Constant Spiritual Warfare: Greg's Story

*This is a true story. Some names and details have been changed to protect personal identities.

Greg was a family friend. He had worked temporarily as an assistant to my father-in-law before his retirement and was a regular visitor at their home ever after. As time passed it became obvious that he battled an addiction and as it progressed he was all the more inclined to twist the truth in favor of something more appealing. Yet despite his faults he was often there to help my in-laws when distance prevented us from doing so.

The addiction didn’t resolve and Greg crashed his car into a telephone pole one afternoon, destroying his car and sending him to the hospital for recovery. There were a few injuries and he was slated to be in hospital for about ten days before being released and heading to court to confront a DUI charge.

My father-in law received a call from him while in the hospital, on a Wednesday afternoon. He said, “I woke up and saw Jesus sitting on the edge of my bed. The devil was standing at the door. Both were looking at me but neither said anything. Then after a few moments, they were gone.  Which should I choose?”

Given Greg’s track record for embellishing the truth, his injuries, addiction, and the medication, my father in law assured him that what he saw was just his imagination and nothing to worry about. They talked a bit more. Greg said that some family would be stopping by later in the evening. After more reassurance, my father in law hung up the phone.

Twenty-four hours later, Greg was gone. He died of a heart attack, though there was no history of heart issues. My father in law was stunned and deeply regretted not having said more about the unnerving vision.

Greg’s story has haunted me ever since. It stirs up all kinds of questions and unease like, “How could he, who was brought up a Catholic, not know who to choose?  Was there a fight going on for his soul right there in the hospital room? Why didn’t my father in law recognize what was going on and urge Greg to turn to Jesus right away? Why was Greg so determined to hold onto his addiction and disordered life when many people (my in laws and others) had encouraged him to return to a sincere practice of his faith? Was this vision Greg had his ‘last call’ to make his personal choice?”

I apologize for the serious tone of this post, especially as there are so many serious issues continually before us since Covid. But I believe that if we can get the big stuff right, it is much easier to deal with everything else. And as Catholics, nothing is bigger than reaching eternity with God. Jesus spared nothing to open heaven for us. But we must actively choose if we will be with Him or not.

St Catherine of Siena is a Doctor of the Church, mystic, and Patroness of Italy and Europe. During her amazing life she advised the Pope, served the poor, brokered peace between rivaling factions, and gave us The Dialogue, a book which chronicles her personal conversation with God the Father.

Catherine was told by the Father that the world we live in is corrupt and fallen. If we do not discern just how precarious our situation is we will be fooled, drifting along in the currents of a satanic river that pulls souls into hell.  The only solution is to travel on the bridge …

“I told you that I have made a bridge of the Word, my only begotten Son, and such is the truth. I want you to realize, my children, that by Adam’s sinful disobedience the road was broken up that no one could reach everlasting life … But I wanted to undo these great troubles of yours. So I gave you a bridge, My Son, so that you could cross over the river, the stormy sea of this darksome life, without being drowned.”  The Dialogue, St. Catherine of Siena

I used to smirk at the pictures of old timey monks with skulls sitting on their desks as a reminder of death. The effect was ghoulish and made me think of the Dark Ages. Weren’t we so much more sophisticated now in the twenty-first century?

I am not so sure anymore.  I envy the men and women of the Middle Ages because they understood the brevity of life and the reality of eternity. If we believe the Gospel, we must acknowledge that we are not made for this world. This world and everything in it, however splendid, clever, or beautiful, is passing away. Ultimately, we all find ourselves in Greg’s shoes. We will have to make a final choice between Good and Evil, God and Satan, Right and Wrong.

Perhaps the thing that disturbs me most is that knowledge of the Catholic Faith did not save Greg from confusion and darkness as he was faced with this most important of all choices. And my dear father in law, who lived as a devout Catholic all his life, was, in the moment of that last conversation, somehow prevented from seeing the spiritual battle that was raging.

St Paul speaks very frankly about the fact that we all are continually in the middle of a spiritual battle. The Catholic Church teaches that the devil and hell are real.

  ¹² 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.  Ephesians 6:12  NIV

We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves … To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called hell.    Catechism of the Catholic Church 1033

Hell is not a big party for those who want to indulge forever in their sin. Saints and mystics have described it as a place of unspeakable terror and despair. The following is an excerpt from Sr. Lucia of Fatima’s memoir recounting the children of Fatima’s vision of hell.

 [Mary] opened Her hands once more, as She had done the two previous months. The rays [of light] appeared to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned].

The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke. Now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me).

The demons were distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. That vision only lasted for a moment, thanks to our good Heavenly Mother, Who at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear.

While we cannot know for certain, it seems that God, in His mercy, chose to give Greg a glimpse of the eternal realities that he had been ignoring, to call him to conversion.

And here is the part that should give us pause …

Though God was doing all He could to help Greg turn to him, there was something about the way Greg had been living, his previous choices, etc, that was interfering with his ability to make an immediate and free assent to God’s grace.  Even though he was a baptized Catholic and had received the sacraments and a Catholic education, he was confused and hesitant about a choice that should have been the most obvious of all decisions.

Why?

I don’t know.

I do know that many saints have said that spiritual warfare unleashed against the soul right before death is most fierce. For those who are without sanctifying grace and an authentic relationship with God, doors are left open for the devil to harass and block the soul’s final surrender to Him. Perhaps this was why my deeply Catholic father-in-law didn’t exhort Greg more. I don’t know.

Scripture tells us that “His mercy endures forever.” There is real hope that in the end, Jesus was able to bring Greg to Himself. We pray that this is so.

But it is not an advisable path … to wait, holding onto sin that is destroying us. There is grave danger in presuming on God’s mercy to take us over the threshold at the last minute when our lives have been lived for ourselves, with little thought for what the Gospel requires or how Jesus has suffered to save us.

How should we respond?

We need to return to (or deepen our commitment to) a vibrant living of the Catholic Faith that includes weekly Mass (or daily if we can swing it), monthly Confession, daily prayer and scripture reading, and a determined effort to get rid of the sin in our lives. And we need to do it now!

The good news is that God anticipates and anxiously awaits our return. The Father says to St. Catherine of Siena,

“And I am God now as then. My power is not and cannot be weakened. So I can and want to and will help whoever wants my help. You show that you want my help when you leave the river behind and keep to the bridge by following the teaching of my Truth.”  The Dialogue, St. Catherine of Siena

Greg suffered much in his life because of his sin and weakness but we pray that in the end he surrendered to the love of God which was calling out to him all along. If you are in serious sin right now, don’t despair. Repent. God’s love and mercy are waiting for you in the confessional. No matter your offenses, Jesus has made the necessary sacrifice to make you whole again. No more procrastinating! Return to the Lord while you still can. Today is the day of salvation.

Let’s pray and renew our commitment to speak about Jesus and the truth whenever we have the chance. People need to know about the Bridge that will carry us to heaven and peace with God. While there is still time, let’s take the bridge offered by the Father, Our Dear Lord Jesus, who has saved us by His Blood.

“Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”  Proverbs 28:13 NIV