Exorcism and Penance

Recently, Dan Burke shared a discussion that we had on Divine Intimacy Radio about whether the Sacrament of Penance is more powerful than the Ministry of Exorcism in the Church. He has witnessed some powerful moments in the ministry of exorcism where the authority of the Church reveals the power of Christ over evil. If Confession is more powerful than this, then what happens in the spiritual world when we go to confession?

It takes more power to bear away sin than it does to deliver from the grasp of Satan. But no matter how great the liberation from the diabolical may be in the moment, if we are not free from habitual sin, we will eventually succumb to his oppression again. Sin opens the door to his presence. So we need something more powerful that a liberating blessing - we need power over sin and death.

We are dealing with a very subtle and delicate mystery - the more subtle and delicate the work to be done, the greater the power that is required. While any blessing offered in the Name of the Lord with the authority of the Church is very powerful, we must yet hold that to build up, to heal, to reconcile require much more power than does deliverance from obstacles, even spiritually malicious ones. So it is that exorcism is a sacramental rather than a sacrament, an exercise of the power of Christ in the Church that leads to and flows from greater actions of Christ. Whereas a sacrament effects what it signifies, a sacramental only prepares for and arouses the faith that worthy reception of the sacraments require. While exorcism reveals the judgment of God to liberate this particular soul in this particular circumstance, its work is incomplete without the sacraments, especially confession. This is because the Sacrament of Penance anticipates the judgment that awaits each of us at the end of this life, and, before the whole spiritual world and for the building up of the Church, it does so to set us on the road to conversion (CCC 1470).

Exorcism, whether major or minor, is a sacramental blessing of the Church offered to souls in very particular circumstances. They find themselves oppressed, tormented and viciously impeded from the road to conversion by powers that they cannot contend with by themselves. The faith and prayers of the Church steps in to aid such souls, and in particular, the faith and discernment of the minister as well as the authority of the bishop establish the conditions for the liberating power of Christ. The both distinct purpose and the effectiveness of this specific sacramental pertain to those occasions when the Church asks publicly and authoritatively in the name of Jesus Christ that a person or object be protected against the power of the evil one and withdrawn from his dominion (CCC 1673).

For catechumens, a minor exorcism delivers them from Satan's claim over their lives in preparation for baptism. For some souls, discerned to be oppressed by evil spirits, a major exorcism, under the authority of the bishop, delivers them to more freely participate in the sacramental life of the Church. More commonly, there are many other prayers and petitions for deliverance and protection, such as a the Prayer of St. Michael, which when said with faith are heard by God. Once this deliverance is given, the soul must freely take other steps if it is to grow in the life of grace.

Such piety rooted in approved sacramental usages of the Church flows from and leads to the Church's liturgy, including the action of Christ in the Sacraments themselves. The Sacrament of Penance liturgically expresses Christ's action in delivering from Satan, forgiving sin and restoring friendship with God. Exorcism, as is the case of other sacramentals, is as a ripple flowing from the prayer of Christ before the Father most fully expressed in the Mass but also manifest in all seven sacraments including Confession. If exorcism is a ripple flowing from or leading to the power of Christ in the liturgy, the sacraments are the deep dug wellsprings. Yet, the ripples of Christ prayer, that is the sacramentals, always reveal new depths of the Christian mystery that we could not know unless the Church continued to hand them on. The blessing of exorcism reveals in a poignant and liberating way that Christ's action in the sacraments is always an assualt against the powers of hell and a proclamation of his definitive victory over sin and death. What exorcism reveals about Christ's power and authority in the spiritual world is fully realized in the Sacrament of Penance.

The Sacrament of Baptism as well as Confession would be the normal means that Christ instituted to deliver the faithful from evil because it re-establishes us in friendship with the Trinity. We could say that in a special way exorcism as a sacramental relies on the grace of reconciliation to complete the deliverance to which it has prepared and disposed the soul. Through the confession of sin, contrition and an act of penance, Christ transforms sin into a new manifestation of the Father's mercy precisely in the words of Absolution spoken by a priest. Baptismal innocence is restored and to the extent that the penitent is contrite, even the effects of sin, the wounds it causes, are healed. Here, the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares, The whole power of the sacrament of Penance consists in restoring us to God's grace and joining us with him in an intimate friendship ... Indeed the sacrament of Renciliation with God brings about a true "spiritual resurrection," resoration of the dignity and blessings of the life of the children of God of which the most precious is friendship with God. (CCC 1468)

