E13: The Reality of the Occult & Spiritual Warfare (with Johnny Sherfick)

Ouji Boards, Horoscopes, Crystals, Tarot Cards, Psychics, and Palm Reading: What does all of this have to do with Spiritual Warfare?

Join Emily Gipson and Johnny Sherfick, Director of Youth Ministry, for a discussion about what the Catholic Church teaches about occult practices and why.

All this and more in this month’s episode of Catholicism 101!

Resources:
Christian Faith and Demonology | Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Religious Demonology | Adam Blai, Peritus on Religious Demonology and Exorcism
Should Catholics Practice Yoga? | Catholic Answers
The Dangers of Reiki | Catholic Answers
A Closer Look at the New Age Movement | EWTN
The New Age Movement and Where It Came From | Ascension Press
Real Theosis: Becoming Like God | Ascension Press
Introduction to the Spiritual Life | Brant Pitre

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hi friends, welcome back to another episode of Catholicism 101, Forever Learning and Living the Faith. Today I am so excited because it's October. And not only is it the best month of the year because it's my birthday month, but it's also a great month of the year to talk about the things everyone wants to talk about surrounding Halloween. But we thought it would be a good idea to provide you a Catholic perspective on all the things that surround Halloween. So a cult, things like that, spiritual warfare. And so to do this, I have Johnny, Johnny Sherfik here with us, the youth minister here at St. Mary. Johnny, would you like to say hi?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Hi. This is me, Johnny, Director of Youth Ministry here at St. Mary's of the Woods. And I'm excited to uh talk to you all about this wonderful topic that we have in store for today.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

I'm excited. I think it's gonna be fun. And this is the kind of stuff everyone always wants to hear about, you know. So we wanted to start off by reading um this quote from the CDF, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. They have this document called Christian Faith and Demonology. So that's really what we're gonna be talking about today is demonology and spiritual warfare and the things that lead us, the occult practices that kind of separate us from the grace of God. So this is the opening paragraph of that CDF document. It says, the many forms of superstition, obsessional preoccupation with Satan and the demons, and the different kinds of worship of them or attachment to them have always been condemned by the church. It would therefore be incorrect to hold that Christianity, forgetful of the universal lordship of Christ, had at any time made Satan the privileged privileged subject of its preaching, transforming the good news of the risen Lord into a message of terror. Speaking to the Christians of Antioch, Saint John Chrysostom declared, It certainly gives us no pleasure to speak to you of the devil, but the teaching which this subject gives me the opportunity to expound is of the greatest use to you. In fact, it would be an unfortunate error to act as if history had already been accomplished and the redemption had obtained all its effects, without there being any further need to conduct the combat spoken by the New Testament and the masters of the spiritual life. So that comes from the CDF's document. Um, so we just kind of wanted to reiterate that this stuff we're talking about today doesn't need to be like hyperfixated on. It's just something that's good to be aware of. Um and, you know, there are so many popular exorcists in the Catholic world and Catholic media right now. Um and so this kind of serves as like a this is what you need to know, but don't get obsessed. What would you what would you say, Johnny?

