The Exorcist Files - Spiritual Warfare and A Powerful Prayer with Gabe Castillo

Episode Date: June 15, 2025

Gabe Castillo, aka "Gabbi After Hours" joins the Exorcist Files to share his testimony of deliverance and his own experience with the Rosary to ward off evil.Thank you to our sponsorsOllie- Head to Ollie.com and use promo code EXFILES for 60% of your first box. My dog loves it, yours will too!!Wild Alaskan Co- Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood—delivered right to your door. Go to:  https://www.wildalaskan.com/EXFILES. "HOW GREAT IS THEIR COD!"Check out HeavenMeetsEarth.comPRE-ORDER GABE'S BOOK HERESee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So I was crying and I asked the Lord. I said, Lord, please have mercy on me. I'm so sorry. And I'm saying this in tears in my room. And I audibly heard a voice, repeat the exact same words of contrition that I was saying, but in a very high peach. And this is like, and when I mean audible, I heard it with my physical ears, mocking my contrition.

Oh, God, have mercy on me. I can't even raise my voice to the level of what this voice was. Hey friends, today we bring you an awesome interview with a longtime friend and supporter of our show, Mr. Gabriel Castillo, or as you might know him, Gabi After Hours. He is an inordinately successful YouTuber who produces incredible content and is joining us today to talk about his journey, his experiences with spiritual warfare, and his new book, The Power of the Rosary, which is available for pre-order now. Now, many of our fans rode in and said how much they enjoyed his appearance with Father Barton on the Heaven Meets Earth podcast, where he talked about the history. of the Rosary and his visceral experiences with spiritual warfare. Now, I will say personally, as someone who had no real context or real historical knowledge of the Rosary, I found it very interesting to learn the origins and the history. Also, as Father shared last week, we do have more dramatic

cases coming. But in the meantime, we do hope you enjoy these conversations, and especially this one with our dear friend Gabe Castillo. Hope you love it. Welcome back to The Exorcist Files, the show where we say hello to the ministers and goodbye to the Sinisters. Now, I've used that one before, but it's only because I'm honoring a special guest who is going to be talking about spiritual warfare. Please put your rosaries, your prayer beads, whatever physical, tangible manifestation of the current faith that you have together

for my dear friend, Gabriel Castillo, or as you might know him, Gabby After Hours, the popular YouTuber, is here virtually in spirit a la First Corinthians, while he's not here, we have conjured his spirit in the appropriate way today. Ryan is for being here. It is an honor to be on your program. I want to say even before we get started, congratulations on being a part of a show that people beg for more content.

It's something that my son and I, my son is 16 years old. I am significantly older than him, obviously. And we both look forward to it. And that's very rare that there can be a Christian program that people are hungering for. And I get frustrated with people when I discuss and try to promote your show because they say things like, well, I don't want to be afraid. And like the fear factor is there. There is a little bit of, you know, hebie-jeebies that people get. But the ability to touch people's hearts and to inspire, like I leave watching this show spiritually nourished and refreshed.

So seriously, congratulations. I know Father Carlos gets so much credit and you're kind of like the donkey that pulls the cart. But you're a very good donkey. Thank you. And I appreciate you saying donkey instead of the other word that gets thrown out there because I've definitely been referred to. You're definitely that for sure. Yeah, definitely that for sure. You and I both are connected. Another thing is you said obviously much older. No, everyone says how young you look. And I don't know if that's just the spirit of God inside of you. But if you Google my name, you'll see, it says I'm 58 years old and I'm not. I have Googled you. And I was like, dude, I don't know what this guy is drinking. Right? And that's so funny. We are partnering with a phenomenal skin care company. But don't worry, I'm not actually 58 and just look like I'm in my mid-30s. It's really funny. My friends pointed that out the other day and said, hey, did you know your 58?

And I was like, I did not know that. And what are the odds? There's another guy, same height, who went to the University of Southern Carolina, or I went to Southern California and we get mixed up and indexed together. So we both played football. So apparently I'm an NFL legend. You're a lot bigger than I expected. I met you recently in Washington, D.C.

to be a part of your other program, Heaven Meets Earth. And the first thing I said, it was like, oh my gosh, dude, you're a giant. Everyone says that, and I was hoping they would say I was an intellectual giant, but in reality, they just say you sounded much younger. The other day, I saw I was recently on Lila Rose's podcast and really thankful. I never read comments. I try not to. We have a team to do that, to filter them for us.

I'm curious, I wanted to see how I did with that audience. It was really cool to see how many people have been impacted by the show, and that just makes it so worthwhile. Then, of course, you come upon the one comment, and it says, oh, it's so cool to put a face to the name. I've been listening to Ryan for so long. But I have to admit, he looks so much older. The guy's got some miles on him. It cut me deeper than when I asked recently at an event.

I was hosting an event for a Salvation Army event. I said, tell me your favorite Disney movies. I said, none of you like the Lion King? And the kid goes, oh, my dad loves the Lion King. And I would get out. Get out right now. I'm sorry. Moana's great, but the Lion King, let's go. And not like, not the new Lion King. We're old school. The original. O.G. We digress. The fans, they know, we know what they want.

