The Exorcist Files - Spiritual Combat with Fr. Nectarios Trevino

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

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Grandma, don't be silly. We all love and miss you. I know mom does. I'm tired, okay? I need to go to bed. I'm falling asleep. I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay? No, I'm really tired, okay? I'm sorry. Was that you? Hello, Exorcist Files fans. Did you enjoy that little sneak peek from an upcoming dramatic episode called The Gift? I know some of you may be wondering, wait, I thought this show. was just interviews. Well, actually, this show started with dramatic case files, and if you haven't heard those, if you're a new listener, go back to the very beginning and listen to all the case files. That's how we got our start. Our team is hard at work finishing up a batch of cases, and they will be here soon enough.

However, in the meantime, today we have a fantastic interview with a dear friend of the show, Father Nectario Stravino, a veteran of our armed forces and of particular interest to our listeners, an Orthodox priest and exorcist. Father Nectario served with a judge. General Schwarzkopf in the Gulf War and brings us some wonderful lessons on the parallels between military warfare and spiritual warfare. We get into prayers of weapon, how to ward off evil, and of course some of his creepiest encounters, one of which took place in a hospital of all places. Very scary. To our vault members, I want to thank you again for your support. You are the reason we keep getting to crank out content week after week. And as a reminder, if you are a vault subscriber,

you have access to the once-a-month Ask Me Anythings. So, make sure you send us those questions. We actually have Father Gregory Pine, many of you know him, he's a friend of the show, joining to answer questions this month. So log into the vault, email us, DM us, whatever. We want to get your questions. And with that, let's bring on Father Nick Tarios Trevino. Welcome back to The Exorcist Files, the show where we tell demons where they can go. And joining us today is a good friend of the show making his sophomore appearance, good friend of Father Carlos and mine. we are proud to introduce and welcome back, Father Nectarios, Trevino. Father Nautarius, thanks for being here, man.

Thank you for having me once again. Absolutely. Now, Father, you are our resident Orthodox expert because we want to get all covered. So could you give us just a little primer for the fans and why you get such a cool cross around your neck versus what I get to wear to church? It's Orthodox traditions that the priests wear crosses and they have to earn. earn the crosses. It's a reminder for ourselves and for the priest and to those whom we meet of who we are, who we stand for, and who's behind us. Amen. Here's a question, Father, do you have a bigger cross on your neck or Dion Sanders? Who's got a bigger, who's got more neck bling?

Probably Dion Sanders. I don't even want to compete with that one. All right, so we can't call you, I guess if he was a priest, he'd be Father Prime, right? Father Prime, yeah. Father Prime time. That's awesome. We're going to be digging into a lot of spiritual warfare topics today, but could you give the fans just a little quick primer on your background? You've got such an amazing background, and you've served our nation. I'm a late vocations priest. I've been a priest for about 23 years, but I spent career in the military. I enlisted when I was 19. The Air Force sent me back to school. I got my degree and my commission, and a total time I had 22 years on active duty. probably the hardest part in the highlight of my career, while there were many wonderful jobs and

absolutely wonderful people, being with Central Command during the Gulf War, in the Intelligence Directorate, and from 7 at night to 7 in the morning, I sat in the war room. Probably sometime during my career in the Air Force, I was being led towards the priesthood. I had no idea. I remember my ordaining bishop when he was telling me that he was going to ordain me. I told him not to. I asked him not to. I begged him not to. The third time, he said, you have to be obedient. He said, I'm going to make you a different kind of warrior. And I've never forgotten those words, and he's been very good to me. You've got an incredible background, particularly as it pertains to spiritual warfare. As pertains to spiritual warfare, after my ordination, it became very evident that all priests are engaged in

combat to one degree or another. And in 2009, I was sent to the Vatican, and I got to meet Father Gabriel Amorth. And the first time he saw me, he came up to me and said, Orthodox, Orthodox. And he asked me to give him a blessing, and I didn't want to. I wanted him to bless me. And one of the priests turned to me and said, Father, he's going to stay there with his head bowed until you give him a blessing. And that was a great honor, a great honor. You got to bless the Vince Lombardi of Exorcists, as we affectionately refer to him around the show. His book is phenomenal. He's written a lot, but he was reported to have led thousands of exorcisms.