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Yeah, I would say um, you know, we we tend to really focus on something that catches our our eye. Uh, and especially this time in this season of the year, uh, you know, we we see a lot of Halloween decorations of witches, of warlocks, spiders, creepy things. Um, and it it can stroke this uh idea of curiosity in our mind. But it's definitely important to uh remember that we can find some interest in it, uh, but some of the things that we're gonna be going over today uh will help us to combat the temptation to go even further. Uh so with that, we're actually gonna first start off by talking about angels and demons, because this is kind of where it all starts, folks. So you may ask yourself, well, what the heck is an angel? Uh angels are spiritual being beings created by God, and they're messengers and protectors of humanity. And in fact, each person, all of you out there, uh have already been given a guardian angel to guide and protect you. Um actually, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraph 328, it states the existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that sacred scripture usually calls angels is a truth of faith. Um now on to demons. Demons are actually fallen angels, they've rebelled against God. I'm sure you've all kind of heard that backstory, so we're not gonna get too far into that. Um but they were disobedient angels, fallen from grace. Uh, they made their one choice, uh, and that's an everlasting choice to disobey God.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Yeah. Um, and I think it's really important to note that with the demons, um, they are they're like fallen angels. So they have the same nature as angels. And so they have that same level of just crazy high intelligence that we really can't fathom. Because the difference between one of the differences between humans and angels is that for us to acquire knowledge, we have to go through this process. Um, and it's like a step-by-step thing. But angels, at the moment they were created, they knew everything that God would allow them to ever know. And so um the demons still have that. They still hold that. Um, and so they can kind of sway us with that the way they attack us, and we'll get into that. But something that I think is really important to note here is that demons have very limited power over us. Yes, they are incredibly powerful, but they only have as much power over us as we allow them to have, um, and honestly, as God allows them to have. As Father Chad Ripperger would say, he keeps them on a very tight leash. And anything he allows them to oppress us with is for the means of our glory and for the means of our growth and holiness. And if you want to know more about that, just read the book of Job.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Yeah, in addition to that, uh, there's there's another exorcist priest, Father Vincent Lampert. And uh he he oftentimes is asked about, you know, what are these tricks that demons can play during an exorcist or an exorcism? And uh whenever he's asked a question like that, he always turns the conversation around and says, you know, I I don't even really pay attention to the powers of the demons because here's the reality is the power of God is so far greater that it's like a bug to an elephant. And so we focus on the goodness of God rather than the tricks and the temptations that demons and devils give us.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yeah, and I think it's important to note too um that Satan is not the opposite being of God. The opposite being of Satan is actually St. Michael the Archangel, he he's the highest of the angels. Um, and Satan is obviously the highest of the demons, but there is no opposite of God. So the power of God is no match, or excuse me, the power of Satan is no match for God because he's not his opposite. Like sometimes we will kind of fall into thinking. So, having kind of covered the basics of angels and demons, um, let's go ahead and get into some spiritual warfare. Johnny, you want to go on that?

