The Exorcist Files - BONUS- Relics, Healings and Father Martins Q&A

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

Exorcist Files returns with a new "mini season". While some may try and deny the power of relics, they are in fact explicitly mentioned in scripture. Even St. Augustine came to believe. In this first episode Father Martins checks in from the road while on his extensive relic tour. He shares incredible testimonies of healings and answered prayers and provides a brief history on St. Jude.  Finally, a legendary Grammy Winning singer shares his own powerful testimony of St. Jude. Want more Exorcist Files Content? Subscribe to The Vault for exclusive deep dives into past cases and Ask Me Anything Episodes with Father Martins. SPONSORS OF TODAYS EPISODEFireBreaker Series-    A dramatic and epic adventure recounting the legend of George and the Dragon. A fun narrative podcast that is great for the family, starring Wizards of Waverly Place Star David Henrie.  Click here to listen Full Link To Aaron's Interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UZ0-jPj0JQ********Get In Touch With Us And Leave That Overly Specific CommentExorcistfiles.TV and email us at [e-mail] Simplecast Privacy PolicySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Do you crave more Exorcist Files content? Do you want to go deeper into theology and spiritual warfare? Well, you're going to want to subscribe to The Vault, our new premium subscriber program. The Vault is our way of ensuring we bring you content all year long. Subscribers will get access to exclusive once a month, Ask Me Anything episodes with Father Martins, where you can submit questions and vote on the ones you want him to answer most. You'll also get access to a very special case behind the case series,

where we relisten to past episodes and cases, and father reflects back on insights and anecdotes he just didn't have time to get into in the podcast. To subscribe, head on over to exorcistfiles.tv and sign up, or just click the link in the show notes. Again, that's exorcistfiles.tv to get access to the vault. Another man had died and was being buried in the same grave. And the way they dug graves back in the days of Alicia

is a deep shaft was dug, and then there were shells, carved on the side of that shaft, and when someone died, the body was placed on its own shelf. Inadvertently, as the body was being lowered, it came into contact with the bones of militia, and it says the dead man came back to life and rose to his feet. Welcome back to The Exorcist Files. Wow. It feels really good to say that. As we shared, while we work on Season 2, we wanted to bring you some much-needed bonus content.

Now, if you miss the little update we dropped in the feed, make sure and listen to it, as we have a lot of exciting updates. The first one being, we have some bonus content to help tide you over until the next batch of case files drops. Oh, and the show is now on YouTube, which means subtitles are now available in dozens of languages, like Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and more. It's an automatic transcription, so it's not going to be perfect,

but we're excited to have the content going global. Also, the way we do advertisements on the show is going to change, as we are now going independent. Each episode will only feature a select few sponsors, and we do hope you'll listen to the ads. Some of the ads even feature dad jokes. You're welcome. Today we are going to hear from Father Martins, who, as our regular listeners will remember, is not just an exorcist. He also has a ministry of relics, a fascinating subject that we're going to do a little bit of a deep dive today on. Father is going to share some testimonies of healing that he's

experienced firsthand, and we are going to hear a testimony from an absolute legendary singer who you will not want to miss. So with that, let's go check in with our resident demon disciplinarian, a man who sincerely hopes you step into God's plan, Father Martins. We managed to track him down and reconnect in a remote tiny village deep in the heartland known as Cincinnati. Yeah, so starting seven weeks ago, I began a tour with a major relic with the arm of St. Jude the Apostles. This is a commission that the Vatican had given me about two years ago. It has traveled through nine states so far, and we have 35 plus coming forward. It is a long and exhausting tour.

We're in a new city every day. And this is the largest relic tour that I've ever done. And it will easily be one of the longest, if not the longest, in history. The arm of St. Jude has never before left. Italy. So this is the first time that it is on a tour. And it has proven to be something that people are flocking to. That's right, folks. He said arm, the arm of St. Jude. Now, outside the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, the topic of relics, or more specifically even, the usage of the remains of saints as conduits of experiencing God's blessing, can certainly raise some eyebrows. The Reformation

theologian John Calvin famously quipped that with all the supposed wood, of the true cross that has been found, we'd have enough to build an arc. Now, personally, I get it. The image of people praying near an object, let alone an arm, which bears a striking resemblance to the infinity gauntlet from the Marvel universe, can certainly seem strange, but relics and the subsequent healings that accompany them are a documented part of biblical and church history.