We both listen to the show. We both are heavily involved in the show. We know that we want to get to spiritual warfare. I think I want to start a little bit. What led to you being interested? And I think what's really cool is you have a healthy interest in spiritual warfare. And something that we do try to get across in the show is that it's okay to be curious. Because even the Apostle Paul, said, hey, I don't want you to be unaware. Like, there is an adversary around there. So this myth that somehow you can't even like discuss it, right, that is a big problem. On the other hand, we never want to glorify this stuff, et cetera. What was kind of your connection and commencement with this topic of spiritual warfare? Mine was a unfortunately a firsthand experience of it. I had wounds, which Father Carlos

talks a lot about that demons can hide in our wounds. And my wound was a father wound. My mom was the only person who raised me. So I grew up with this wound about not being loved, not being good enough. In addition to that, again, my mom is incredible, really, truly an amazing woman. But we didn't have faith growing up. She was away from her Catholic faith. And so I had no concept of what Christianity was, no concept of what God was. And so I looked to the world to give me meaning and purpose. I would watch a lot of MTV from morning till evening. And the world tells you, obviously, that success, is based on power, is based on pleasure, is based on sexual promiscuity. And so I made those my aims in life, and I got addicted to pornography from a very young age, from the age of, I think

eighth grade. So around that age, I was looking at pornography every single day, became a serious addiction. And I made my goal sexual conquest. Thanks be to God, after many years, I was granted a scholarship to the University of St. Thomas, which has a pre-referial. requisite that you take introductory theology courses, introductory philosophy courses. And so as I began to learn about Christianity and especially Catholicism and concupiscence and morality and all these things, I began to realize, I was like, this faith actually makes sense. Like, there's some answers here. And so I began to gravitate towards those truths of Christianity and of theology and philosophy. But the problem is my morality was so corrupt.

and so disordered that I didn't even recognize how morally corrupt that I was. I was living a double life. So I was living Christianity philosophically. I liked the idea. I liked liturgy. I liked good talks and stirring convictions. But Christianity for me at that point wasn't like I'm surrendering my life. I'm changing the way I live.

I'm changing the way I do life with Christ. There was no real relationship with Christ. And I would go to campus ministry events. And there was a great nun there who recognized and saw and heard about all of my promiscuity and terrible lifestyle. And she was a very big fan of John Paul II, who was all about theology of the body. We were going around discussing what we were going to give up for Lent. And I said, I think I'm going to give up chocolate. And she snapped.

I think it was the conviction of the Holy Spirit because I did not take this as offensive. She said, how about you give up sin, Gabe? How about you stop sinning gravely? Try that. How did she know about your sin? I'm curious. Because I was visibly living two lives. So I would volunteer for church activities.

I had volunteered at the time to be a distributor of Holy Communion. And other students would see me at parties trying to hook up with girls. Obviously, they would tell her. There was a campus ministry event where they had like a talent show. And I went up and like I told like a dirty joke. And then there's just a lot of clues she picked up on and she confronted me about it. So I was like, you know what? That's a good idea.

I think I'll try giving up, you know, grave sin for Lent. And I went home that evening. And of course, my predominant vice was surrounding lust. And I went home and within two hours of being home, I looked at pornography, I committed solitary sin. And I had a moment of clarity. So we called this like a moment of true contrition. I understood deeply that I was a very sinful person that had major addictions and that I was sinning like it was second nature, not because I wanted to necessarily, but because I had just destroyed my free will and I was giving into my passions. So I was crying and I asked the Lord.

I said, Lord, please have mercy on me. I'm so sorry. And I'm saying this in tears in my room. And I audibly heard a voice, repeat the exact same. same words of contrition that I was saying, but in a very high peach, and this is like, and when I mean audible, I heard it with my physical ears mocking my contrition. Oh, God, have mercy on me. I can't even raise my voice to the level of what this voice was. And so immediately, I called upon St. John Viani. I can see now because he was a saint, a priest who was attacked

by the devil very famously. But at that point in my journey, I had no idea who he was. He just kind of came out instinctively. And for us heretics out there, what's the logline on St. John Viani? What's the cause or what's he associated with? Right. So he's the patron saint of parish priests. And he's notable for being not a very intelligent man. And he was sent to a parish that did not have people going to church.

And the whole town was basically not practicing their faith. But through his acts of piety, fervent prayer, acts of mortification and fasting, one by one, souls were being converted, and the entire town would show up for confessions, which are going to mass regularly. All of France was basically converted. The devil one time told him in a confession he appeared. The devil would appear to him frequently. He said, if there were only three priests like you in the world, all of hell would be empty

because he was such like a man conformed to Christ. And so I called upon John Viani. The moment I said, St. John Viani, pray for me. The voice disappeared from my ear. The next day, I was frantic. So I went to my campus minister, this religious sister. I said, sister, this happened. I don't know if she believed me or not, but she saw the opportunity to get me to go a little

deeper. She's like, well, maybe you should pray the rosary. And I was like, I don't know how. And she gave me a pamphlet and some beads. I was in my room that evening and I was obviously, you know, praying out of fear, not necessarily because I wanted to get closer to God. And I opened the pamphlet and I began the prayers, which starts off with the Apostles' creed. So I said, I believe in. And when I said the words, I believe in, all of a sudden,

a force grabbed me by the throat, slammed me physically on my bed, was like forcing me deeper than my bed would like normally, if I was laying on top of it. The room was ice cold. And as I was being choked, I heard interiorly in my mind, pray. It was like a little light bulb. I did not hear words in my ears. I heard it interior. Pray. And so I couldn't, I couldn't get words out. And it said, pray in your head, the Hail Mary. And so interiorly, I said the words, hail Mary.