Oh, yes. Thousands of exorcisms, and he would do 20 in a day. I'm doing well to do two or three in a day, and I've done that, but I am thoroughly exhausted by the time it's over. But he was just like that running back, just kept plunging into the line. Father, one of things that I love about your background is one, thank you for your service. And I just have to ask at the onset here, what are some of the parallels between spiritual warfare and the lessons and methodologies that you participated in actual warfare? And where do they converge?

And what lessons can we draw from that? I've given that some thought. And thanks to Father Carlos, he's the one who led me down this path. So I'll roll through a few things and please feel free to interject, ask some questions. But, you know, when you're in the military, first thing you do is you pull off the shelf what the strategic planning is and what the goals and objectives are. As a priest, you basically have one foe, the adversary, whom you're up against. Strategic planning is always ongoing.

it's your liturgical life, it's your prayer life, it's spreading the gospel in the Word of God, and looking at ways in which you can communicate to people and keep them aligned with Christ and keep them aligned towards salvation. You've got to be able to convey to them that there's a darkness out there, and they've got to choose the light, or they've got to choose the light, or they've got to choose the darkness and they can't be in between. The objectives are very evident. You're always engaged. For the average person, obviously, we're going to face battles and trials of all different types, but especially in today's day and age, where do you feel like the main battlefields are?

And how is the enemy attacking all of us? And again, any even moments. Your prayer life. It's your liturgical life. Are you engaging in repentance? Are you engaging in, repentance? Are you engaging in divine liturgy? Are you coming to the priest before a major operation and receiving the sacrament of Holy Unction? Are you seeking spiritual guidance and spiritual counsel? You've got to be very active in all of that. And this is your training and preparation for warfare. As an individual, you're always engaging in hopefully morning prayers and hopefully evening prayers, but what are you doing in between? Are you praying throughout the day? Are you sharing your life with Christ? Are you letting God enter your heart? It's your way of life. How are we being

attacked right now? Is the enemy coming after our prayer lives? Oh, absolutely. Is that the main thrust? Because I've often wondered that we have the smartphones, which have unlocked so much productivity and capability, and yet I just find myself so often competing with the urge to do that. during my prayer life. And so I wonder, are those some of the attacks that we're facing? This is the devil's portal. Your iPhone, your whatever phone you use, the more it dings, the more it rings, the more it calls you. It's taking your eyes off the target. We practice asceticism, and do we turn the phone off, and do we set it aside? The last thing the demon wants you to do is pray. It's going to distract us as much as we can, and it's going to use every tool,

available to it to take us away from our prayer life. Yeah, Father, do you think, now this, I know there's probably two trends here. So one, there's like a macro trend, which is just the fact that our culture, our business climate is now moved up expectations that you're available all the time, that you're posting, et cetera. And the engineers who have developed this technology have developed it, I won't say intentionally for nefarious purpose, but designed to include. our interaction with it. So that seems like a open doorway. But do you think also, like, for example,

if I'm about to sit down for prayer time and my mind suddenly goes, oh, I need to go do this or I need to do that, is that just my human nature? Or can the enemy like insert temptations to move us more explicitly away from our prayer life and even use the phone? Have a message come in at that. This sounds crazy maybe, but have someone text us at that moment and suddenly it's 20 minutes have gone by and you go, oh my gosh, I just lost my prayer window. It's all of the above. It's all of the above. It's our lack of self-discipline, our lack of engaging in asceticism,

fasting from the phone, not just fasting from food, but fasting from the phone. And yes, the demon will use the phone to distract you. It's a psychological addiction, but then again, that's what's behind that psychological addiction that is distracting you. And that's part of the spiritual warfare that you're getting into. You cannot take your eye off of Christ, especially when you're praying. And if you've left your phone on, if it's in proximity to you, you've just got to be willing to ignore it and say, I'll get to it later. Or you've got to be willing to pick it up, turn it off, or mute it, whatever you have to do, and get back to your prayer.