Scriptural relics are well established. Perhaps the most obvious reference is in the Book of Acts, chapter 19, verses 11 through 12, And it says, God did extraordinary miracles through Paul so that even his handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. I asked Father to give us a little refresher on relics. So when relics are mentioned in scripture, two things always occur. There is always a healing. And touch is the way by which that healing comes about.

So we hear in the second book of kings, a man had died and was being buried. In that same grave, the prophet Alicia had already been buried. Alicia, of course, one of the holiest men, one of the holiest saints in the Old Testament. He, of course, being the disciple of Elijah, who was taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot. But the spirit of Elijah went upon Alicia. And Alicia eventually left this earth, like all of us do. and his remains were buried in the ground. And later on, another man had died and was being buried in the same grave.

And the way they dug graves back in the days of Alicia, as a deep shaft was dug. And then there were shelves carved on the side of that shaft. And when someone died, the body was placed on its own shelf. Inadvertently, as the body was being lowered, it came into contact with the bones of Alicia. And it says the dead man came back to life and rose to his feet. Father is referring to 2nd Kings chapter 13 verse 21, which reads,

As soon as the dead man touched the bones of Elisha, he came back to life and stood up on his feet. In the New Testament, we hear about the hemorrhaging woman. She, in a moment of light, became aware that all she had to do was touch the hem of Christ's garment, and she would be healed. And that's exactly what she did, and that's what occurred. Now, to be clear, she didn't touch Jesus, but his clothing. And that was enough for the healing. And in fact, when that occurred, Christ even sensed power going out of him.

The power didn't go out of his clothing, although the clothing is what was touched. The power came out of him. So there are three examples from scripture, but relics are also mentioned outside the Bible. St. Augustine of Hippo, widely considered one of the most brilliant Christians in history by both Protestants and Catholics, had his own powerful experience with relics, even after expressing initially. skepticism towards them. In his extraordinarily dense academic beach read, the city of God, he writes in book 22, chapter 8, of an experience where the relics of St. Stephen the martyr were brought to his town, and he writes of these miraculous healings. Quote, what am I to do?

I am so pressed by the promise of finishing this work that I cannot record all the miracles I know. Were I to be silent of all others, and to record exclusively the miracles of healing which were wrought in the district of Kalama and Hippo by means of this martyr, I mean the most glorious Stephen, they would fill many volumes. For when I saw in our own times, frequent signs of the presence of divine powers, similar to those which had been given of old, I desire the narratives might be written, judging that the multitude should not remain ignorant of these things.

And in Augustine's landmark work confessions, he writes of a blind man being healed by touching relics. In book 9 chapter 7, he writes, not only they who were troubled with unclean spirits, the devils confessing themselves, were healed, but also a certain man who had been blind many years, a well-known citizen of that city, having asked him been told the reason of the people's tumultuous joy rushed forth, asking his guide to lead him there, arrived there he begged to be permitted to touch with his handkerchief, the tomb of your saints, whose death is precious in your sight.

And when he had done this and put it to his eyes, they were immediately opened, and then stood the fame spread. Now, we've heard about the bones of a saint and garments they owned. These would be considered different types of relics, and there are actually three classes of relics that are generally recognized by the church. What Catholics traditionally call the three relic classes, first class relics are the body or any part thereof of a saint. Second class relics are anything a saint personally owned,

such as an item of clothing, third class relics, or anything a saint touched, or anything a saint touched, or anything that has been touched to a first second or even another third-class relic of a saint. So, for example, if a bracelet was touched to the arm of St. Jude, a first-class relic, it would become a third-class relic. Now, a common thread we read through scripture, both from healing accounts of relics to even healing prayer or anointing, is the idea of laying on of hands. What is it about physical touch that seems to be a conduit for God's power at times? So God can heal and does heal in any way that he wants.

He doesn't have to rely on touch. But God himself, in his nature, likes touch, simply because God is relational. So God himself is a community of three persons that are in perfect relationship with one another. So the divine essence is relationship. And so it makes sense that he would like to work through touch because touch is by definition forging a relationship with someone. God likes matter

and he likes to work through matter. And you know what? Frankly, it makes sense because he's the author of matter. Now, moving on to the million dollar question, I know you all are wondering this. Even if we grant the power of relics and the authenticity of certain healings,

how can we have confidence that this is the actual arm of St. Jude? How would you know? And so, and I think that's the key word there, confidence. What gives us the confidence? So really two factors in terms of the ancient relics. And these two factors, one is very logical. The other one will make you smile.