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Absolutely. Uh so spiritual warfare is the ongoing battle between good and evil. This is where we as Christians are called to resist temptation, sin, and the influence of the devil. Um, actually, in Ephesians chapter 6, verses 12, it says, For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. And that's something to really remember is in the midst of spiritual warfare between good and evil, we are not warring against people and people who do evil. It is it is actually against the powers of darkness that we are fighting.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yeah, exactly. As um I believe it's Christopher West always says no human person is the enemy, the enemy is the enemy. And so when we fight, we when we fight the battle of good and evil, our hatred and like our hatred and our discontent and um just ill will should not be directed at any other person because ultimately it is not that person at their core who we're fighting, it is the influences that have fallen upon them that we are fighting, who is the enemy. Um and I always think it's a really important to point out that we don't fight fire with fire, you know, in that in the same way. Like we fight with the fire of the Holy Spirit, not the fires of hell. That's what I mean by that. We don't fight fires of hell with violence, we fight the fires of hell with the fire of the Holy Spirit, and how that works is um we fight the way Christ did. And he walked the way of the cross and he underwent the passion and the crucifixion and his death. And um essentially what he did is he absorbed the evil that was just placed on him, he just absorbed it and used it as intercession. And I I'm just a huge fan of this paragraph in the catechism. It's it's the end of paragraph 2843. It says, it is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense. So, like the forgive and forget thing, that's not the Catholic Church does not teach that. This is what the Catholic Church teaches and says it says, but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory and transforming the hurt into intercession. So, okay, we fight not of our own accord, but by the grace of God. Um, and something I really love is like a physical manifestation of that, that like we don't fight of our own accord, we fight by the grace of God as I teach in OCIA that when we make the sign of the cross, it's kind of like we're putting on our spiritual war paint. And we're letting we're reminding ourselves and letting those around us know that I am not fighting of my own accord, I am fighting by the grace of God.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

And ultimately, we we fight evil, we fight our enemies with love. You know, Jesus says in the scriptures uh to love our enemy as ourself. And that's so important, especially in this time that we live in. Uh, you know, it things have become very polarized, and we feel the spiritual warfare actually taking effect in our own life, between relationships, you know, within our family, our friends, uh, and all throughout our world and our country. But the important part is to remember to fight that with love, to love our neighbors as ourselves, to love our enemies. Um, so you may be wondering, okay, spiritual warfare, what exactly kind of is going on? What's what's some of the deeper stuff, especially in this time that we're talking about in October? Um so we're gonna talk a little bit about the occult. What exactly is the occult, how we can combat uh the occult. Um so because we battle evil, uh we have to be aware of certain things that cut us off from the grace of God and predispose us to losing the battle against evil. And some ways that we can cut ourselves off from the grace of God would be to take part in certain activities such as playing with Ouija boards, um, witchcraft, horoscopes, uh, and astrological signs, as well as tarot cards, psychics, and mediums that try to give you a glimpse into your future, uh, as well as poem readings, crystals, sage, reiki, yoga, there's a whole bunch of things that kind of fall under the umbrella of the occult. And so, Emily, would you like to tell us a little bit about some of those things?