Confession is powerful against the demonic. Whereas they secretly entered the outermost parts of the soul because the soul was clouded by its own dishonesty and anxious attachments, through the new light cast by the confession of sins and the words of absolution, they and their empty promises are revealed to the light of day. They know in a new way that God is gazing on them, burning them with the heat of the Truth Himself and the Fire of the Holy Spirit. They might try to hide from the Light and Love that cleanse and expand the soul. When they do, they soon discover that in a fully repentant and penitent soul there is no darkness in which they can hide. They then seek exit as quickly as God allows and in accord with his mysterious purposes.

When it comes to diabolical torment and temptation, this sacramental act closes a door to the evil one to the extent that the penitent is contrite. As the grace of contrition increases and becomes more perfect, it renders the heart inhospitable to displaced members of the heavenly hiearachy who prowl the world seeking a home. These ancient creatures cunningly seek vices such as anger, self-pity, envy, jealousy, anxiety and resentment, regarding these as open doors into the soul. But when the Holy Spirit stirs contrition in the heart and moves a soul to yearn to do penance, entry is closed to these disobedient spirits and they are rendered more and more displaced by the new spiritual power that overflows the heart.

In every devout reception of the sacrament of penance, there is renewed the divine indwelling in the depths of the soul to which no other spirit has access. This deepest depth is the very substance where the Father freely chooses to will the soul into existence in an act of sheer love. No evil can abide in this Uncreated Love so that it is secret and hidden from malignant spirits. For the baptized, it is here that the Word of the Father dwells in the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit to be known and loved by the soul - and we call this the divine indwelling. This gift of God to the soul terrifies all spiritual powers, good and bad alike. This terror moves good spirits to praise and thanksgiving while the evil are seized with dread and envy.

The penitent is already being filled with the Uncreated Light and Love of the Trinity even as he prepares to confess his sins, and God's truth and power begin to reign over the soul. In both the acts of the penitent as well as the absolution given by the priest, God takes complete possession of the soul and offers the soul possession of Himself as the source of Divine Mercy. This mutual intimacy declares to the Gates of Hell and the whole spiritual world that this soul belongs to Christ, that it has been purchased by his own Blood, that it is the special object of his divine affection, that He has renewed his dwelling in it with the power of the Holy Spirit as at the day of its baptism.

Frequent confession helps a soul perfect its contrition and deepen its penitential response to God's mercy. There is a certain virtue of penance that going to the sacrament builds in the heart, and this disposition of grace grants a certain freedom from serious and habitual sin. With perseverance and determination, the Holy Spirit renders the heart vulnerable to His most delicate and subtle movements.

A deeper kind of obedience takes hold -- indeed, Christ gives his own obedience to the Father to the soul, and the soul lives more through this life of obedience to the Father than it does by its former propensity to sin. In this way, the more obediently surrendered a soul is to the will of the Father, the more evil spirits must relinquish their oppressive claims and the more perfectly God's claim is revealed. Here, sins confessed and wept over become radiant with the light of Christ until this light shines through a person's whole existence. The more this light shines, the more the soul realizes Christ's victory over the gates of hell in himself and even in others entrusted to his care. The Catechism explains that beyond healing the one restored to ecclesial communion the sacrament of reconciliation has also a revitalizing effect in the life of the Church which suffered from the sin of one of her members (CCC 1469).

Displaced spirits have tormented souls since the time of Eve and Cain. In the Old Covenant, the prayer of faith, specifically in the psalms, was used to free a soul from Satan's dominion. What was only partially realized before the fullness of time is now made perfect through the prayer of Christ in his Mystical Body the Church. During his public ministry, the Lord definitively delivered those who came to him from all sorts of demons, and this power was passed on to the apostles and continues in the Church in the form of the ministry of exorcism. Distinct from the Sacrament of Reconciliation, this rite of the Church draws from the same treasury of Christ to deliver souls when the ordinary means (penance in general, but the sacrament of Penance more specifically) is mysteriously blocked. Yet, to remove an obstacle is not enough for salvation - this is why the saving action of Christ in the Sacrament of Penance is more powerful than an exorcism - the sacrament brings to completion a greater and more wonderful work.