The first factor is the fact that, you know, these ancient saints, like an apostle or like a Mary Magdalene, who's referred to as the apostle to the apostles, they were heroes to these local communities. They beheld the Lord. So they were part of the deposit of the original faith that Christ spread. So they were authorities. So they had a community that followed them. When they passed, they were buried in the ground. But immediately there was a shrine erected over top of those spots because the Lord's Day was celebrated over top of those graves. The Christian community celebrated the Eucharist over top of the graves of these saints and martyrs of the heroes of their faith.

So there was a shrine placed over top. So when Jude was martyred, along with his missionary partner, Simon the Apostle, a shrine was erected over top of their grave. How do we know that the shrine was left intact and that it was undisturbed, that those graves were undisturbed? And that's the second factor. The fact that Romans and most of these martyrdoms occurred within the Roman Empire, they were immensely superstitious. they were deathly afraid of ghosts. And so they didn't want a grave to be disturbed because a ghost could come out and latch on to you

or be released in the city because of that superstition. We had the existence of the shrine, which not only marked the spot where these graves were, but it preserved the bones from the elements. And then in the fourth century, in the Earth 335, when Constantine was constructing the original St. Peter's Basilica, he brought those skeletons from their place of burial, and placed them within the basilica of St. Peter that he constructed.

They were both placed in the crypt of St. Agatha, which was in the left transept of that basilica, and they remain in the exact same tomb in the exact same spot to this day. Approximately 500 years ago, when the current basilica of St. Peter was built, the tomb was opened and Jude's arm was removed. So the tomb in itself today is inaccessible apart from an archaeole. dig. The current Basilica's foundation was placed over top of the foundation of Constantine. But before that occurred, the arm was removed. So Jude's body is beneath St. Peter's, but it is inaccessible. This arm and other small relics, much smaller relics than this arm. Those are what are accessible.

This also brings up another question. Why remove the arm in the first place? So the arm was taken and given to the Orsini princes. The Orsini family was a very powerful, very wealthy family that funded a lot of church projects, funded a lot of charitable works. And so this would have been an act of the Pope given as a kind of thank you and reward because the Orsini parish church within the city of Rome, which was called San Salvatore in Laudo, which still exists today, they had a great devotion to Jude there.

They had a shrine, an impressive space in honor of St. Jude the Apostle. So that relic was given for that church, and it was placed within their main altar. And in fact, all records of it had been lost that this had occurred. It was only 200 years ago when there was renovations being done in the church, and that altar was opened that this reliquary was discovered inside it. So now, armed with this new knowledge of relics, we are going to go to a way more fun commercial break. Seriously, folks, if you love the show and want to keep this going, listen to the ads.

Be right back. Amen. Father Martin's here. I want to do a quick plug for one of the most powerful tools I've seen for breaking free and growing closer to Christ. Exodus 90. The Exodus 90 challenge begins this year on January 20th. But this isn't just a 90-day program. Exodus 90-9.

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Welcome back to the Exorcist Files, where we were learning about the arm of St. Jude and discussing relics. I appreciated that Father conceded we can't know with 100% certainty, the authenticity of these remains. there simply isn't a mechanism to determine that. On the other hand, like St. Augustine witnessed, if healings accompany a purported relic, that effect makes belief in its authenticity compelling. I ask Father to give us a rundown of any healings he has seen in his ministry with these sacred objects.

Absolutely. I'm getting testimonies all the time. In fact, my inbox is so filled right now. It's hard to get through the mole. But there's one that came in this morning, and I'll read it to you. Father Martins, I wanted to tell you that my daughter, Cecilia experienced a healing when we went to see the relic of St. Jude's arm in Fort Wayne a few weeks back. We went because of extreme pain in her arm and hand. She often had to wrap it up

