Take Heart

The first “in your face” experience I ever had with a demon was indirect (an oxymoron, I know.) It happened while at a Defending the Faith conference at the University of Steubenville. My friend and I had rented a dorm room on campus to stay the weekend, and each dorm building had a small chapel room for its residents to pray in. This wasn’t a chapel in which the Eucharist was displayed, but it was a quiet room for prayer. My friend went downstairs to the chapel to say part of a novena she had been praying, while I stayed in our room to get ready for bed. She came back into our dorm room pale and uneasy. I asked her what was wrong. She told me that, while praying, she had felt the presence of a demon next to her. She didn’t know how else to describe it except that, when it showed up, she couldn’t see it, but the hair on the back of her neck literally stood up, and she knew something threatening had entered the room. She could feel its hatred for her. She continued praying, and as she prayed, the demon suddenly disappeared. She felt strange telling me this, and she told me later that this was because she wasn’t sure how I would react if she told me what had happened. I really cannot give you an answer as to why I believed her in that moment, but I had no doubt that she was telling me the truth, and rather than be frightened, an anger welled up from deep within me. I was outraged that a demon would dare to show its face at a Catholic conference where people were praising the Lord and fostering their relationship with God. The shamelessness of it! I told my friend as much, and I added, “If you want to go downstairs to pray any more, let me know, and I’ll go and pray with you. The nerve of that thing. It’s nothing compared to God, and we serve God.” Gratitude washed over her face as she saw that I didn’t think she was weird, and that I was willing to go and pray with her. She said, “Thank you. Well, goodnight!” And she turned off the lights. Now, I’d be lying if I said that, as what she told me sunk in, I didn’t have any trouble falling asleep that night. I remember looking at the shadows in the room and asking God, “Sooo…that demon is really gone, right? Right. Yeah, I’m sure it is.” I eventually fell asleep. I had no idea at the time that this was meant to be my introduction to spiritual warfare.

I’ve always known that demons existed, and I’ve always known that spiritual warfare was real. However, my idea of spiritual warfare was that it was in the form of demons giving temptations. I knew demons had physically appeared to saints before (some even physically assaulted saints), but it wasn’t something really on my radar in terms of spiritual warfare. It’s one of those things that you believe, but don’t expect to ever happen to you or someone you know. Well, a few years after my Marian consecration, my life got flipped upside down, and a lot seemed to happen at once.

I went through a period of time where strange things happened in my household. I would see shadowy figures, I couldn’t sleep at night, I would have nightmares (and so would other members of my household) – I could feel that there were things in the house that hated me. I started to allow myself to think of the possibility of demons being the cause, but I wasn’t sure what to do. My first thought was to talk to a priest, but I didn’t know. My family probably wouldn’t like it if I told a priest there might be demons in our house. And I didn’t want to be “that person” – the one who’s going around talking about demons. People would think it’s weird. They may not even believe me. Plus, what if I was wrong? I didn’t want to say something like that just to be wrong and look crazy.

One day, an incident made up my mind on what to do. My mom approached me after she had a strange dream. She said that, in the dream, a shadowy figure with glowing red eyes appeared by her bed. She saw it, and she knew it hated her, but she was paralyzed and couldn’t move. She was terrified and didn’t know what to do. All she could think to do in the dream was to shout out my name. She didn’t know what the dream meant, but I did. God wanted me to go talk to a priest for help. He had shown me that these things were in our house for that very reason. Up until that point, no one else in my family had noticed anything strange, but I had. If God gave me that grace, there was a reason for it.

I started talking to priests at my Parish. As I did, things escalated in my home. People in my house started getting into arguments for no reason. Some days, it was as if everyone woke up in a bad mood. The smallest things would set off huge arguments. Everyone’s faults started coming out in full fury, so it was not peaceful at home. Furthermore, the demonic oppression afflicting me (as I later learned it was called) grew worse. My ability to sleep grew less and less. Sometimes, during my day, I would be filled with great anxiety or panic for no logical reason. I could feel some nights that there was something in my room even though I couldn’t see it. The air in the room would change as if an intruder had entered it. In particular was one I had the eerie feeling stayed under my bed during the day and came out to intimidate me at night. I felt like a child with a monster under her bed, except that mine was real. As everything happened, I prayed to God for help, and He always protected me – the demons always backed off. A wise person I knew told me that the reason the demon’s attacks were so focused on me (my other family members were not as affected) was because I had stirred up the snake’s nest, so to speak. Once I noticed the demons in our house, I took action to have them removed (contacting priests.) They didn’t like that, so they wanted to bat me down before I made any head way in reaching out to others for help and in trying to convince my family that we needed the help. But God’s grace is stronger than demon’s tricks. Once God gave me the grace to see the reality of what was happening, I decided not to go back to the way things were in the past. This was a new chapter, and I was going to play my part in it.

As things grew worse, I finally convinced my family to let a priest come to our house to bless it and see what was going on. However, I was dismayed to learn that the priest I been in contact with was currently away on a retreat. I was at the point where I couldn’t take it anymore. My nerves were shot; my emotions raw. Jacqueline and Zach (my close friends) worried about me. They supported me, believed me about what was happening, spent almost all their free time with me, and they prayed for me constantly to give me spiritual backup.

While I waited for the priest to return from his retreat, and I hit my breaking point, I suddenly got a text from a friend who had been praying for me. She had been praying a Divine Mercy chaplet for my family and I (that God would heal and protect our house) when she suddenly got an unusual vision. She saw my house, and divine mercy rays were pouring out of it and covering it (similar to paintings showing Jesus’ divine mercy shooting out of his heart in colored rays.) Jesus then said to her, “My mercy will flood that house. My blood will pour over it. I will protect my children. Fear not, for I, the Lord your God is with you.” She saw Our Blessed Mother come down, and she brought St. Michael with her. Mary gave him instructions, and he started clearing the house of demons, slashing them with his sword, at which they disintegrated. Mary, too, joined in the work. In particular, she went to my bedroom. My friend saw a demon come out from under my bed (to which, in my mind, I shouted, “I knew it!”) It rushed at Mary, furious, and she destroyed it in an instant. As my friend texted me what she had seen, I didn’t know how to react. I froze a moment in shock. In my heart, I heard God say to me, I keep My promises. As one of my friend’s told me, God wanted me to know that He knew my fear and suffering, and that He was redeeming it. He wanted it known that our prayers are always heard, that this was His victory, and that when His children call upon Him, He answers swiftly. (Things in my house were considerably different after this event.)

I couldn’t think of how I could possibly show God my gratitude. How could He love so much? How could He care for each of His children so personally? I went to the Adoration chapel with my Mom to thank God and Our Lady. After thanking God, I addressed Mary, and the only words that came to my mind to express how I felt were the same words uttered by Mary’s cousin Elizabeth so many years before, “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43)

I marveled at God’s mercy, and I wondered what in my life could possibly be next.