And as I said those interiorly, I felt a release on my throat and I gasped out audibly, Hail Mary. And the moment the word Mary left my lips, the force went away and the room returned to normal. and I knew at that moment, I just had this deep understanding that I have had a demon with me and I am a slave and I need God and all of this is very real.

There was no Exorcist Files podcast. There was not a lot of information. So I went online. It was the dark ages. Yeah, the internet, I was barely, I was only using the internet for porn at that time, unfortunately. Dialup projection too. Were you listening to that 56K AOL?

Yeah, you've got mail. That little scratchy, scratchy, So I googled what happened. I typed in pornography, diabolical attack, and I came across this website called the Padre Pio Center for Deliverance, and it was like giving you a checklist of things that would open you up to the demonic. So do you have pornography? Do you have music that glorifies evil? Do you have statutes of false gods? Do you have new age books in your house?

All of these things that are intrinsically antichrist. and I yeah my mom had you know Buddhist statues in the house we've you know went to tarot card readers etc just like just because we didn't know real religion so I got rid of all of those things I was struck with how just saying the holy name of Mary would deliver me and I wasn't a practicing like I wasn't living my faith I was even maybe committing sacrilege I was treating sacred things as if they were unholy And so I was deeply moved that all I did was call upon Mary a single time and she rescued me from the clutches of the devil. Now, I still had, and we're going to talk about this later, God willing, I still had a diabolical obsession. I was having extraordinary temptations towards lust in this case.

I noticed that, and at that point I was like, I'm praying this rosary every single day, partially because of fear. I got rid of all the bad stuff that we had in the house. I was playing religious music religiously in our home. I began to pray regularly every day. I became a prayer warrior. And I noticed when I prayed the rosary, I had a strengthening of my will and I had a deeper understanding of theological things. And I was still being tempted and I still would have these moments of like true like crying

out to God. God helped me not to commit this sin type of circumstance. but I was falling less and less when I would pray four rosaries in a day because I was just praying to the point where I just didn't want to sin partially again partially out of fear the obsession even though I didn't know it was an obsession at the time it felt like the temptation was like a natural thing so a diabolical obsession it feels like like you know something is wrong like it feels like there's a force like a dark cloud around you just your your brain is obsessed with lust or suicide or just you know that something is wrong with you.

So I noticed when I would pray all of the mysteries of the rosary, that would it happen. And I was just wrestling against the flesh. So it was kind of like a wall of protection was around me. I still had to practice virtue. I had to implement fasting. I had to change my habits. I had to change my friend groups. That changed my life.

Catholics were very used to hearing pious sayings, especially about the Blessed Mother, especially about the rosary. There's a pious prayer that we pray called the Memerari. Never was it known that anybody who fled to Mary was ever left unaided. And when you're growing up and you're growing in your faith, you hear those things piously and they inspire you. And one of the pious things that I would come across was the greatest prayer is the rosary. St. Louis de Montfort would say, outside of the mass, there's no prayer greater than the rosary. St. Francis de Sales, the best way to pray is to pray the rosary. Pope Leo the 13th. of the sacred liturgy, the greatest, so you hear these exaltations of the power of the rosary

and you accept them out of piety. You're like, well, I'm Catholic and we love Mary and yeah, sure, but as you grow in your understanding of Catholicism, at least for me as a Catholic, you begin to learn and you begin to accept Catholicism not out of a piety or out of your raise in this religion, but out of objective truth. Like I believe that Catholicism is objectively true. And then you begin to realize that the saints aren't just pious people who say pious things, that, yeah, some of them are simple and some of them are poor and educated and genuinely holy. But many of them are geniuses, like Thomas Aquinas is a genius. St. Francis de Salle, St. Alphonseus de Gory, intellectual giants.

And so when they're saying things like, you got to pray the rosary every day, or the rosary is the greatest prayer, They're saying this based on theological understanding of the mystical life, of the spiritual life of morality. St. Alphonseus Leguari, is one of the saints I love to quote. He's called the Doctor of Moral Theology. So concerning matters of faith concerning salvation and morality, he's like the go-to. Teresa Bavala, doctor of prayer, she's like the go-to. When all of these spiritual giants are promoting the rosary and I began to see these people are smart, I was like, I've got to study this thing.

I've got to figure out the history of this. Where did this come from? What is it? How do I pray it well? 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 is a spirituality for modern men. that is built on three ancient pillars, prayer, self-sacrifice, and fraternity. We all long for something more. We long to be the man God created us to be, sons of a loving father. It's time to turn away from our idols. It's time to break free from the pharaohs that hold us in bondage. If you're ready to make a fresh start and embark on a journey to Uncommon Freedom in Jesus Christ, then download the Exodus 90 app today.