in ace bandages to keep it still and it was becoming worse and worse. Since seeing the relic, she hasn't had to use the bandage once, but for years she had symptoms of depression and severe anxiety. And she was cured also of that extreme depression. Bless you, Father Martins, and thank you for bringing St. Jude to us. And apparently, healings were starting even before the tour officially began. In fact, the tour was only one hour away from its first stop. Technically, the tour hadn't even started. I was an hour away from Chicago from the first church that would host the relics. My cell phone went off and on that phone call was a man named Doug Edwards who lives in Michigan. And Doug, I met years ago at one of my expositions. It's a great, great Christian, great fan of the saints

and their relics. And he had come up to me and he said, look, Father, I own a print shop. If you ever need any printing done, you know, just let me know. And so I reached out to him because, of course, I needed to make large banners that would display information about St. Jude, on the saints and their relics like that. So I contacted him and I said, you know, Doug, I need a bunch of banners made. Can you do that kind of work? He said, sure. I told him I had the hardware, but I would just need the canvases printed.

He said, no problem. And I said, okay, I'm emailing you the artwork. Please price it out and send me an invoice and I'll fire off a check to you. And he said, well, father, I'm not going to charge you. I said, Doug, well, I don't think you understand how many banners I need. The last time that I produced to this many, the cost exceeded $20,000. ours. So he said, Father, my condition for doing this is that I don't charge you anything. This gives me the chance to feel like I'm ministering alongside St. Jude, the Apostle.

You know, gosh, what do you say to that? He even came by my office and he picked up the hardware, which was an hour and a half drive for him. When he had the banners completed, I called him and I said, I'm on my way to pick them up. I said, call whoever you like, family, friends, to your print shop. I'm bringing the relic with me, and they can have some up close and personal time with the relic with St. Jude. Doug's wife had suffered a debilitating condition following brain surgery 22 years ago. So Noreen had a brain surgery and it left her in a coma and after 10 days they went in and did a second surgery to try to bring her out of that coma and it did thankfully but it left her without the ability to walk and talk. And so after a very long and

grueling effort through physiotherapy, she was able to regain those two abilities. But shortly afterwards, her stamina and her ability to walk, her ability to engage in everyday activities deteriorated to such an extent that it became extremely difficult for her. She really needed to be taken care of. Occasionally, she would be well enough to go to Mass on Sunday. What that means is she would be driven to the door of the church and then escorted inside to a seat, sit down, endure through the church service and go through Mass, then be escorted back to the car and then home, and then she was done for the day.

That's all that she could handle for the day. So when I arrived at Doug's Prince job, I asked him, so which one of these people is Noreen? Because I'd never met her. And he said, well, Father Noreen is not having a good day today, so she wasn't able to make him. I said, okay, well, no problem. We'll go to your home and we'll bring St. Jude with us.

And he said, Father, we are so grateful for your offer for this. We really are, but No, Noreen is just not having a good day today and would not be up for a visit. And so I just turned to St. Jude, and I said, you know, Jude, Doug and his wife, they're your friends. They've done a lot for you. They've done a lot for me. And so I need you to go do something for Norin. So the next day, Doug went home from work for lunch, and his lunch routine was the same. He would make lunch for his wife, for himself. they would eat and then he would go back to work. When he got home, Noreen had lunch already laid out, so she had prepared lunch, something she had not done in years.

And as I'm on the phone listening to Doug scream this information at me, he just kept saying, my wife is darting about the house like a young girl. In other words, all her symptoms of her debilitation are gone. So her life is absolutely dramatically different. That's a beautiful story, right? Admittedly, when I hear accounts like this, my mind begins to spring off in a bevy of questions. Why would God wait to heal her until a relic is present?

Why this relic? Why doesn't everyone get healed? For me, I have personally touched a relic, and as far as I know, nothing happened. But as Father pointed out, God will heal in the manner and time in which he chooses, just like with our cases of exorcism, even if we are skeptical, we should celebrate the liberations and the healings that people receive, regardless of how they came about. Now, why relics are all associated with healing, is it the case that the relic miracles take on perhaps some character of their owner or the saint they are associated with?

Father had some thoughts with a brief history of St. Jude. Yeah, well, so St. Jude is one of the original 12 apostles. He was appointed by Christ to be one of his closest collaborators. He would be among the first of what the church calls bishops. He could ordain other bishops like himself, priests and deacons as well. But Jude is special in that he is the first cousin of the Lord. So we hear from the church fathers, for example from St. Eusebius of Caesarea, the greatest of the ancient Christian historians,

that Jude was the son of Mary, wife of Clopas. And if her name is familiar, it is because she is one of the three Mary's at the foot of the cross at the crucifixion. It was, of course, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Clopas. And Clopas himself, if his name is familiar, it is so because he was one of the recipients of the apparition of the resurrected Lord on the road to Emmaus. The fathers inform us that Mary of Clopas was the blood sister of the Blessed Virgin. Virgin Mary, so making her son Jude the first cousin of the Lord. Interestingly, among Jesus's 12 disciples, four were actually related to him.

