streamed by Breitbart News, is being billed as an inter-faith meeting to pray “for those in need, for life, for strong families and just laws.”

Though some have suggested that Jindal will be using the occasion for “stumping,” organizers have insisted on the strictly spiritual nature of the meeting. Doug Stringer, a Houston minister who is helping to organize The Response SC, said the event will include music from three worship teams, but “no egos and no logos.”

Similarly, David Lane, president and founder of the American Renewal Project, said the meeting would focus on fasting and prayer to Jesus and would be non-commercial and non-political.

“No DVD sales, no book sales, no T-shirt sales, no concession stand,” Lane said, just “fasting and prayer.”

“Our goal is to restore America to a biblically based culture, and we recognize that only God can do it,” he said.

This is most admirable.  But the Church must also engage in deliverance prayer and fasting, for the Lord Jesus has told us that some demons are only driven out by such means.

Father Jeffrey Steffon, in his book entitled "Satanism: Is It Real?", reminds us that, "Deliverance prayer is one of the oldest traditions of the Catholic Church. In the Our Father we pray, 'Deliver us from evil.' That prayer is a prayer for deliverance. Christians are able to pray for deliverance from evil spirits because Jesus gave them that power. In Luke 10 Jesus commissioned the seventy disciples to spread the kingdom of God. In this action Jesus gave them authority over demonic spirits. The seventy, upon their return to Jesus, exclaimed, 'Even the demons are subject to us in your name!'

Though Jesus gave His followers such power, it is up to individual Christians to use it...Deliverance prayer is not exorcism. There are two forms of exorcism: solemn and private. Solemn exorcism is a liturgical rite and public action of the Catholic Church. Solemn exorcism is performed only by an official delegate of the Bishop. Private exorcism is not a public, liturgical rite. The terms private (or simple) exorcism and deliverance refer to the same action. This style of prayer is used to curb the influence of Satan in the lives of Christians. Whereas in solemn exorcism only the delegate of the Bishop may perform the exorcism, any Christian can say the deliverance prayer.

Deliverance prayer is said in the name of the person of Jesus. Solemn exorcism is prayed in the name of Jesus and the whole Catholic Church. It would seem logical that a priest, by the power of the sacrament of Holy Orders, has a greater commission than the laity to pray the deliverance prayer. This is not always the case, however, because this prayer is a charism. God can give charisms to whomever He chooses..." (pp. 174-175).

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, responding to certain questionable activities, published a statement which said (in part):

..the Bishops are requested to watch that, even in cases where a true diabolical possession is excluded, those who lack the proper permission do not supervise or direct the assemblies in which prayers are used to obtain a releasing, in the course of which the devils are disturbed and their identities sought. However, the declaration of these norms by no means should keep the faithful from praying to be delivered from evil, as Jesus taught. Moreover, the Bishops will be able to use any given opportunity to recall what the tradition of the Church teaches about the role played by the sacraments and the intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of the Angels, and of the Saints in the spiritual struggle of Christians against evil spirits."

What are we waiting for then?

I call upon the Diocese of Worcester to renounce the evil spirits which plague it