This is your chance to break free, refocus, and rediscover who God is calling you to be in the new year. It starts January 20th. So go to Exodus 90.com slash X-Files to learn more about Exodus 90. That's Exodus 90.com slash E-X-Files. files to join tens of thousands of men from all over the world for Exodus 90. Again, it begins Monday, January 20th. God bless you. You did this beautifully on our other show, Heaven Meets Earth, which was really cool because we had you on Christian Broadcast Network and 700 Club. And I really appreciate it because you shared a beautiful anecdote about a really beautiful

thread connecting EWTN and CBN and Mother Angelica, which I encourage everyone to go listen. I was a really cool. But it was a cool moment because I'll admit, I have very little understanding of what the rosary is. And so could you give a sort of concise distillation of to anyone who's not familiar with the rosary? And then maybe even to those who do know, who may not appreciate the fullness and where it comes from, how you actually view it in the light of maybe some of the critiques that the Protestant say, like, hey, this seems like unnecessary devotion to Mary, even if technically it's not worship. Walk us through a little bit of what the rosary actually is and why you do it as a tool

to get to Christ. Before we even begin, I want to say, take only what applies to you. Throughout this entire conversation that you and I are having, I know that not everybody is in the same place and some people might even view Marian devotion is like an infringement upon their relationship with Christ. But I am going to say things that are true and just take what applies to you. If I say something to you're like, that's not for me, then then come. completely let it go. But there's good stuff in here. And it's also your experience. I mean,

this is something that I, one thing I really appreciate everyone we have on the show, whether it's spiritual warfare, surviving, we've got a lot of people come out of some crete. I get it. A lot of the stuff on this show, it's funny. What you're about to share is probably going to be on the more mild side of what people have shared. And I say, look, folks, they're just telling you their story and you can agree, you can disagree, but like this is their experience. And for you, we know the Rosa has a really profound connection with you finding freedom from something that plagued you. Yes. So I would make the argument first that I truly believe that the rosary is the greatest

prayer, not just for Catholics, but for Protestants, for Eastern Orthodox. Like, objectively, I believe it is the most gospel prayer, the most biblical prayer that there is. I really encourage Protestants to listen with an open mind and an open heart. Because if this, when I describe it to you, and if it really is the most biblical prayer, that you, and if it really is the most biblical, the most gospel prayer. You should try it. That's my sales. Most biblical, more than the Lord's prayer, because that's in the Bible. Yeah, well, the Lord's prayer is in the rosary, as you know. I know you know that part. So it's extra. So basically it's like, no, it's extra plus. It's double bonus. It's like so much Bible. It is a hundred percent Bible. So yes,

and many, many of our Protestant brothers and sisters will know that there are the words, Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Those are words that came out of the mouth of the angel Gabriel and St. Elizabeth. The angel Gabriel is a messenger from the father. St. Elizabeth was inspired by the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity. The Hail Mary is 100% of biblical prayer. The Our Father is prayed at the beginning of each decade of Hail Mary's. The Our Father is the Lord's Prayer, 100% biblical prayer. And this is so important. John Paul II said this. Louisa Monfort says this. All of the greats have said this. The words without the meditation on the life of Christ is like a body without a soul.

That's what happens a lot when people hear about the rosary. They say, man, all those Hail Marys. The Hail Marys are like secondary. They're sacred words and they're really, truly, some of the most precious words in the human language. A lot of people think, well, you're saying prayers to Mary constantly. No, we're saying the angelic salutation. This is the turning point in salvation history where the second person of the Holy Trinity takes on flesh. The devil hates those words. God the Father loves those words. The Holy Spirit loves those words.

These are the precursor for him coming upon and overshadowing the Blessed Mother. All the angels in heaven love that angelic salutation. So these words are Holy Spirit filled. They are at their heart Christocentric because they are announcing the coming of the second person of the Holy Trinity taking on a human nature. These are profound, profound words. But again, that is not the key. The rosary at the heart of it is it's an encounter with Jesus Christ in some aspect of the gospel.

At each set of 10 Hail Mary's, you announce whatever the mystery is. So there's five joyful mysteries, which are the enunciation, Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth, the birth of the child Jesus in Bethlehem, the presentation of the baby Jesus in the temple, finding Jesus after he's lost for three days. So it covers the entire early life of Christ. Then we have the baptism of Jesus. We have the wedding feast at Cana. We have the proclamation of the gospel.

We have the transfiguration. We have the institution of the Eucharist. I'm not going to go through all 20 mysteries. But what you're doing is you're spending about a minute and a half to two minutes, visualizing an aspect of the life of Christ. And if you're praying the entire rosary every day, you're literally going through the entire life of Jesus every single day. And this is so important.

When people meditate, this is so, so important, all the great saints say, when you call to mind the mystery that you're meditating upon, you visualize it as if somebody who is present. So in the Virgin Mary, for example, who's our model of prayer, when she would think about Jesus's crucifixion, she wouldn't just remember facts. She would recall it as if somebody who was really present. She knew what his hands looked like when they had a nail through them. She could recall how he was gasping for air. She could recall how he could barely open his eyes because blood was being dropped in his eyes. So by visualizing that, something extraordinarily powerful happens. Number one, you see who Christ is.

You observe him. That's very obvious. The second thing that happens is a grace called theosis where you actually become holier by encountering Christ in this mystery. So let's say, for example, you're suffering with cancer. You're in a hospital bed. You're sick. You're dying.

You're praying the fifth sorrowful mystery, the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross. And you yourself are wracked with pain. You yourself maybe are scared. And you're visualizing Christ on the cross. So yes, you see how he suffers well. You see how he looks up to his father. When you're visualizing this, a special grace is given because the life of Christ is fertile at every stage in the spiritual life.