These family members in the inner circle included his cousins, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, as well as James the less. Apparently, Jesus did keep it in the family. So we have here a relic, the arm of somebody who was not just a collaborator with Christ, but somebody who was family, blood family. Many, many times this arm embraced the Lord. And so that, you know, humans, we are relational creatures, and that gives us an experience of closeness to Jesus.

So we're next to an arm that embraced the physical Lord. And so that touches our faith, right? It stirs up our faith. And because we are caporeal creatures, that it speaks to us. And so this arm belonged to a man who used it to perform many works of goodness throughout his ministry. As Father mentions, when he brings the relic out on a tour, people are praying before it, and he mentions it is helping them get closer to Jesus. Certainly the image of people kneeling before an object might lead one to question who or what is the actual recipient of the worship.

Is it God? Or are people putting their faith in an object? Father did have some cautions when it comes to relics. So worship, both Catholics, Protestants, and the Orthodox agree, is due to God alone, period. God alone is God. God alone merits our worship, our devotion to Him as God. As the most unique, most transcendent, we owe him everything, and we owe anything else only in relation to what we owe God. So because you see somebody kneeling in front of something, it doesn't mean that they're worshipping.

I mean, think of, you know, culturally, it's common for a man to kneel in front of his girlfriend and propose to her. Now, he's not worshipping her when he does that. And no one would construe that this is, in fact, what is happening. So the fact that someone kneels doesn't automatically mean religious worship is occurring. So we need to be careful about that. With regard to our devotion to the saints or to anything other than God, even, for example, the Word of God, as I've mentioned, they can be used in a way that is irresponsible. They could be used to state it differently in a way that God does not intend. And so, of course, obviously, that has to be correct.

Returning once again to the good church doctor, St. Augustine, he shared a similar, concern writing, but to our martyrs we build not temples as if they were gods, but monuments as to dead men whose spirits live with God. Neither do we erect altars at these monuments that we may sacrifice to the martyrs, but to the one God of the martyrs and of ourselves, and in the sacrifice they are named in their own place and rank as men of God who conquered the world by confessing him. In short, the relics are to inspire and foster an environment of spiritual reflection that can at times act as a conduit of releasing God's power and blessing. It is God working through the saints and the relics that is ultimately responsible. While not the same, perhaps a comparison

could be drawn, that someone taking time to go out into a forest or remote desert to pray, one would not necessarily expect prayers to be answered more frequently just because they are in a specific locale, but rather the environment one is in might help bring about a heart posture that leads to a deeper and more fervent prayer, which could activate more of God's power in our lives. It is, of course, a mystery, and we'll have to solve that for you on a later episode. Wow, aren't relics interesting? We are going to dive more into relics in future episodes, but now it's time for that special surprise guest. We've been talking about St. Jude a lot, and recently, I was shocked to learn that one of my favorite singers of all time,

who happens to have a new, incredible autobiography out, has a very special relationship with St. Jude. His voice is also proven to send demons fling. I'm talking about the one and the only, a legend of legends, Mr. Aaron Neville. In his new book, Tell It Like It Is, Aaron shares visceral and vulnerable accounts of his battle with drugs and his road to recovery. While we don't have time to share the full interview here,

I did want to include his story of why St. Jude is so important to him. Please welcome, Aaron Neville. You know, you're so open about your faith, and I so appreciate this, and I want to definitely get a couple stories about this. Actually, first off, tell me about your Catholic faith, and in particular, St. Jude is really special for you. Going to St. Monica Catholic School as a kid,

it gave me a lot of morals and, you know, and one thing that the choir used to sing in Avi Maria, I never knew the words except for the refrain part, but he used to do something to my heart. You know, I just can't explain it. And laid on in life, I found myself sitting in a gutter one time. I was just lost, you know,

and I started singing Ave Maria to myself. Nobody was even around. And I got him and walked out of their gutter, and it was cool, you know? I guess you can call me back in the day, I might have been sort of a hopeless case. When my mama, she brought me to a lady of Guadalupe Church on Rampas Street, New Orleans, and there was St. Jude's Shrine. Then there was on Ursula and Johnson.

