“Spiritual mediocrity” lets “educated” demons” enter, who install themselves without warning. The demons that frighten Pope Francis most are those that push recognizable sins, he confided during the morning Mass at his residence Casa Santa Marta on October 12, 2018.
“When a demon takes possession of a person, he stays there, as if at home, and doesn’t want to come out.” It’s “the struggle between good and evil.” “Each one of us is fighting, perhaps without our knowledge, but we are fighting,” he stressed in his homily, reported by Vatican News.
“The demon’s essence is to destroy . . . to destroy God’s work,” continued the Pontiff. However, “when he can’t destroy” face to face, he becomes “more deceitful than a fox” and he uses a “universal strategy.” “We are Christians, Catholics, we go to Mass, we pray . . . everything seems in order. Yes, we have our faults, our little sins, but everything seems in order. And he feigns “the educated one”: he goes away, looks for a good team, knocks on the door — “May I come in?” He rings. And these educated demons are worse than the first, because you don’t realize that they are at home with you.” For the Holy Father, the entrance door “is the worldly spirit, the spirit of the world.”
Thus, the demon destroys directly by vices, by wars by direct injustices, or he destroys in an educated, diplomatic way . . . Demons don’t make noise; they make friends; they persuade one. “No, go on, don’t worry so much . . . up to there it’s ok” – and they lead one on the way of mediocrity, they make you “lukewarm” on the way of worldliness.”
“Spiritual mediocrity, the spirit of the world … corrupts us within,” he continued. “I’m more afraid of these demons than of the first . . . When someone says to me, “an exorcist is necessary because someone is possessed by the devil, that doesn’t worry me as much as when I see persons that have opened the door to educated demons, to those that persuade from within, as they don’t seem to be so much enemies.”
“Sometimes I ask myself: what is the worst thing in the life of a person? A recognizable sin or living in the spirit of the world, of worldliness? That a demon push one to sin — and not just one but twenty, thirty sins, but clear, of which one is ashamed — or that the devil be at table with one and live, dwell with one and all is normal, but he makes insinuations to one there, and possesses one with the spirit of worldliness?”
In face of the spirit of the world, the Pontiff recommended ”vigilance and calm.” “Vigilance is Jesus’ message, Christian vigilance. What is going on in my heart? Why am I so mediocre? Why am I lukewarm? How many “educated” demons dwell with me rent free?”