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Yeah, so the history of the occult, um, when you look into like the history of this, and I have this linked in some of our resources about uh, I'm not sure if I have this exact article linked in our resources, but there's an article about on Catholic answers, what St. Thomas teaches about the occult and like what he taught in his day. And it's a little bit different from what we teach in our day because they understood the occult differently. Because occult in itself just comes from the Latin word occultus, which simply means hidden. And so the modern sense of occult actually began to develop in the night, or excuse me, the 1630s, and it referred to those various hidden hidden sciences, such as magic, astrology, and alchemy. So these were hidden and not really practiced publicly for various reasons, either because um they knew it was against the Christian religion, or because um, you know, as as in it involved ceremonial magic, like summoning demons and things like that, or because of trade secrets, so like alchemy, not wanting people to know the compounds and all of this that they use. So I have a quote here from the Catholic Encyclopedia, because kind of at the basis of all this is like magic, quite honestly. If we had to dumb it, not dumb it down, but if we had to simplify it to like one core thing, it's a belief in magic apart from God. So this is what the Catholic Encyclopedia says. Catholic theology defines magic as the art of performing actions beyond the power of a man with the aid of powers other than the divine. And it condemns it in any attempt as a grievous sin against the virtue of religion, because all magical performances, if taken seriously, are based on the expectation of interference by demons or lost souls. Even if undertaken out of curiosity, the performance of a magical ceremony is sinful, as it either provokes a lack or excuse me, proves a lack of faith or is a vain superstition. The Catholic Church admits in principle the possibility of interference in the course of nature by spirits other than God, whether good or evil, but never without God's permission.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

To go along with that, uh, I also have a couple of quotes, one from the catechism of the Catholic Church and one from Deuteronomy. So I'll start with Deuteronomy in chapter 18, verses 10 through 12. It states, Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divinization or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord. Now you may be thinking, uh, who the heck is sacrificing their son or daughter in the fire? Or um, you know, some of these seem a little far-fetched, but the reality is is the devil just needs a little opening. And so he works little by little. Um it it starts with something small. You know, I know a lot of people think specifically with a Ouija board, that's just a board game that you can buy at the store. How can that be of any harm? There's no actual meaning to that whatsoever. Uh, but the reality is that if you start dabbling in the occult, you really just continue to open yourself up to the demonic and continue to cut yourself off from the grace of God. Uh as for the quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, this is paragraph 2116. All forms of divinization are to be rejected. All forms. Recourse to Satan or demons conjuring up the dead or other practices are falsely supposed to unveil the future. And the key word there is falsely. Um, that this interest with trying to gain knowledge that we're not actually supposed to have. Uh knowledge of our future that is not meant for us to know. Um, and so, you know, we can be intrigued by the idea, and it really hooks into us about, well, I really want to know how's my life gonna turn out, or how can I give myself blessings? Uh, you know, maybe I could find a winning lottery ticket or or something catches our eye. Uh, and it's that false chasing of the future um that really brings about demise in our life. Uh, and I at one time listened to this Catholic priest that was saying how uh the entrances to the occult and the demonic uh pretty much mirror the fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. Um, you know, Adam and Eve, they were strictly told not to do something, not because there's this barrier gate or God is restricting, but because God has created something for us and we live according to his rules and he knows what is best for our life. And what is best for our life is living in the graces he's given us and not to try to overextend and have knowledge that we are not supposed to have.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yeah, I would even say that, you know, it's I would even specify it even more and say it's knowledge that we're not supposed to have yet. Correct, you know, because um we do believe that God wanted to give Adam and Eve at some point in the in it in its due time, the knowledge of good and evil, but he wanted them to trust him that he would give it to them in due time as a gift. And so, really, the the way that I've kind of always interpreted this and be like been taught to interpret this is that like the first sin of Adam and Eve is grasping at the gift and not trusting that it will be given to them at the best time for them, just like wanting it now and just uh that instant gratification kind of thing. And so I feel like that really plays into a lot of this. And so I really I kind of wanted to reemphasize what Johnny said that dabbling in the occult opens you up to demons and fallen angels who objectively are much more intelligent and powerful than we are just by their nature. Um, and they use that power to commit themselves to our misery and ultimately our eternal damnation. So there's this guy who is a perituse, so he is an expert of religious demonology. Perituse just means like a theological expert. So he's a perituse of religious demonology and exorcism, and he's based in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, but he kind of summarizes um what can happen when you open yourself up to these occult practices, that you can give spiritual legal rights to evil spirits or all of these things. Um, again, this is that whole concept of demons are very powerful and they will use their power as much as you allow them to. And so all of these occult practices are really you giving them more and more permission to have power over your life. And so not only are these practices cutting you off from grace, but they are giving these demons power. Um, and this is this is what he says um on his website that I have linked in the resources. Again, it's Adam Bly. He says, the breaking of rights and casting out away of evil spirits is generally hello, generally referred to as spiritual warfare or deliverance work. Deliverance prayer should only be used by someone trained and approved to do so. Catholic laity are not to pray over or lay hands on another person, but they can pray for that person only. So there are exceptions to this when someone has been deemed to have a charism for deliverance and has permission. A special uh hello, if I could read, a special ritual within the Catholic Church called exorcism is done by priests and with the permission of their bishop for cases of full possession only. So with this, um the the most powerful thing we can do um ourselves, if we have opened ourselves up to the demonic and given them permission, either through these occult practices or however it may be, um, even if it was or wasn't our intention, it still happens. You know, you could be playing with a Ouija board as a kid because everyone was doing it as sleepover. And even though you didn't know, that doesn't mean that the effects don't happen. You know, ignorance is not always bliss. And so the most powerful ways to combat this, number one, is going to confession. And so, Johnny, do you want to kind of take us into a little bit more about combating all of this?