At every aspect of his life, there's something there where he will communicate a grace to you. As you're watching him suffer for the salvation of others, he looks into your eyes and all of a sudden you're given a strength that you didn't have before, a strength to suffer well. A lot of times, you know, we Catholics, we put up on a pedestal. We venerate martyrs who suffered terrible tortures. Early Christians were tortured terribly. And we often think, man, I don't know if I could do that. How and where did they get the strength to endure brutal torture? It's because from the earliest days of the church, the church had meditation, putting yourself

in the presence of Christ in your imagination as a source of regular prayer. And so they're strengthened to suffer for Christ because they're used to seeing him suffer for them. When did the rosary also originate? Was it a particular saint that instituted this? Because we know there were prayer beads, right, that were the earliest Christians would use to pray the Psalms. Is that correct?

Excellent. 100%. something so important. So I said that the rosary is birthed from the Gospels. It's birthed from the Heart of the Virgin Mary. Mary pondered the words of the incarnation, and she pondered the life of Christ. So in the heart of Mary, the rosary already existed as one, the sacred words and the meditations. In the church, I mentioned that they had meditation on the life of Christ. They also would say prayers vocally. But it wasn't until the 13th century where the two became one in the heart of the church. So there was a great and powerful preacher, and this is actually very significant for us as how we

evangelize. There was a great preacher named Dominic de Guzman. Incredible preacher. The kind of preacher, when you hear his words, your heart tingles and you're like trying to find. When is this guy speaking again? You're going to follow him. This time in church history, there was a terrible heresy called the Albigensian heresy. It was a heresy. It was a herristian, that denied the incarnation of Christ because they were saying it was a dualism that the flesh is bad and that only the spirit is good so God who is good could not have taken on human flesh so he was perverting the incarnation it was also perverting the nature of salvation dominic had the learning had the skills was preaching fervently and nobody was converting because this was decimating

the Christian peoples he offered himself as a sacrifice to God and he said Lord I'm not going to eat, I'm not going to sleep, I'm going to pray all night, and I'm not going to stop until you give me the answer to how to convert hardened sinners. How do we call down the power of the Holy Spirit like the New Testament? How can we have miracles and the mercy of God flowing down into the lives of the people? Because I don't have it anymore. He fasted three days later. He is kneeling down in prayer. All of a sudden in the sky, he sees a fireball coming towards him with three angels side by side, the fireball suddenly disappears and the Virgin Mary appears in the place of the fireball. And she says to him, Dominic, my well-beloved son, I'm going to answer your

prayer. Don't you know that in this type of warfare, this is so important, in this type of warfare, the battering ram is now and forever shall be the angelic salutation, the cornerstone of the New Testament. So Mary is saying in spiritual warfare, the battering ram is the angelic salutation. And this is extraordinarily important because how did Christ break down the gates of hell? You know, we hear often, I've watched the Chosen. I love watching this scene where Jesus tells Peter, you are Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. If you watch that scene in that show or if you have prayed with it, Jesus isn't saying that we're going to put up walls and hell is not going to penetrate our walls. Jesus saying they will not prevail.

We are going to bust down the gates of hell by the power of God. So how did Jesus penetrate this earth? Hail Mary, full of grace. It was these words that pierced the darkness of this world that brought the second person of the Holy Trinity. And so Mary is saying in spiritual warfare, you want to use a battering ram, the Hail Mary, the angelic salutation. And then she tells Dominic, something extraordinarily important, which you just touched upon. She said, Dominic, preach my Salter. Salter referring to the Psalms, 150 Psalms. Religious had the habit of memorizing the Psalms, because most people were illiterate at this time. They did not have the printing presses. There were not Bibles in every single church stall. They would memorize the Psalms. They would pray 150

Psalms throughout the day. Lay people would use beads, and they would pray 150 prayers, short ones, Lord's Prayer or the angelic salutation, and they would break it up 50 in the morning, 50 in the afternoon, and 50 in the evening. And so Mary is telling Dominic, preach my sultan, the version of the beads that has the angelic salutation, and then this is where the new thing comes up, because that already existed. She's saying preach that. And to that tie, the life of Jesus Christ.

So what happens in the rosary is truly a world wind, a Pentecost. fire gets stirred up in the life of the Christian. Because you're saying the Our Father, which is sacred scripture, because you're saying the angelic salutation, the words are kind of like a song. They're playing in the background. They're stirring up a world when of the Holy Spirit. They're putting up a wall of protection around you so that you can put your mind in the gospels, which is the most fruitful place to encounter Jesus Christ. Notice she's saying the sultan. So you're going to do this 50 times in the morning, the early stages of the life. of Christ, 50 times in the afternoon with the middle stages of life of Christ, and 50 times in the

evening. So you're spending your entire day in prayer, in an encounter with Christ. Dominic was already preaching, and she's saying, you're not successful. So there's a Latin axiom, Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vendi. How you pray impacts what you believe, and that impacts how you live. Dominic was trying to correct their theology. It was not working. So Mary is saying, correct their prayer life. If you correct the way they pray, you will correct how they believe, and then if you change how they believe, change how they live.

The Blessed Mother made all sorts of promises to St. Dominic and then also later on to another Dominican named Blessed Alan, and she said, use these 15 promises as an encouragement to get them to motivate them to pray. It's just time and time again in the life of every person who takes on the rosary as a lifestyle, as their means of encountering Christ in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening, radically transformed. So like I said, I was so addicted to pornography. I would look at it like two or three times a day. Now, I don't even think about pornography. You had mentioned that it's important to understand spiritual warfare and we're going to get into some very parts of spiritual warfare that might be afflicting people. they don't even realize they have this affliction.

