We come now to a subject of first importance for our lives. Whether or not we understand it, many things can be perverted and offered to the demons of sin and death; and many people are being contaminated by entering into communion with Satan, either consciously or unconsciously.
And we are not afraid of what might happen, but we want to use the gift of prophecy given to us by God in this blog, to denounce the things that are drawing us away from the Lord’s love and grace, to let the taste of truth burn in our hearts, to be nourished by the power of God’s Word, and to shake hell with our radicality. We begin with Saint Paul to understand how we should deal with this kind of thing:
“Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness; rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what they do in secret; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light’ (Is 26:19; 60:1)!” (Eph 5:10-14)
There is an urgency in addressing topics like these because almost no one talks about them. Few understand and have the courage to discuss them openly. The fact is that we cannot be complicit in the unfruitful works of darkness. But Saint Paul tells us that when reproved, it becomes light. And we want to enlighten your eyes, dear child of God, so that you may see this.
But what are the “unfruitful works of darkness”? What does spiritual contamination have to do with our lives? Is it possible to know if something is contaminated? When we say “Spiritual Contamination,” are we talking about objects, places, or people? We want to clarify, that is, to bring light to understand these obscure situations, so that God’s light may envelop us.
It is strange to think that some people who are afraid to deal with themes to do with the devil, imagine that if they keep to themselves and say nothing about “the filthy one”, as Father Léo, SCJ, used to call him, they will have no trouble from him. That is exactly where many are mistaken.
For those who think that the devil does not exist and is merely an idea of evil, here is a plain statement: the devil is a perverted and perverting being. This is what Pope Paul VI declared to the Church in 1972. Satan’s wretched pride had him cast out of Paradise, and he took a third of the angels with him. He does not know how to do anything else but continues to crave equality with God; and because he cannot reach God — being nothing more than a fallen angel, no more before God than a speck of dirt under His fingernail — he goes for God’s children, which is to say ourselves.
There are people who think that God has yet to do battle with the devil, and that there will be some great last struggle at the end of time, or that God needs to make great efforts to put an end to him once and for all. When Jesus died on the cross, the devil was defeated. Jesus descended to the realm of the dead, to open the gates of Heaven to the just who had gone before Him, and He stripped the devil of the dominion he held over death. Even the devil’s power is subject to God’s power. Hell was shamed by Christ’s death on the cross:
“And you, who were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he brought to life with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” (Col 2:13-15)
Many people attribute to the devil a power he does not have. He does not have the power to know the future; he suggests it. He cannot do anything that God does not permit. He has no power to separate us from God’s grace or God’s love. The only thing he can do is tempt us and somehow influence us to turn away from God. But the decision is ours: either we fall or we do not fall into his deceptive traps.
That does not mean, of course, that we are going to play games with demons. What we want is that they are rebuked, and that we are protected against any attack from them. For this and other reasons, we want to recommend that you pray with us a prayer that Paul himself taught the community at Ephesus:
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the Heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.” (Eph 6:10-20)
We need to be clothed in the armour of God to wage war, with the word of God in our hands, which is our sword, and with faith, which is our shield, while the other virtues make up the rest of the armour. Our struggle is not against men, but against demons. By the power of prayer we can destroy and annihilate the traps set for us. Now let us go into the subject itself.
Let’s pay attention to the image above: we have the image of a beautiful place and a kind of pipe with impure water waste (sewage) being dumped into the river. Without analyzing the water, we would never realize how it is. The same happens with us: we have to pay attention to what is being put into our lives, into our hearts, to what we are feeding our spirituality.
A good attitude we always recommend is to go to the root of problems, difficulties, and sufferings. It is useless to treat the effects of what happens to us, like someone who wants to stop a leak and merely patches over the hole instead of mending the pipe. While so many spend time, money and energy treating the effects of their problems and never resolving anything, we can go to the source of the evils and cut them off at the root.
This is what we propose in this post. Throughout what will be shared, the moment you manage to see in your life, in your room, in your things, in your house, in your family, in your community what is causing spiritual contaminations, you cut it off at the source and do not keep patching up the evils caused by these contaminations. Be radical and have the courage to break with whatever it may be.