and apologize to the Lord and say, mea culpa, I made a mistake. And I'm sorry. And then re-engage in your prayer and make it part of your way of life. Going back to the warfare analogy, is prayer is not only, it sounds like our training and keeping us battle ready. It's our defecad, you know, we're moving everything to race. But it sounds like it's also a weapon and it's also a defensive shield. right? So it almost takes on multiple facets, right? It is a weapon. It is our armor. It is the equipment, part of our equipment that we have to use,

that we practice and we engage. We get the spiritual strength that we need to be able to engage the adversary to make the darkness, to push the darkness back. Prayer is absolutely critical. I've been in sessions, in exorcism sessions, where the demon is, said, you didn't say your prayers this morning. It's that knowledge that it ought not to have, that a human would not have. And you know that the demon is talking to you. You know that the demon has been watching you. And I've had emergency, exorcism, so to speak. I was not fasting. And the demon has said to me, I'm not going to answer any of your questions. And you look at it and you go, why? And that's the last thing you ought to do, but that's your human nature. And it says, because you haven't

been fasting today. And you have to command it to answer the questions. But at the same time, it's sending a signal to you. It's letting you know where you have failed, letting you know what your weaknesses are. And you've got to be ready to address it and ready to confront it. And not to explain it away and to rationalize with the demon, because that's what the demon wants. It wants to get inside your circle of combat, and you've got to stay ahead of the demon, although it wants to stay ahead of you. Amen. Father Martin's here.

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God bless you. Obviously, we have a scripture that says this type can only come out through prayer and fasting, but is that a general best practice, or are you suggesting that it's always required to be in a fasted state to do deliverance, given that the demon was? Or is that a standard that you had violated and it just was calling you out on violating your own standard? In Orthodoxy, prayer and fasting are a way of life. I fast before I engage in any rituals of exorcism.

If not fasting from the night before, fasting at least for 24 hours before I go in. Because the demon will know whether you have been sacrificing for the Lord. and you have engaged in this endeavor, and you've been praying. And that's the only way I as an Orthodox priest can be able to engage in the combat effectively. And after you've had the rituals of exorcism, if you had more than a day, then you can go eat. Then you can break the fast. But no, fasting is a way of life and orthodoxy.

Why do you, so I'm curious because obviously we don't want to try and frame spiritual battle as just like a video game where you do this enough, it automatically declares victory. God's sovereignty is involved. But what is it about being regularly engaged in prayer and fasting that you think makes it effective against demons? Is it, those are outward signs because the demons are constantly trying to accuse you and make you think you're less intimate with God. And when you're prayed up, when you're fasted, it's almost like a, a spiritual and psychological reinforcement of being like, no, my actions match my beliefs. I am in line with God right now. So shut up. And when I violate those, the demons seem like basically saying, see, you're a hypocrite. You say you care about Jesus and God, but you couldn't even pray this morning. It is the latter. You want to align yourself with God.

You want to align yourself with your, to put it in the vernacular and military terms, with your mission objectives. You have to align yourself with the objectives that you're going to engage in warfare. And you cannot just say, okay, now we lock and load and now we're going to knock down the door. It doesn't work that way. And the demon will try to portray it as a quick pro quo. Okay, you did this. Now you think you can come in and knock down the doors.

No, I did this because I believe in this and because I'm aligning my mind. myself with Christ, and it's Christ who you are going to engage. And I'm the very best, I'm a very poor vehicle for the battle that I'm about to engage in. So I need all the spiritual strength I can have. Now, Father, obviously, you were an intelligence officer continuing the warfare analogy. How important, and what are the ways that we gather recon that we do, that we get our intelligence, because obviously we don't go into battle uninformed. So we're aware of our enemy. And then I imagine a huge part of your spiritual warfare process too

is trying to discern what the Holy Spirit wants to do and then fighting the fights that are led to, right? Yes. In the intelligence preparation part of it, you know, that obviously starts from the first time an argument comes to you. And you interview the energium, and you find out where the individual has been, what the individual might have done, what

portals it may have opened. And you're cataloging these things in your mind. Okay, tell me every place you've been. Tell me all the things you've done. And you may get anywhere from four to ten pages of possible information. What the individual has done, what is practice, activities that's engaged in, that the person is engaged in, and you're not going to go in into your first session attacking the total battlefront. You may only engage a small part of that battlefront. You may engage those things which

are involved with the demon of pride, and the rest you may set aside. I'll engage in that later in the second or third sessions. But you want to provoke the enemy and see if there's a weakness there that God can engage in the battle and that you can perhaps engage the darkness of the demons. You say, yeah, there's something there or no, there's nothing there. We'll come back again to that later. And then you may broaden the battlefront as time and as sessions go by. Because you know that this is a process that we're going through. It's not just, I'm going to say a prayer and I'm going to say the right of exorcism and it's done. It's over. It doesn't work that way. So you go in with expectations, how you're going to confront the darkness and the demons. But you have to do it in a measured way. And this is where your team becomes very important because you're not fighting this, engaging in this battle by yourself. You have your teammates.

there with you. And they're seeing things that the exorcist does not see. And they're hearing things that the exorcist does not see. After the right of exorcism, or sometimes sharing the exorcism, you may see one of your team members roll their fingers as to go back over that again. Because they've seen something that I have not seen. I'm so engaged in prayer. And I'm so engaged in the flow of the ritual or the deliverance that we're going through. So that may be a session that takes place. And then afterwards, we go to the Mexican restaurant, we sit there, and you're getting feedback.

