"The Devil Is Real"

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I also learned that the exorcist is counseled to pray and fast before exorcisms. I went to confession more regularly during that time. I began to think of my prayer life as a way of protecting myself--as if my prayer life was a shield to protect me from evil.

It was about a year and a half into the process when I experienced the evil spirit personally. Up till then, the process had become somewhat routine. Exorcism became another engagement on my calendar, another pastoral event for which I had to prepare.

I had agreed from time to time to spend the night in the home of the family being attacked by the evil spirit. When I did stay overnight, we ended the evening with an exorcism and went directly to bed. (We would typically begin the next day with a celebration of the Eucharist in their home.)

So it was late in the evening when I was praying the prayers of the exorcism ritual. Kneeling before the young woman, I was about to make the sign of the cross over her. This sign is usually made with two hand gestures--a vertical, then a horizontal. I raised my hand and completed the vertical gesture. Then I moved my hand to begin the horizontal gesture.

It grabbed my hand. There is no other way to put it. I felt a strong pressure against my hand, as if something or someone were trying to prevent my completing the cross. I pushed against it, it yielded, and I completed the prayer. At that moment the temperature in the room became overwhelmingly high and immediately there was a series of cracking, snapping sounds moving down the wall behind the sofa where the young woman was sitting and before which I was kneeling. The room fell silent. We looked at each other and agreed that what we had heard and felt was a decisive moment in the long journey of this exorcism. It was the beginning of the end.

We continued with the exorcisms, house masses, and unction for a few months after this dramatic event. Toward the end of the second year, I told them that perhaps it was time to consider the possibility that we had done what needed to be done. The symptoms had ceased. I asked them to call me if they had more problems. Though our sessions came to a close, it was the beginning of a new awareness for me of the power and focus of evil, and the greater power of Christ to overcome evil.

In the end, it was an experience of the paschal mystery. When the couple and I began to check in with each other more casually, I came to realize that Christ had lived in this little family with me. Years later, I called the couple again. They were still doing well. I knew that just as Christ suffered there along with us, his resurrection was shared with the young woman and her family.

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