Another image for contamination is a virus lodged in a living body. Often a virus is lodged in the body, and some take a while before any sign tells us that we are ill. Many people, when they feel a small pain, and even when the pain persists, first try to deal with the immediate discomfort. Then, when they notice that the treatment is not working, they realise that something is wrong. If we notice any sign, we must act while there is still time.
An interesting way to analyse spiritual contamination is similar to how we analyse a disease or a virus acting in an organism. If we notice a problem and do nothing, but give it time, there is a growth of evil. It is folly to stand by and do nothing once we have identified an evil!
To do so, it is necessary to clearly understand what we are dealing with and how it can manifest itself. In the Old Testament, we have a notion of these evils:
“When you come into the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practises divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer, for everyone who does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.” (Deut 18:9-15)
If we were to stick only to this passage from the Book of Deuteronomy, it would be enough to fill this entire chapter, and it will indeed be our focus. But let’s briefly touch on another passage that will help us understand more ways in which contaminations can manifest themselves.
We begin with black magic, of which the passage even names the manner: passing a child through the fire. Imagine the grief of a Christian family whose son or daughter has been passed through fire and left contaminated by black magic. We need to be aware: no magic (white or black) is good, and neither comes from God.
All kinds of magic are intimately linked to the devil and his actions. Films and stories that present witchcraft as harmless entertainment carry that contamination with them. We need not have doubts about this. Everything connected to magic is completely contaminated.
Magic is the invocation and evocation of hidden powers for a specific objective. It can be for apparently good things (white magic) — such as bringing a great love back, or money, or solving all life’s problems with a magic wand — or for bad ones (black magic): to make a person suffer, be hurt, be tormented, lose something, meet with accidents; to destroy a family, a relationship or a marriage; to bring on illness, and so on. Those who work with magic advertise widely, claiming to solve every problem, and the place where they work is contaminated through and through — the objects, the clothes and the very words they use.
Through the invocation of demons, which is done in magic, even if the evil or apparent good that was done passes and the person is no longer under its action, the evil of contamination remains. It needs to be renounced by the power of the name and blood of Jesus Christ, and much prayer of healing and liberation must be undertaken. Extreme care must be taken with, objects, clothes, what was offered, what was burned, their resulting effects, all of which requires reparation.
Under the same danger comes divination, which refers to those who read tarot, consult the future by occult methods, read palms, and the like. All kinds of divination come through the action and inspiration of demons, and cannot be accepted, because while it may be no more than a guess at what might happen (let us remember that the devil does not know the future; he only guesses at it), it can also be a word spoken against our life. We must be very careful!
Astrology, omens, sorcery and magic involve consulting the future in the stars and steering one’s life by the stars and by horoscopes; with invoking curses by means of words; and with spells of witchcraft and magic that are spread through music, films, series, magazines, programmes, newspapers and periodicals.
How many people who call themselves Christians consult horoscopes? It is absurd, and it is dangerous.
How can those who claim to follow Jesus Christ depend on and allow their lives to be guided by the “predictions” of men and women who, when not charlatans, live a life of sin and are full of things contrary to the Kingdom of God? Only very foolish people believe in such things!
Finally there is the matter of Spiritism, and of the divination and invocation of the dead. From the Old Testament onwards, the invocation of the dead was numbered among the spiritual contaminations. How can anyone who reads the Old Testament still regard Spiritism as Christian, or a path that leads us to God, as Allan Kardec so insistently taught? It is a path that leads us away from God.
See how severe the Word of God is regarding these practices: the Lord your God abominates those who engage in them, and it is because of them that He drives out the nations before you. Both the practice itself and any association with it are abominable in the eyes of God. Imagine what an awful thing it must be, when the holy eyes of God look upon it and call it an abomination. If God’s eyes are pure, and the prophet Samuel said that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart (cf. 1 Sam 16:7), how terrible a thing it is to be looked on as an abomination by a God who looks upon the face of the earth with goodness and mercy.
We have another passage in the Old Testament that also speaks of contamination. Let us see:
“You shall not lie with your neighbour’s wife, and so make yourself unclean with her. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Moloch, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. You shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it; it is perversion. You shall not make yourselves unclean with any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, and the land became unclean), lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. So you shall keep my charge never to practise any of these abominable customs that were practised before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.” (Lev 18:20-30)
See how many kinds of contamination this passage names: adultery, the sacrifice of children to a false god, homosexual acts, and intercourse with animals. Bringing these terms up to date, we can recognise the same abominations today: pornography, illicit dealings, and offerings made to the deities of other religions and sects — like money, drink, food, clothing, works of witchcraft, charms. These are all abominable in the eyes of God.