The exorcists is getting feedback. As the team leader, to use a military analogy, you're getting feedback so that when you go in to knock down the doors again, you can use that feedback to your advantage, to God's advantage and to the disadvantage of the demon. Now, for the average, and we're going to get into, obviously, because the average Christian doesn't participate in formal exorcism ritual, but for us personally to stay on guard and be aware, as Paul admonishes us of the enemy's schemes, are we asking the Holy Spirit say, hey, is this problem just bad luck?

Is this problem medical, if it's a sickness? Or am I constantly trying to discern in my problem? prayer life and my activities, is there a spiritual attack happening against me? And if so, how do I respond? I guess maybe what are some practical steps for the average person who's not engaged in formal exorcism, but it's still facing fiery darts? The fiery darts, very good. I don't believe in coincidences, okay? And I will tell my parishioners that, and I try to get them in that mindset. This is not a coincidence that this happened. whatever it might be.

But if you get a sensation, if you get a feeling, if you get a breeze across your face, if you get an ache or a pain or whatever, let's talk about it. Sometimes it's a measure of reassurance. Sometimes it's a measure of giving them a blessing. And they're looking to see, is this the first time this has happened? or is this the 50th time that this has happened? And what do I need to do? They being, I being the parishioner. What do I need to be aware of? There are parishioners that I have. I know what's in their icon corner. I know what they do on a daily basis. I know what their life is like.

And those parishioners have allowed me to be a part of their life. They've invited me into their life. And so we have a knowing dialogue that we can exchange information. And they will text me, here we are talking about using the phone. They will text me and say, Father, I need some prayers right now. And I'll stop whatever I'm doing, and I will pray for them. And for those parishioners that don't invite you to be a part of their life, they show up for liturgy. And I'm assuming and hoping that they're praying. But I am praying for them. And when they come forth for confession, I hope and pray that they're allowing me to get a glimpse of their life and the battles that they're going through, whether they be psychological, physical, spiritual, or emotional battles. And so

that becomes very important. And so the priest is constantly having to be visual, vigilant and open to the little signs that they might give you, that they might give me, as to where they are in their spiritual life and what they're seeing and what they're engaging. And so that dynamic is always ongoing. It sounds like great wisdom is to also have just spiritual oversight and have the protection of being in relationship spiritually with those in authority, because I think about how often we try and do life siloed and so much of today's culture is individualism. And it just would be, hey, a great way to have its accountability, being part of a community

so others can, we can benefit from the entire body, watching you, praying for you, etc. But for the average Christian today, hey, let's, I'll even use myself as example. I'm a, you know, male in his 30s living in San Diego. What are the fiery darts that I'm probably going to see? Like, how's the enemy coming out? I know ones distract me from prayer life. What do you see as fiery darts today for Christians? Walk outside your front door.

And what are you surrounded with? Turn on your TV. Turn on your radio. Go downtown. Whatever downtown is. Go shopping. What do you see? What are you engaging?

Turn on the news. Look at what's happening around you. What's happening in the world? Yeah. The fiery darts are there all around you. all the time. The problem arises when you don't have the level of discernment to realize that they're there and to be able to turn away or to be able, as I tell my parishioners, to be able to bless yourself, to say, don't want to look that way, don't have time for that, I got to stay focused.

We have to engage the world. We live in the world. But to recognize. recognize what the world is going through and what we're walking, who we're walking amongst. We're not in a monastery. We're not out in the desert. Even if we were in the desert, and you probably don't live too far from deserts, even if we were out in the desert, we would be assaulted. We would be attacked because our mind is constantly taking us astray. And we can't escape it. We We can't escape the world. So fiery darts, they're there. So here's a question.