But I don't even think about it. My mind, my heart is completely wrapped up in the life of Jesus Christ all day long. The spiritual warfare happened around me. Yeah, I kind of see it happening in the distance, but I'm not concerned about it whatsoever. Wow. Well, I noticed you failed to mention, you mentioned all the Lexes, but I didn't hear Lex Luthor, which is Latin for Here I Stand, right? And can do nothing else? Hey, well, you know, Catholics, we don't like Luther.

I know. What about Martin Luther Vandross? Hey, that's different. Dance with my father. What a jam. He's got a voice like silk. Oh, man. Few songs will bring me to tears, but Lord, Lord, Lord, how I'd love to dance with my father again.

And I thought, oof, just. Your Luther comment sparked something in my brain. Oh, there we go. This is for the Protestant. Seriously, you're acting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So this is for my Protestant brothers and sisters who are emotionally, maybe theologically opposed to asking Mary to pray for them. When the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Dominic,

the second half of the Hail Mary did not exist. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. That was added about 300 years later by Pope Pius V. So if you have a moral or emotional or theological qualm with asking Mary, or even a fear or a trepidation of asking Mary to pray for you,

You can still pray the rosary and pray it as it was originally given. I personally believe that one of the things that makes it powerful is that you're asking Mary for help and never was it known that a loving mother has ever left her child unaided. I understand your moral qualm, but I would ask the question, do you have a method of prayer that keeps you in the gospel all day? Does one exist in your tradition? If it doesn't, try this one because it truly is life-changing gospel prayer. You know, you bring two things up, which one, just on the topic of Luther, it is very interesting

because if something Protestants will have to wrestle with is, I believe it is proven that Luther prayed a rosary until the day he died. So there is something he had, he had a strong Marion connection. Beyond that, I appreciate when we had Father Barton Geiger on with you on Heaven Meets Earth, he mentioned something that was really cool, which is similar to some of the secular psychology comments we've gotten around the Exorcist Files and Exorcist's as a treatment, that there seems to be a recognition from a scientific standpoint that even if you don't concede the spiritual effects of it, that when you are engaging in something that may have even a placebo effect, which, again, we believe, obviously, that these prayers have a spiritual power.

One thing Father Geiger brought up, which was so cool, is he was talking about it in the context of eating disorders. You learn to name things out loud and spending time rebuking those things. It actually works, whether you subscribe to the spiritual side or not, it does reinforce. these neural pathways. And I can't help but think the way you pray the rosary and dwelling in the gospels. That works on a spiritual level, but also say you're not comfortable with whatever. You are still under the Apostle Paul's admonition, taking every thought captive. And you're probably physically transforming at a neurological level. Yes. Your brain is being rewired to focus on the most important things. I think from that standpoint, it shouldn't be surprising that any device that

causes you to invite meditations on Christ is going to leave you in a way better position. I'll give one example, the Pentecostals, so Catholics don't like to mention this, but Pentecostals, I know for a fact, they have authentic miracles of the Holy Spirit that they're just undeniable. And the reason why they have such confidence in their prayer, their name Pentecostal, they spend the majority of their time meditating on Pentecost and the power of the Holy Spirit. So to Catholics who pray the rosary, at least I on a daily basis spend a few moments in the upper room watching the effect of the Holy Spirit on the apostles. And there will be times where I'm sad or I am fearful. And by spending my time in prayer at this event, all of a sudden the Pentecostal fire gets renewed in my own heart.

There's a saying, a grace remembered is a grace renewed. When you call to mind these things that Christ did or the saving mysteries of our faith, it renews that Pentecostal fervor in you. Well, I know you're a big fan of Exist Files, so you know that one of my most cringy jokes ever was the Christian wholesale superstore Pentecost. Oh, I love that. That's a good one.

I love that. It's terrible. Your puns are incredible. Hey, thank you. It's all, you know, they've called me Pontificus Maximus. I believe it. I believe it. Well, I know we probably need to get into a little more spiritual work.

Yes, let's do it. I'm ready. That is the Exorcist Files after all. I think we last left off in your story that you actually had started to find some relief with the rosary, but it was not before you actually did experience the enemy dialed up the attacks on you. Let's first start a little bit on the ordinary attacks of the devil. So the ordinary attacks of the devil are temptations. We're made of an intellect, interiorly. We have an intellect by which we reflect, by which we think,

and we have a will, and that's how we make our choices, our body, our passions, you know, sometimes we choose things that are not good for us. When the devil, tempts because he's pure intellect usually his ordinary means of temptation is to put a bad thought in your mind so nobody's around hey nobody's going to notice if you watch this bad thing you know you can have a couple of drinks so you'll hear this voice the voice of the enemy sounds a lot like our voice this is ordinary temptation let me ask you someone because you mentioned that and you're very open about in the context that you struggle you know this is a shocker but a young good looking man struggles with sexual temptation, right? Breaking news. Exactly. I'd be concerned if you didn't.