there's a shrine called St. Anne Shrine, where you crawl the steps on your knees, and on each step you say a prayer. She would bring me there often, you know, and like, sometimes I go by myself in St. Jude. And things were certainly looking impossible for Aaron. At this point in his life, Aaron found himself in a very close legal call, and a last-minute change of heart by a judge is all the proof of God's protection that Aaron needs. got busted for burglary in 63. And it was two counts of second-degree burglary.

My mom and my wife, Joelle, at the time, wrote letters to Judge Brand, who's the judge. And the lawyer said everything will be cool, probation and all. But when I got the court up in California, Judge Brian was on vacation. And his other guy was giving out time like it was ice water, 10 to 20, 5 to life. One of 14, the guy told me he knew nobody. I got one of 14 that did less than nine years. You know, so first of all I was talking about running. I said, I'm going to get out of it.

And I said, no, if I run, I can't sing. So I got to take my rap. And I started George, he sends me with the law prescribed. We told everybody else. Sent you one to 14 years and sang Clinton penitentions. You said, but. And I'm holding on to a piece of kite through it with DLA. But what, man?

He said, I suspend that sentence. Put you on a three-year-four. vision providing you to do the first year for the county. Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you, God, St. Jude. And so, Aaron was kept from having to go to prison and be away from his family for over a decade. If you get a chance, the book is incredible, and the stories are amazing. Aaron says God's hand was on him the whole time. Today, Aaron is still praying, and I asked him what his encouragement would be to others facing impossible situations. You know, pray. Continuously. I pray all day long. I sit out in the yard. I look at the trees and sky and pray.

Sometimes just talk to God, you know, and thank him. Don't give up on God and he won't give up on you. If you'd like to hear the rest of the interview with Aaron, you can find the link in the show notes, or simply search for the Ryan Bethay Show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, before we wrap up today, I want to do a little Q&A with Father.

We so appreciate all the emails and know we are way behind. We have thousands that have come in. and we wish we could respond to all of them. So we're just going to tackle a few today. Our first question. Now, we've answered this question a few times, but it does keep arriving in our inbox, so we thought we'd address it again.

A listener in Minnesota asks, Father, well, listening to the show, open me up to demonic attacks. There's nothing diabolical about the Exorcist Files podcast. So there's nothing that is innately sinful, that there is a spiritual law that you transgressed by listening to it. So that would be an absolute bogus belief that you're subjecting yourself to to increase demonic attack. However, that being said, the show is an act of catechesis of information of knowledge, which is perfecting in nature.

We're talking about how to increase our relationship with God and decrease it with the enemy. If the devil is already there in a relationship, well, he's going to want to move against you. He's going to want to separate you from the show so that you don't engage. in that improvement. And so if people find, well, hang on a sec, I've just found I've experienced greater attacks, greater temptation, I don't be willing to bet that that's the cause. Where are you at in your moral life and in your spiritual life? Is God the center of your life? And are you moving towards them? If you're not, then that's the cause of your problem, not the show. The next question comes from a listener in Kentucky. How do you balance all the things going on in an exorcism? You mentioned

having your skull injured during an exorcism. How do you focus on all the the praying, focusing on the task at hand, staying safe, etc. Right. So there's a lot of things going on in an exorcism. So I'm aware of the need to be connected to God. I'm aware of the need to pray. I'm aware of the need of either following the right or whatever prayer is I'm doing, whatever activity of prayer that I'm engaged in, which is poisonous to the devil. I'm aware of him. I'm aware of what communications that he's giving, that he's communicating. I'm attentive to what I see he is experiencing. I'm attentive to my team, to what they're

experiencing, what they might be observing or trying to communicate to me. And of course, I'm aware of what my gut is trying to tell me throughout the whole thing. So I listen to my gut. I listen to that inner voice of discernment. Am I on the right path? Do I need to pause? Do I need to kind of step back? do I have a hunch as to what I need to do in order to move the ball down the field and bring this to a successful resolution? So it's not an easy thing. It is an exhausting thing. So after several hours of that, of that intense awareness, you're ready for a break. So how do you do it? You just do it. You do it of necessity. There isn't a magic trick. It's born out of a life of prayer, a life of relationship with God. it's not based on techniques or discovering a magic formula that is able to, when it's done in the right way, poof, the devil disappears. Exorcism, like anything else in the Christian life, is an enterprise of relationship, true and proper relationship with the Lord.