Father Jeffrey Steffon is an expert on Satanism and the occult.  He has worked counseling victims of satanic ritual abuse and is a popular conference speaker.  In his book entitled "Satanism: Is it real?," Fr. Steffon, addressing the popularity of the New Age movement, says that the movement is not new, but is a revival of paganism.  He writes, "This revival includes the resurgence of goddess worship.  Through ritual, celebration, and myth, NAM and neo-pagans attempt to reharmonize themselves with the Whole or the One, which many groups refer to as the goddess.  Neo-pagans believe that patriarchal religions are responsible for the exploitation of women and nature.  They believe that people must move beyond God the Father and be nurtured by the goddess within. The real issue in worship of a goddess is the transcendence of God.  It appears established that the Father image lends itself more readily to the dimension of transcendence, the maternal more to immanence.  Maternal images bespeak closeness, connectedness to the earth and creation, and thus more easily lend themselves to pantheism.  While pantheism proclaims an immanence without transcendence, the Judeo-Christian worldview holds to an immanence that presupposes transcendence, and this is expressed and preserved in various ways in the tradition, one of which is the Fatherhood of God, enriched but not replaced by maternal images of closeness.  The father image, of course, runs the risk of overemphasizing the distance between God and his people; but the prophets preferred to overcome this danger by incorporating maternal imagery into the father title than to run the risk of identifying Israel's God with the process of nature by using a maternal title.  Jesus himself sought to express and convey the intimacy of God within the tradition of God's fatherhood.  New Agers value 'unity in diversity,' but the ground for this unity is pantheism.  In New Age thought so-called traditional Christianity is blocking the evolution of the human race, threatening the global unity necessary for racial survival.  In a New Age world there would be no tolerance for true Christianity." (pp. 97-98).

Fr. Steffon rightly insists that, "Followers of New Age philosophy do not believe in the God of the Bible.  They believe God is an impersonal energy force.  Both Judaism and Christianity reject this essentially Hindu concept and affirm an unshakable monotheism - a personal, benevolent, and loving Deity who is immanent within his creation and yet transcends it by infinity because he is its Creator.  'So we know and believe the love God has for us.  God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him' (1 John 4: 16)....New Agers will admit that Jesus Christ is God, but he is no more God than anyone else.  The difference between Jesus and other people is that Jesus realized and demonstrated the divine (Christ)potential that everyone has.  For New Agers the 'Christ' is a divine principle, a 'Christ consciousness' attainable by all people." (P. 93).

This New Age philosophy has made significant inroads into the Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts.  This Blog has documented the New Age occultism and relativism promoted by the diocese's "Commission for Women."  And the diocesan newspaper has done its part to promote New Age spirituality and New Age advocates over the years.  Currently, The Catholic Free Press is promoting New Age advocate Joyce Rupp, a Servite sister who has been promoting the demonic for some time.

For many years, the Worcester Diocese has been plagued by evil spirits of occultism, dissent [disobedience] and illicit or unnatural sex.  And there needs to be repentance.  There needs to be a renunciation of occultism, a renunciation of disobedience or dissent, and a renunciation of illicit or unnatural sex.  You see, a demonic spirit [or spirits] can attach itself to a person through involvement in the occult, through hardened disobedience to Christ, Who teaches us through His Church, or from a repeated sinful action or sinful tendencies.  But the good news is that prayer and repentance can bring freedom the oppression of Satan.  It is necessary though to close the doors which are open to demonic oppression.

The Worcester Diocese has succumbed to darkness and negativity.  But the Good News is Jesus, Who became man to free us from demonic influence.  Roughly one quarter of all Jesus' miracles involved the casting out of demons.  Jesus is our Savior Who came to free us from evil: "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work" (1 John 3: 8).

Can the Diocese of Worcester truly claim to be "accepting abundance" while opening the doors to demonic oppression?

Let us pray:

Spirit of our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Most Holy Trinity, descend upon me. Please purify me, mold me, fill me with yourself, and use me. Banish all the forces of evil from me; destroy them, vanquish them so that I can be healthy and do good deeds.


Banish from me all spells, witchcraft, black magic, demonic assignments, malefice, maledictions and the evil eye; diabolic infestations, oppressions, possessions; all that is evil and sinful; jealousy, treachery, envy; all physical, psychological, moral, spiritual and diabolical ailments; as well as all enticing spirits, deaf, dumb, blind, mute and sleeping spirits, new-age spirits, occult spirits, religious spirits, antichrist spirits, and any other spirits of death and darkness.

I command and bid all the powers who molest me—by the power of God Almighty, in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior—to leave me forever, and to be consigned into the everlasting lake of fire, that they may never again touch me or any other creature in the entire world. Amen.

Recommended reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church, 394, 407.