A lot of times we'll get people white writing into the show saying, I'm going through a particular season of maybe I lost my job, I'm having strife with friends, and I got a medical diagnosis, either all three, one of the above, et cetera. And it gets thrown out. I know a lot. I see a lot of posts like, oh, I think this is spiritual. And I've always had a tough time trying to parse out because, one, Jesus said, if you follow me, you'll just, you'll be persecuted. And also, we live in a world that is clearly broken

and under the dominion of the evil one. And so I don't assume every bad thing that happened. Also, we're humans. We make bad choices. And those bad choices can lead to consequences. But what's your advice? How would you help someone simply distill and think through whether something is a spiritual attack or just the results of, hey, this is just welcome to the broken world and bad things happen? It's all of the above. Because we're in. a broken world, that is enough to say that there's a spiritual or demonic aspect to what you're going through. And yeah, you lost your job. You got a bad diagnosis. You're fighting with your friends. Your dog is barking at you. Your cat doesn't like you anymore. And you've annoyed your wife or something

like that. Yeah, you can be having a bad day. You can be having a bad day. But you're having a bad day, but you're having a bad day because, we're not living in the garden, okay? Because we're not living in the garden. So the only thing that can help you sometimes through the bad day is being vigilant and saying, okay, this has happened. I just need some quiet time. I need to pray. I need to go to the transcendent God and ask for strength because I still have to be a pillar for my family. I still have to go out and now I've got to find another job. I still have to undergo more medical tests, whatever it might be. But you just, you can't be so siloed that you say, woe be unto me and it's been a crappy day and that's just life. And there's nothing I can do about it. You've got to give your life to Christ.

And that's the message that the priest has to continually deliver. And the priest has to be able to say, Ryan, you've had a bad day. It's tough. And I'm going to pray with you. I'll pray for you. And you're not going to walk through this darkness by yourself. I'll be there with you. And your guardian angel will be there with you.

Your patron saint will be there with you. The angels will be there with you. Because that might be the only thing that gets you through the scenario that you've depicted. This might be a good segue into the signs that someone is demonized, right? We talk a lot about knowledge of the unknown, superhuman strength, or breaking God's rules of physics, speaking foreign languages. But you and I have talked that those signs are often not visible until later, even in a session,

but there's many other signs or other things that can be discerned earlier that might suggest potential spiritual involvement. So could you enlighten us a little bit? There are the four signs that we all talk about. The supernatural strength, aversion to the holy things, this hidden knowledge, which I alluded to earlier, you didn't fast and that sort of thing. Speaking in unknown languages,

I've confronted all of those things. But there are sometimes things that you can't explain unnatural behavior. I had a priest tell me not too long ago that a person came at him walking on all fours, just like a creature out of a movie. And he had not seen that before. He had not encountered it before with that person or anybody else. But the person came down and came after him walking on all fours. And thankfully, I'd never seen that myself.

But I would say that's a... demonic activity. I've encountered people who have just this profound blasphemy or hatred of God. And it's just, see me in my cassock, or they'll find out I'm a priest, and I've walked into hospital rooms and people in ICU. And there's the patient laying on the bed, whom I've come to see, and who I come to minister to. And a person was across the room. And we're talking. talking like from one diagonally, from one corner to a corner. And that person is talking real loudly on the phone and giving no peace to anyone in the room, talking on the phone and then says, wait, and they put the phone down and they do a 180 and they look at me and they say, we don't need you.

You have no right to be here. No one has asked you to come and being almost physically assaulted and verbally assaulted. I had rights to be there, but that person didn't know about it, and the rights had to be explained to that individual. When I went back the next morning to see the person in the ICU, because that individual knew I had rights, the individual just immediately departed from the room. And we closed the glass door. And I and a parishioner, we went. to proceed to give the Sacrament of Holy Unction to the person who was on their deathbed. And the person who had rejected me the day before was walking back and forth in front of the glass doors like a cat in a cage and just glaring through the glass.

And when I finished the Sacrament of Holy Unction, when I finished the final blessings, I told the parishioner, it was with me. I said, now watch what happens. and the person said, oh, what's going to happen, Father? And I said, just watch. Just watch what happens. The moment I gave the final blessing, and I started to take my stole off, my epitraheelion off, the sliding glass door flung open.