Right. And also you have a young face, although you probably looked like 16, but since you look 25 now, I don't know how young you look. So you're getting on my good side right now. That's what I thought I already was. I'm curious because this is something that I was steeped in Protestant purity culture. There is maybe an inadvertent swing of the pendulum to where there's a lot of shame. Again, this is my limited experience, but many times in Protestant traditions, it seems like, the beauty of sex is not celebrated and it's such a taboo it's freak you spend so much time being told like don't do this don't think of and you end up i know a lot of people who personally once they got married it was hard to flip the switch and say oh this is okay now i've just literally pushed this

sigh for so long but when you talk about temptation how do you think about the difference between hey i am a masculine individual right with eyes that and and a hormonal response that god put inside of to recognize beauty and a sexual response is a normal human interaction. So when does the line cry? We heard the phrase, you know, it's the second look or whatever. But for you, how do you think about without putting a necessary shame? Because you might say, hey, when is temptation going to stop? But also, when is it temptation if you're like, hey, wow, that's someone that's really beautiful, right?

So walk us through a little bit of how you might delineate that. Right. So bad thoughts come. And you cannot control what pop. into your brain, the only thing that your will can do is fight the idea or the thought once it has entered your brain. So, as you said, the second look, entertaining it. Don't take that as a sign that you're bad, that you're dirty, because as you mentioned,

men are supposed to be attracted to the opposite sex. Unfortunately, we live in a culture where modesty is constantly being, you know, argued about, I just don't take my temptations very seriously. They're just like, I just let that go off my mind. But what's really, really important because I think on this topic about ordinary temptation of the devil is a lot of people focus on not sinning. And yeah, that's important. Like the devil is going to tempt you to sin. But what the devil really truly wants is for you to not do God's will.

So on a daily basis, you need to discern the voice of God, which is strengthening, encouraging. When your guardian angel speaks and God willing will speak about the guardian angels in a moment, they will give you an understanding. and your intellect all of a sudden a thought pops in and it makes a bunch of other things make sense and you weren't even thinking about that. That is a sign that that's coming from the good spirit. Or you have this overwhelming tugging in your heart to do something good, to do something virtuous, to make a sacrifice. The evil spirit, when he communicates, will either tempt you to sin just with a thought or he will make you feel unworthy and not good enough. And that's kind of what I want to just mention for just a moment. Because a lot of people don't do the will of God,

because of fear. So just even before I went with you to speak about heaven meets earth, I had a dark like thoughts constantly. They were telling me, you're not good enough. Who are you to speak to these people about Mary or spiritual warfare? So there was these voices in my head consistently telling me, don't go, don't do it. And it sounded a lot like my voice. And that happens to a lot of people. I, thanks be to God, because of the rosary, have a means to shut that. voice down when I put myself in the presence of God throughout the day and those bad thoughts and they're just thoughts. This is not a very strong temptation that will say, no, I'm a child of God. I'm a temple of the Holy Spirit. I've never failed before. I'm not going to fail now. I'll do God's will and God's will

will will will be done. The goal of the devil, yes, is ideally he wants you to go to hell. But if he can't get you to go to hell, he will have you be content with being a morally good person, but a person who's not living a life in the spirit, who's not taking chances for the gospel, who's not open to the will of God, yes, sir. So, again, not to drill down on this too much, but I'm curious because you also have a natural voice, which, for example, ethically, if I've been invited to do things that, like, man, I would love to do this, but I go, man, am I the right person for the, Lord, am I the right person for this, right?

And so maybe you just give a little more context to you. How do you recognize a check in the spirit saying, hey, Okay, this is awesome. Because I know you've had other situations where you felt really strong like I'm supposed to do something. Right. And waiting for the circumstances of lineup. Because obviously there is a natural, you know, the Christian man might say, hey,

you know what? Wow, thank you so much. But actually, I, there is someone more qualified. On the other hand, there is the fear that says, no, I'm not. Because we all, if we all, for me, it's waiting for perfect motivation. I've had the voice say, you know what? You shouldn't go teach on this because you're, motives are impure. You still desire the approval of man. And I sat out from a lot of stuff. And then

one day I was like, you know what? If you wait for perfect motivation and 100% altruism, you'll never do anything. And hopefully as you get more mature in your walk with God, it does become more about pleasing God. But according to that logic, you'd never do anything. So you might as well. And it was a really, it was a really sneaky attack that I realized it kept me out of the game because I was good at this particular activity. And I thought, man, man, you know, I need to, I need to like reembrace that and realize trust God to change the heart. So yeah, how do you, how do you delineate between natural pause, maybe not for you versus no, this is accusatory. Don't do this. Darkness. I would say that I walk around kind of in a cloud of confusion a lot of the time,

like most people. Our hearts say one thing. Our reason says another thing, but then our emotions are fearful. Or maybe we're too, like you said, like maybe it's just, I'm smelling my own farts and I think they smell good and I want to go and share that stink with the rest of the world. Really, truly, honestly, all success that I have in my life, I give all credit to the habit of going to the Gospels, repeating the angelic salutation, because what will happen is if this minor temptation, if this bad thought, or if this tug to not stand up and be a man, is from the devil, saying those words, Hail Mary, full of grace, words that bring down Christ by being. in the presence of God and the gospel, when God speaks, he acts, according to Teresa of Avalo.