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Yeah. So, you know, prayer is our our best tool, it's the most powerful. Weapon against spiritual warfare. And Jesus Christ Himself gave us sacraments that give us grace. And one of those is confession. And it's the most important because it cleanses us of sin. And in the catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1468, it actually reminds us that confession restores us to God's grace and joins us with Him in an infinite friendship. And so if we are driven away from God and our relationship has taken some dings because of our curiosity of the occult or of you know things that are demonic, that can absolutely be restored if we come back to Christ and we ask for his forgiveness. And he is more than willing to give us that grace needed.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Yeah, again, it's it's it all comes down to reuniting ourselves to the grace of God. Because as we emphasized many times at the beginning, that that is the only way we can fight and win against these dark powers, these demonic powers. Um it is only by the grace of God, it is not of our own accord, because if you pit pure human nature up against pure angelic nature or fallen angelic nature, um we we have no chance. And so whatever we can do to unite ourselves and be fully immersed in the grace of God, most especially by the sacraments. So confession and the Eucharist being of the utmost importance here.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

And regular practice in prayer and receiving of the sacraments will also keep us from even having that interest in this. So you may be thinking or feeling, hey, I have no interest towards any of this. I'm turned off by everything that I see at Halloween anyway. That may be the grace of God working throughout you, but if you are not regularly receiving the sacraments of Eucharist and confession, um, you are still susceptible to these demonic influences in one way or another. And one thing that we know about the devil is he is the master of lies and deception. And so you may feel like you are missing, you know, this big pull from things that are large in our culture, uh, but he he can sneak in other ways and often does. And so uh the one true way to really avoid all of that is to continue to pray, to continue to receive the sacraments and God's grace through those sacraments.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah, and I think it's important to note too that the sacramentals of the church, so things like holy water, blessed metals, crucifixes, any blessed items, so like blessed palms and things like that, uh, these are physical representations of God's protection and grace in our life. And so something important to note in the difference between sacraments and sacramentals is that sacraments work based on the power of the fact that Christ instituted them, and that's how we perform the sacramental ritual. And it is efficacious. They're the most efficacious in giving us grace. And um we have to be a sponge to that grace, really. We have to be a sponge. So the sacraments are as effective as we allow them to be in our lives, quite honestly. But, you know, they still give us the grace, even though the grace just might kind of lie dormant for a hot minute. Um because again, we we have to be those sponges and we have to let them be efficacious in us, but no matter what, we are receiving that grace, just the way we utilize it depends on our openness to it. Now, the difference with sacramentals, these blessed objects, um, they work solely based on the faith of the person using them. And I want to make sure that you understand the difference between sacraments and sacramentals, because again, sacraments are always efficacious, their effects just might be delayed based on you, but it is they are always effective. You will always have them, and they are the most effective. Sacramentals, again, we we gotta we gotta be careful not to be superstitious with them. You know, we can't let them turn into a superstition or like a good luck charm, but we have to have faith in the promise of the blessing that is given to them. So that is that is where the power of the sacramentals come in.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Yeah. Um, again, I'll bring up Father Vincent Lampert, and he has said many times, uh, and you can look him up. I I recommend listening to some of the things that he said, but um he routinely emphasizes that fighting the spiritual warfare, especially you know, during an exorcism, it is not anything of his own accord, but it is rather Christ working through him. Uh, and so that's that's very important. We all need to remember that Christ works through us. Um, you know, and for some of you, you might even think, well, you know what? This world is starting to look darker and darker. Uh that demons are are starting to fall um more on us, and you just look at this obsession and and thing people aren't seeming to be filled uh with as much grace as maybe you used to remember. Um that doesn't mean though, that the demonic influence is any stronger in the world right now than it previously has been. Um it's just that we're actually more susceptible, both in number and uh in depth of influence, and that we as a culture we're practicing more vices. Uh, and all of those vices open up the door to the demonic. And so one of the best ways for combating this um is to build our our virtue, to eradicate vices, to reflect and take a look at how are we living our life? Are we living it according to our own accord, to what we want, or are we really striving and trying to live out God's will for our life? Um Is there anything else you'd like to add about that, Emily?

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Yeah, actually, funny enough, um, I kind of giggled because I went to Daily Mass this morning, and Father Brian's homily was very quick about demons. And I was like, oh, that's some divine providence right there. And he talked about how um, and I think this goes along with this vices and virtues, that people who are steeped in mortal sin, you know, constantly considering committing mortal sin to mortal sin. And this comes from St. Ignatius uh of Loyola, his spiritual exercises. He said that the way the demons work with those who are like steeped in mortal sin and going from mortal sin to mortal sin is the demons will convince them that that is fulfilling and that that is the pleasure that they get from that, they just have to keep like they just have to go deeper into it because that will make them happy, which we know a lot of people will hit rock bottom with that, and then all of a sudden they're like, Oh, I'm actually miserable. And so the way the demons work um with people who are steeped in these mortal sins and their vices and not really trying to build virtue is by convincing them that this is what's best for them, and that's that this is what will make them happy. On the other hand, for people who are like striving to build virtue and you know, really giving a good giving a good grace, faith effort to the moral life and the life of virtue is he'll convince them it's not worth it. He will convince them it's not worth it. Um and so again, trying to pull us away from the grace of God and lie to us about not only who we are and our abilities, but above all the God and the grace of God, who he is and the grace that he empowers us with.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Yeah. Um, and to go along with that, you know, we we've talked uh a couple things about regularly um receiving the sacraments, about praying regularly and using sacramentals. But another really important thing that uh I don't feel as often touched on is the idea of fasting.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Oh, yes. Please get into it.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