And that person came into the room because they knew that I had concluded the right of blessing, the right of holy unction. And they knew that my permission to be there had ceased at, that moment. That was demonic. As we left, the parishioner, she was really processing everything. And then we got to the elevators and she turned to me. Her face was illuminated. She was excited. And she said, I understand. And in her excitement, she says, we defeated the devil. We defeated the devil. We saved a soul. We defeated the devil. So blasphemy or hatred towards God. Another area, there are people who have medical maladies that can't be explained by a doctor.

They go through test after test. The doctors are to the point where let's try this medicine or let's try that medicine, but they can't come to any conclusion and any diagnosis, and they're ready to send the person to a psychiatrist or psychologist. And that's just the last resort measure because the, physicians can't come up with anything. So there's no physical or psychological symptoms that it will explain this medical malady. And that's when you get an inkling that maybe there's something spiritual going on. And maybe the priest has to become the physician. That's when the burden on the

priest to really place everything before God, place everything on the altar, lead the person through their sacramental rituals, good confession, attend divine liturgy, receive blessings for the sick, holy unction if necessary. All of that, you know, the priest has to fill the vacuum and allow God to enter the individual. The last thing that's come up, I didn't anticipate is there might be specific scenarios. There's no rational explanation except a spiritual. They might become violent or sometimes they can't speak, almost catatonic, and they don't know what to do. If they're before a holy relic or a holy icon, they freeze up. And you begin to wonder why this is happening. Don't want to come for communion. And you might say that's an aversion to the

holy things. But sometimes they can, but sometimes they can't. And there's no rational explanation for any of these things going on. So if the priest sees these things, which are beyond the four that we illuminated on, that we talked about earlier, then you have to ask yourself, the priest has to ask himself, is there something more going on here? And you have to try to enter the person's life or you have to recommend that the person come see you, come talk to you. And it might be something, it might not. Now, Father, also, you and I have talked about something, hopefully I'm pronouncing this correctly called, is it pre-lest? Yes. Yes. And so another interesting and bizarre potential indicator of something supernatural going on is that you might be, have experiencing,

I think you called it false grace or might have some kind of high. awareness of things, and you might mistake that, and I can't help but think of the enemy coming disguised as an angel of light. So could you talk a little bit about some of those deceptions that could point towards that? Especially in orthodoxy, it's got patristic origins, and in Russian orthodoxy, you'll see a lot of talk about it. It's where a person, they believe that they have insights that nobody else had, insights that the priest doesn't understand, and they try, to explain to the priest anything from doctrine to dogma to an angel visiting them. And all of this is done without a religious or spiritual or Orthodox or even a Catholic context to it. This causes

tension because oftentimes the person is prideful or delusional and they believe that they have insights that nobody else has. And they might believe that they're a church father, that they can render blessings, that they have insights to the gospel that no one else has. And they can lead people astray. And they can even try to lead the priest astray. The priest has to be very careful to walk them down, not to confront them, but to have a sense of discernment. Let's walk through this. because they have a lack of discernment. They don't have a structure within which to frame what they believe to be a truth. They're having false physical, false spiritual experiences. They might have a sense of self-righteous. There might be some emotional psychological instability, and they'll take to doing sometimes bizarre things.

They will dress all in black because they want to be like the priest. In my case, they might come in wearing a, cassock and they feel like they've been sanctified and they're promoting unorthodox teachings. They can be very divisive in what they are espousing and engaging in. So those are the wolves and sheep's clothing. Yeah, they can be. The challenge is we probably have to have some empathy for these individuals because they might be genuinely experiencing what they believe to be our spiritual, right, encounters. And we have to convince them or you have to convince them that they're in fact, deceptions. Or help their sense of discernment, reframe their experience. Empathy, yes, is very important.

Asking them to seek spiritual guidance when you get this thought, this visitation, when this pre-lest experience happens, come talk to me. Let's see what's happening. Show me how you pray. I'll meet you every morning for a week. Let's go through morning prayers or let's go through evening prayers. We've got to flee certain venues and we've got to pursue other venues. We've got to hear multiple voices who are aligned with each other, although we may disagree with each other dogmatically and theologically, but we agree with each other and we have so many areas that we have in common. I listened to your show the other day with the priest from, I believe it was Denmark. Oh, wasn't that fantastic? He was such a gift. It was one of the most, I felt, I don't like saying

this too often, but the spirit just felt on that. It was just beautiful, like, especially his story of the two people at the end with Last Rites. I was just so moved. I mean, that, that was incredible. That was so spiritually rewarding, so edifying. Here he is a young priest being given wisdom and comprehension and seeing things that it might take priests a lifetime to encounter. And he is so blessed. He has no idea. What I tell all the other priests and what I tell my parishioners is my job description is to stay out of the way of the Holy Spirit.