And when that's done right, then we've put no roadblocks in front of a deliverance or an exorcism that God wants to occur. it isn't to say that we can ever compel God either by our prayers or by doing everything right, quote, unquote. God is the true exorcist and somebody is liberated if and when he wants it. And when that is not the case, that liberation just doesn't occur. Our next question comes from a listener in Pennsylvania. Beyond avoiding sin and being close to God, you seem to be a big fan of retreats and spear formation as a way to keep the devil out of our lives. You said you can't for several weeks a year. What are your recommendations on retreats

and spiritual formation in general? Now look, in English, we use the word retreat as the word to kind of to get away and refocus and recalibrate ourselves in light of God, to hear God, to seek God, to communicate with God, and to allow God to speak to us. In European languages, there is no such word, retreat. They use the words spiritual exercises.

What we call a retreat here in Europe is referred to as spiritual exercises. And I find that that's helpful because the word retreat can, for many of us, denote, oh, it's a rest. It's a period of relaxation. In the church's mind, a retreat is never meant to be relaxing. It's meant to be exhilarating. It's meant to be exhausting because you're engaging in exercises in order to connect with God.

It opens up a vista to you. It clears the pathways so that what is important can come into focus and that you can hear God, and that you can hear God not just speaking transcendently through, say, the word of God, but also through your own body, but also through the experiences of your life, which now are coming into focus within a clear mind. And you can evaluate them differently. For example, what I really like about the Exodus men's programs is they, take that discipline very seriously.

It is a program of discipline in order to get you focused. And that focus opens up a relationship with God. Maybe you see a pattern there that you didn't before. God speaks to us in many ways. And we need to step back and step out of our usual routine often in order to see that. And of course, since he was in Ohio, we had to get Father's Take on Skyline Chili. For the first time, I had Skyline Chili two evenings ago, and it was by request because I had never had it. And I enjoyed it.

I wasn't expecting to like it because for some reason I had in my mind that it was sweet. And I don't like sweet foods. I had it just because you have to. And I really enjoyed it. I would have it again in a heartbeat. Well, we learned a lot today. We didn't really cover exorcism content, but fear not. Next episode, we are going to welcome a friend of Father Martins,

a fellow priest of the Catholic Church, and the exorcist for the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Father John Zeta. Here's a little sneak peek. We had a case not too long ago of levitation, yes, and it's an interesting thing, too. One of the signs of an authentic possession is knowledge of secret things, knowledge of things the person doesn't have access to,

and also an aversion to the sacred. So we had a case one time where I was interviewing a woman in the church. I was in the pew. She was in the pew behind me. Several of my team members were in the pew behind her. And one of those people who happened to be a medical doctor was carrying a bag in which she had a first-class relic. And during the course of my conversation with the person,

this doctor just kind of leaned forward and placed this bag against the back of the pew that she was sitting at. And all of a sudden, this woman screamed, flew up in the air, flew into the aisle, and said, what was that? What did you do? What did you hit me with? She had no idea what had hit her.

She had no idea that that relic was behind her. And yet she manifested and reacted to it, even though she didn't know it was there. While this episode didn't feature any 3D binaral drama, it still takes a lot of work and research, and we want to thank everyone who helped make it possible. If you'd like to learn more about the topic or hear bonus materials,

You can visit our website at ExorcistFiles.tv. You can also email us absurd and overly specific criticisms at Exorcist Files at gmail.com. All cases in the Exorcist Files are recounted by Father Carlos Martins from his personal archives. The series is hosted by Father Martins and myself, Ryan Bethay. Today we want to give a very big thank you to Aaron Neville for joining us for the show. To hear the rest of Aaron's interview with Ryan, you can click the link in our show notes or find Ryan's podcast by searching for the Ryan Bithay show on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.

sound designing, editor and mixer is Dan Blessinger, script doctoring by Christoph Ares, and music and scoring by Jim Cavell. Executive producers are Carlos Martens and Ryan Mithay. We'll see you next time, folks.