With one more example from the New Testament, written by the Apostle to the Gentiles, we will delve deeper to better understand why we cannot have communion with these practices.
“Consider the people of Israel according to the flesh: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what the pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up.” (1 Cor 10:18-23)
Here Saint Paul gives another example of contamination: meat — or any food — offered to idols. Note well what Paul writes: what the pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons. There it is, for those who do not believe in the existence of the devil, another example in the Sacred Scriptures.
What we have seen so far are things abominable in the eyes of God, things contaminated and, precisely for that reason, directly connected with demons. It is as if it were the opposite of what Jesus said to Peter:
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.” (Mt 16:19)
By coming into contact with all these abominations, it is as though the words ran: “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in hell”.
Once something of hell has been bound on earth, it is very hard indeed to unbind.
Returning to the initial question: what are the fruitless works of darkness? We may first describe them as all those named in the Bible, and others besides, which are works of darkness that make us come into contact with demons. Fruitless, because even what the demon does is subject to the power of God, and also because what is offered with these practices is given with one hand and then taken with the other.
An example is people who seek men and women who perform witchcraft to get a lover back. Apparently, the person may indeed return, but whoever asked for this will never again have peace, because the person returns thirty times worse than they were previously, full of the presence of demons, mired in sin, etc. The life of this family only goes from bad to worse, because, besides having no blessing from God (the thing being abominable in the eyes of the Lord), it carries the curse of impure spirits. Who can have peace away from God? No one! Sacred Scriptures assures us:
“For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.” (1 Cor 14:33)
Why do we say spiritual contamination? Because, behind something, there is a spiritual offering to Satan and his fallen angels, and that is what makes the thing unclean. This is what we mean when we say that something is contaminated. However, we cannot be deceived, brothers and sisters, and think that everything around us is now contaminated, and we can do nothing and have to limit our lives because of these things. Quite the contrary: those who are in Jesus Christ and with Him should fear nothing and no one. Indeed, we must have life and life in abundance, for this is what Jesus came to bring and gives us the grace to experience and live (Jn 10:10).
For our communion with God to be full, we must break with any contact we are having with any contamination. This is the key point where we want to let ourselves be led by the Holy Spirit of God. Breaking with demonic contact means to shatter, burn, destroy, renounce, abolish, cut off once and for all and forever. Are you willing to do this? We believe that only people who want to have a deep and more intimate communion with God have the courage to do this!
How are we to discover whether something is contaminated? We need only ask whether it has any relation to what we have seen so far, all of which is Biblical; check what we receive, and where it comes from; and pray.
So it is easy to know. It is contaminated if it has anything to do with black magic, divination, astrology, omens, sorcery, magic, Spiritism, false religions and sects, invocation of the dead, illegal trade, offerings, homosexuality, prostitution, drugs, pornography, food that has been offered and other offerings, incense (except the sacred incense used for solemn worship in the Church), lucky objects (like four-leaf clovers, rabbit’s feet, talismans and amulets, etc.), horoscopes, films, music, books, magazines, newspapers and periodicals that bring reports or specialise in these things. We are surrounded by contaminated things; but around us too is the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which purifies us.
Another way to know is by discovering the origin of what we receive. The fact that something is an object of devotion, or an item of clothing, or food, does not mean it cannot be contaminated. That makes no difference at all. And finally, we have prayer to discover what is contaminated, and it is clear that if you are a person of prayer, the Lord will guide and direct you to be free from all contamination. He will show you little by little. May you have the grace to do what He asks of you in prayer.