Let the Holy Spirit do the Holy Spirit's work. And that's what he's doing. But that's what every exorcist, that's what every priest is supposed to do. throughout our life. Father, I want to ask, as we make our initial descent here, I actually saw a clip of Lee Strobel on Tucker Carlson, and he gave a really interesting interview, but Lee said that, now, a true Christian cannot be demonically possessed, and the reason is a true Christian is indelled by the Holy Spirit, and you can't be indeweled by evil and good, like in the same way, at the same time. So Christians cannot be possessed, but they can be oppressed. And so I thought

this is an interesting topic because obviously on this show, we teach differently. And also, I wonder sometimes, too, if the word possessed is also conflated with ownership. So could you walk us through maybe just a correct way to think about this? I disagree with the basic premise of the statement because we're dealing with a mystery. Christ allows things to happen. When people are possessed, it's not a unilateral action of darkness, of the demon. and just saying, I am going to inhabit control or take over this individual, and I'm going to make their life miserable. No, Christ has to permit that to occur. Now, why does Christ permit that to occur? Perhaps for our salvation. Perhaps so we can give witness to others, perhaps for the salvation of the individual so that they don't take their spiritual life or granted. We don't know the reasons that this occurs. Ultimately, it comes down to that individual, along with their priest, has to engage in a spiritual battle. And a spiritual battle to not only

reject, but eject the demon. Yeah, oppression. He's right. He's right. right. But possession, I don't agree with the statement. Correct me if I'm wrong, too, but the way I've always thought about it is, and Father Martins will use the example of if he has a condo in Florida and abandons it and leaves the door open, people can move in and be in temporary possession of it, even though he legally owns it, and he appeals to Christ, who is the ultimate judge and adjudicator and is the enforcement. And so through Christ, he enforces the legal rules, which is, hey, that's no belongs to me. And I know I have a good friend Jonathan Becluta, who's a pastor, and he always shares it like, hey, he grabs my coffee mug and he goes, you own this mug, right? And I go,

yes. And he goes, but who's in possession of it? You are right now. And we're going to go to Jesus and we're going to get it back. But right now, he's in possession. So I do think people, is that accurate, father? Do people just maybe conflate possession with ownership? I believe they do. And I believe that's very possible. So I may never have a conversation with Lee Strobel, but I think we have to be very careful with statements like that. Ultimately, you're going to take God for granted. You're going to take Christ for granted. And that's what you cannot do. And that's what this whole show's been about, at least this part of the show and your whole series, The Exorcist Files, has been about, you don't take the Lord for granted. Amen. And obviously, you know, I find this

interesting too. And obviously these cases, there wasn't possession. Perhaps you can speak to it. Because even Tucker shared publicly that he had an experience that was, physically, he was attacked. And I can't have but think, there's this argument that humans tend to have where we, or Christians, we tend to think, oh, I'm obedient to Christ and I'm living a good life. And so I'm not going to have to worry about this. And yes, however, we do see examples in scripture. Obviously, the best example is the sinless man was nailed to a cross and murdered, essentially, right?

So bad things happen to good people. But even before that, we see a very strange dynamic with Job, who's a righteous man, seems to be victim to this wager in heaven. But perhaps you can speak to this effect that, you know, obviously, yes, stay righteous, stay in your prayers, stay in the liturgy, and that will protect you. But again, we have to balance, right, that if we are living out our faith in this world,

we are targets, and then we could, and we very well may experience oppression because, or experience attacks because we are living out of faith. You're prime targets. You're a prime target from a spiritual, and demonic sense, you're a prime target from a secular sense in the United States today. In this country, you are a target. You walk around with a target on your back. And you have to accept that you're a target. And that's why you must consistently be vigilant. That's why you must consistently plan.

That's why you must consistently arm yourself. I tell the folks whom I minister to, whether they be in the parish, should they be outside of the parish? And I have a number of them who travel quite a bit. And I say, take your weapons with you. And what are their weapons? Their weapons are their prayer route. Their weapons are the holy oil and the holy water. When you go into your hotel room, say, oh, my hotel room is clean.