So um, you know, uh a lot of times uh I I think sometimes we can think that, oh, fasting, well, that's just something that I do, you know, on Fridays during Lent, uh, which is a great thing. Keep that up. Um, we should be doing that. But uh, you know, we're also called to make that a more regular part of our life. Um and so, you know, we kind of fast for sometimes a couple different reasons. One of the reasons is we can recognize uh that there are these things that we're drawn to that are keeping us from growing in our faith and growing in that relationship with God. And so if we recognize that, like I said earlier, we kind of take this self-reflection of our lives. If we recognize that in our life, um, you know, we have these attachments, we're drawn to things that are keeping us from God, uh, then the practice of fasting allows us to remove that, albeit however difficult it may be, but also not just remove something that is keeping us from God in life is enough, but rather filling that space with Christ. Um, and that's something that is extremely important and vital to do is we don't want to just remove vices from our life, but we want to fast and we want to replace that uh with things that will uh make us more holy.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Yeah, there's a story in the Gospel of Matthew about how, like, um, I forget how he says it, but Jesus is essentially like you clean out a dirty room, like like you clean out a dusty room that a demon was in that he had kind of made his home in, and you chew him out and you clean it out, and it's all pretty and it's nice. And then he brings back, if you don't put like goodness in it, he brings the demon brings back seven of his friends, and they're like, Oh, this place is nice, let's party in here. And so it comes back with a vengeance if you don't um by fasting, what the the vice that you're removing, if you don't replace it with a virtue, if you don't replace it with a virtue, and honestly, the best way to get rid of vices is to buy practice virtues, and I do want to recommend a really great book by Brant Petrie, and it's Introduction to the Spiritual Life, and it talks a lot about this and how to combat vices with certain virtues, like with their corresponding virtues, and it's really helpful, it's really good. We read it for a book club here at St. Mary, and it was 10 out of 10. I highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Um, and another way that you can do that is also prayer through the intercession of the saints. Um, some of the most fascinating stories that you will hear about or read about uh when it comes to demonic influence actually comes from the saints. Uh, you know, there there are some famous stories of uh Saint Padre Pio, where uh, you know, uh a demon would visit him regularly through the night, uh, and he actually called him Old Bluebeard. Um and so he he actually took uh the the opportunity to, even in an encounter with a demon, still look for the strength through Christ that was given to him. Um and so if you're looking for that type of strength in your life, I highly encourage you to pray for the intercession of the saints to remove vices from your life, but replace those with virtue to give you strength through grace. Um and you know, one of the top saints that you can ask for the intercession uh for is Saint Mark uh sorry, Saint Michael the Archangel. Oops, slipped up there.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

It's okay. I do it all the time. Um and I also think it's really important that one of the t one of the titles of uh Saint Joseph is Terror of Demons. Um and so invoking Saint Joseph under the title Terror of Demons, I think is also a really powerful way. And above all, you know, Mary, she is the perfect of she is the perfecter of our prayers. Um and I'll probably have an episode on Marian consecration in the spring, probably in May. Heads up on that. But again, I think at the core of this is that we fight the battle of good and evil only by the grace of God. And these occult practices are things that not only separate us from the grace of God, but they give permission to the demonic realm to have power over us. And you know, the more stooped we are in it, the more susceptible we are to it, the more we engage in it, and this the further down the rabbit hole we go. And I know we didn't talk about what is necessarily wrong with with each of these specific things in their own. So, like Reiki and things like that, um, tarot cards, crystal, sage, all of that, all of these like new age movement kind of things. Um, we didn't feel like that was kind of the point of this. Um, and also we're not the experts on that. If we talked about that today, we would literally be reading from the Catholic articles answers or the Catholic answers articles that we pulled. So I've actually included all of those articles that will go into these practices and why, why, like how they open us up to the demonic. And I know Reiki is one of those, some people really know about it, some people really have no idea about it. Um, but I there's a great article on that. Crystals, um, again, all of these new age movements, these new age occult practices, we we've got to be really leery of them. We we really do. Um, and again, those articles explaining why those um just are not compatible with the Catholic faith are linked in the resources. So if those are the things you're curious about, I would highly encourage you to check those out. But again, I wanted to end back where we started that these are not things we should be obsessing over. They're really not. What we should be, uh I don't want to use the word obsessing because that doesn't feel right, but what we should be focused on is growing in the grace of God, because again, it is only by his power that we fight. Do you have any last thoughts, Johnny?

SPEAKER_01 37:07

I think you wrapped it up pretty well right there. Um other than that, we just encourage all of you to continue in prayer, uh, continue to strive for strengthening the virtues in your life, to ridding yourself of uh vices, uh, but ultimately to look uh to grow your relationship with God through what he has given us, most especially in the sacraments of Eucharist and confession.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Yes, please, please also get confirmed too. You know, that's that's that's I always tell the confirmation kids whenever I get to that there, like there's part of the rite of confirmation is a slap of confirmation, like buckle up buttercup, it gets tough. You're a soldier for Christ now. So we send you forth with that. With um you can't see it, but a nice slap of you're a soldier for Christ, go just fall into his grace and fall into the sacraments. Um we hope that this help episode has been helpful for you. Thank you again, Johnny, for joining me. This has been fun.

unknown 38:13

Absolutely it has.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

Well, I hope you all have a great rest of your day. And until next time, have a blessed one.