In view of all that we have shared, we are now aware that such practices are carried out and objects, people, and places become contaminated. The objects need to be purified — or, failing that, burned — and the person and the place need to be sanctified, for they were witnesses to such practices. Now we come to the practical question: how is it to be done? Let us place ourselves in prayer and implore God’s grace so that every and any type of spiritual contamination may be cut off from our lives:
“Dear Jesus, most holy God, I believe and confess Your Lordship in my life. You are holy and powerful, blessed and glorious. As Paul said, no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the action of the Holy Spirit; so I want to be led by Your Holy Spirit at this moment, Lord. Envelop my whole being and bathe me with Your glory. I ask at this moment, Lord: pour upon me Your wonderful blood, Eucharistic and exorcising. Come purify my whole being, wash and redeem my life and my history. Come envelop me and make me new. Wash me, from head to toe, in body, soul, and spirit, wash all my material, physical, and spiritual possessions. I want to be washed at this moment, Lord. With the blood that flowed from Your heart, free me, Jesus. Free me from all spiritual contamination. Free me from all pressure, oppression, and depression.
First, I ask that every action of the devil in my life be undone, Lord. I renounce Satan and his work, his abominable practices, and all the harm of these abominations over my life and my family. I renounce all evil that has been brought into my life by consecrations and offerings to idols. I cut off from my life every pact made with Satan by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. I take possession of the armour of God, and by the name of Jesus, I now command all action of evil principalities and powers to retreat from my life. I want to be free from all evil, Lord.
Deliver me from every plague, curse, disgrace, destruction, and filth; every dart, every arrow, every hatred, and every fury raised by the devil against my life. Break and destroy all this evil here in my house, Lord. In my bedroom, on my clothes, on my objects, perfumes, CDs, DVDs, music, books, magazines, newspapers, periodicals, in the living room, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, in the backyard, in my apartment, above, below, and on all sides, on the roof and on the floor: come wash and restore my house, Lord.
All evil that is passed from generation to generation because of these contaminations, I ask You to remove it now. Jesus, with the same water that flowed from Your heart on the cross, may all my family be washed now. May all evil be dethroned, every consecrated object, every impurity, all pornography, all impure evil that entered my eyes. Cleanse me and purify me from all contaminated music, wash my ears, Lord.
Wash my mouth and all contaminated food that has passed through here, cause it to be expelled from me, my Lord and my God. Wash my nose, my hands, my feet, this clothing I am wearing now. Wash all that I have and am. Give me a bath of regeneration, Lord; may nothing impure remain in my life, in my family, and in my house.
I want to be intimate with Your heart, dear Jesus. Beloved Lord, destroy and annihilate, with Your power, all spiritual contamination that is in my life, that is in my family, that is in my house. Give me the courage to act now, Lord.
Give me the grace to break every image consecrated to the devil, burn every lucky charm — Buddhas, elephants, charms hung behind the door, little witches, incense, figures and images of demons and false idols, talismans and clovers — whether they are worth anything or not. All clothing, all dirty money (give me the grace to make reparation, for I am repentant of having done this), all pornography, in magazines or in films, and every object of suspicious origin. Everything brought from Spiritism and other false religions. I want to break, burn, and destroy all food, every object, and practice of these abominations. Help me, Holy Spirit, by the power of the Father and in the name of Jesus Christ.
I want to have this courage to break away and live this way, Lord: free and liberated in You. By the power of Your cross, Lord Jesus, seal all this powerful action of the Lord in my life, at this very moment, fill me with Your grace, Your blessing, and Your protection. I want to be full of You, of Your presence. Send angels to my house, Lord. May the demons be sent back to hell, and may the Lord enlighten me through His angels. Show me what still needs to be renounced, broken, and destroyed.
I want to do this out of love for You, to be more Yours, to grow deeper in the knowledge of You, to grow in Your grace, to take steps in faith, to live Heaven on earth. Exalted be Your name, Jesus; praised be Your heart and Your holy love that bathes me and possesses me completely, Your most Holy Blood. May You be glorified for this liberation and for purifying and washing me. Thank you, Holy Spirit of God, my help in time of need, love of the Father and of the Son, tenderness of Heaven, fortress of my faith. I adore You, Holy Spirit. Glory to You, holy and blessed Father. All praise and adoration to You, Lord. Jesus Christ is my Lord. God is my Father and Mary is my Mother. Alleluia! Amen.”
“The life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practise the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 Jn 1:2-7)
We began and we end filled with God’s grace; and from now on may no spiritual contamination trouble us, hinder our lives, take away our joy, discourage us, bring us confusion, or prevent God’s grace from flowing in us, through us, and by us, for the shed blood of Jesus, which is the terror of hell, is our guarantee and protection.
May God bless us and seal in us this liberation from all spiritual contamination.
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