Good. Now I'm going to take my holy water and I'm going to bless all four walls in my room. okay because i don't know who was in there before me i have no idea who was in there before me and i have no idea what they did and i have no idea what they left behind and will it afflict me can it afflict me yes it can and we need to be prudent we need to exercise prudence all the time and especially when we leave the confines of our home we've given to God. You may have icons in it. You may have a cross in it.

You may say you have a prayer corner. You may have a number of things in there. But you never want to take your home for granted. You invite people into your home. You have a dinner party. You have a just somebody comes over and then you're going to have something to a piece of cake or pie or drink or something like that. but you have no idea what that individual has been doing in their life and what their life is really like. And not that you distrust them, but you have to be ever vigilant to go back and say,

okay, we clean the house before they came. Now, after they have left, we're going to really clean the house better after they've left. It becomes a way of life. So, Father, I want us to end on a, at least on a hopeful note, because obviously we're talking, I want to echo the Apostle Paul who speaks that he wants us to be aware in the New Testament. Our enemy is described as a roaring lion. That's a serious thing, right? He's prowling around.

We're never told to be afraid of him. And we are also told stand firm, resist. He'll flee from us. And I imagine, if I think about you out there in Desert Storm, right, you have to live with a constant awareness that you could be attacked, but you don't wake up every morning, panicked, worrying. Is the enemy going to come? Is the enemy even trained?

You're ready, but you stay vigilant. So could you give us just some, for anyone who's hearing this going, oh, man, I'm nervous. We've been talking about all the ways the enemy can attack me, and I'm feeling like maybe I'm not doing as good a job as I should be, get ready. What's a hopeful note for the average Christian here who just says, hey, I don't want nothing to do with the enemy? Christ loves us. He never abandons us. He's always with us, and he's always there to welcome us. He is our shepherd. He's not a hireling. He is the shepherd, and he's going to fight. the wolves and send them away. All we have to do is stay under his control, stay within his life, and put our hope in him. Remember, God loves you, and he wants to be in your heart. He wants to be a

part of your life. You just have to let him enter your heart, and that's under your control. if you welcome him into your life, if you welcome him into your heart, you have the best shield that you can have. You will come under attack, but at least you can go back to him and say, Lord, I need you. Help me now. I will give you a real short vignette when I came into orthodoxy. I was drawn to orthodoxy, as many young men are like iron filings to a magnet. And I went to Father Michael and I said, here's all the books I've read. I'm ready to come in. And he just looked at me and he shook his head and he said, no, colonel, you're not ready.

And I said, I've read all these books. Give me a test. Ask me any questions that you want to ask me. Oh, there goes pride evident right there. And he says, no, father, you have to learn. the rule of 18. When you learn the rule of 18, then maybe I'll bring you into the church. And I went back, frustrated. I went through every book that I had read. And I went back to him and I said the next week and I said, Father, okay, I give up. I don't know the rule of 18. So would you mind telling me? And he says,

you know what, Colonel? You live by the rule of six. And I throw up my hands and I said, please, What are you talking about? I can't even find the rule of 18, and now you're throwing the rule of six on me. And he said, Father, for you, everything goes from here to here and out. He was pointing to the top of your head, six inches down to your mouth, and everything comes out. He was right. It was a military ethos I had. And he said, you needed to live by the rule of everything of 18. Everything needs to go from here, from your mind, all the this knowledge that you've consumed, 18 inches down to your heart and let your heart and Christ in your heart discern what you've experienced and what you've just thought. And then maybe something comes out of your mouth or maybe, Colonel, maybe you shut up and you be quiet. And that was the lesson. That was the wisdom he was sharing with me. It's the same wisdom that I share with all the catacumans coming in and it's been this topic of a number of homilies through the years. If we let them into our hearts, we have hope. And not a present day hope, not a today hope,

but an eternal hope. Amen. Before I close it out, Father, is anything else you wanted to talk about that we didn't get to? No, this has been good. Thank you for having me again. Father, I've been so blessed by this conversation, and I think we all need to try a little bit of the rule of 18. So that's something I will definitely be taking with me. Always a feast for all the senses when I speak with you and a lot to chew on and process. So I'm so grateful. And thank you so much for doing the show. And on behalf of Father Martins and I, we appreciate you so much.

And I hope you have a light day tomorrow. Hopefully there's only one or two exorcisms. I got two. Okay. Slow day. A lot of fasting. God bless you. All right. Thank you so much, Father. All right. Bye-bye.