When he said, let there be light, there was light. Similarly, when you're praying, you're not going to hear voices in your ears. You're going to have an interior moral conviction that this is something that God wants you to do, and he has chosen you to do it. And you just got to do it. And so, yes, and one of the promises that Blessed Mother made to Blessed Alan about the rosary, she says, I promise you signal graces. So little, signs that align with what you've already discerned interiorly. So when you invited me to come on heaven meets earth, you remember, I was hesitant. I was like, I don't know because I can't talk about this without talking about Mary. You tried to reassure me. Interiorly, I felt like, this is something

you need to do. External signal grace is also aligned. Your name is Ryan, and we were going to meet on Wednesday at the Bible Museum. I had a class that I was teaching on the Bible on Wednesday that I had already asked a guy named Ryan to cover for me for. The fact that your name's aligned, Bible aligned, that gave me the freedom to go to D.C. That helped me to align my interior conviction with the providence of God. There's a saying, I don't know if it's 100% fail-proof, but the devil only deceives those who want to be deceived. When you have an interior, deep conviction that you want to do God's will, guess what? God wants you to do His will too. And if you pray in earnest to do his will, even if you're wrong, all things work for the good of those who love the Lord.

Just quickly, I'll give you another tip. This is a pro tip when it comes to the good angels. Because a lot of times we listen to the activity of the bad angels in ordinary temptation. But the good angels are extraordinarily active in our lives if you know what to look for. So God created your guardian angel, the good angels, for one purpose. If you want to see the activity of the angels in your life, listen to this. God created the good angel for one thing to help you to do his will. Will they maybe save you in a car accident? Maybe.

Maybe not. They will help you to do God's will when that's what you genuinely want to do if through no fault of your own, through human frailty, you begin to fail. So I'll give you one example. Let's say, for example, you've discerned today I'm going to do God's will. Everything I do I do, I'm going to do God's will. We have friends who wake up. I know your co-host Abby wakes up and says, God, my life's a blank check. I'll do whatever you want. One morning, person wakes up. Today, you need to call your mom, wish her a happy birthday. You're about to call your mom, wish her a happy birthday. Somebody knocks on the door. The doorbell rings. It's a friend from high school that you hadn't seen. They just dropped in. You're so excited. And through no fault of your own, you are now distracted from what you had discerned God's will to be. They're like, hey, you want to get lunch? Yeah, I'd love let's go get lunch. I can't.

wait, and then you grab your keys, and it feels like your keys were knocked out of your hand. You're like, wow, that was weird. You pick up your keys, you drop your keys again. And then you're like, okay, that's really strange. Like, how do I drop my keys twice? When things like that happen that appear to be coincidence in the providence of God, when you have your heart set on the will of God, I would not take those as mere coincidence. That is your guardian angel trying to help you when human frailty has set in.

In those moments where a ladybug lands on your nose or your phone is flashing on and off, pause and say, Lord, is there anything you wish for me to do? Oh, oh my gosh, let me just call my mom real quick before we go to lunch. It's her birthday. I totally forgot. Now, I warn people because a lot of times people will say things like, I'm not going to set my alarm. I'm going to have my guardian angel wake me up. Your guardian angel will not help you if you do not, if through free will you choose to do something that is reckless.

or presumptuous. So let's say, I'll give you one more example. Let's say you're opening up an email. You click on the email because you think it's from a friend, but it sends you to a pornographic website, just pops up on your screen. At the same time, your phone rings. You get up to go get it.

He's like, okay, that was a nobody. You come back to your computer. Now you have to make a choice. Am I going to look at that pornographic website, or am I going to quickly close the tab? If you choose to look, I would not expect your guardian angel to come and rescue you because God honors free will.

But my recommendation, if you want to see the hand of your angels, constantly make firm acts of faith in God. God, I believe you're present. I want to do your will. Guide me. And that prayer, he will answer. I believe God wants us to hear his voice. However, it is funny because he does speak in subtle ways.

And we know from our Elijah anecdote that it's not the earthquake and the fire and the wind, but it's this still small voice. That also is like, for me, it's been voices that you would think have actually, I would not say that or I would not think that. What a noble, what a weird thought, right? Over the last two months, it's become comical. And again, I am so skeptical and do believe in the primacy effect. I do believe humans are trained to see what they want to see. Yes.

The ability to self-deceive. Self-affirmation, yes. Yes. And I can deceive myself into thinking anything. Yep. However, the amount of times I have looked up, just happened to look at my phone or something and see 3-33, 3.3 or 4. 4-44-4 in the last two months, it has become a running joke. And it's the most random thing.

I get a text message. And I really, and the only response I have to that, I'm assuming you would say this is like, all right, Lord, is this anything you're saying? Or is it just a random coincidence? Yeah, for sure. So I would say that when things like that happen and it seems to have no effect, just take it as a wink, like God is saying, hey, man, I got you. I could tell you something crazy that happened to me that was this exact same thing.

I had met a guy whose daughter hadn't spoken to him in six months because she changed religion. He was trying to bring her back to his religion. They just had this huge argument. And I had recommended it. I was like, hey, I've seen this happen before. Do a 54-day Rosary Novina. Give me your phone number. I'll send you the link.

He gave me his phone number. The next day, my mom and I are driving. I asked my mom, I said, Mom, please drive. And she said, oh, come on, you please drive. I'm so tired. She's like, just drive. It's like, fine. Pull over at this gas station.

I need to get a drink. I need to get some caffeine in my body. You know how on Cokes they have the names of people? I hate that. I don't like drinking out of other people's name Coke. And they had the name Peter, James, John, Matthew. And I was like, well, these are all apostles. So I said, Mom, you pick out a drink for me.

Bring it to the car. I was thinking, okay, this, because I'm Catholic, I was like, this Coke that she brings me, that will be my patron saint for the drive home. She hands me the bottle and it said, Ariana. I'm not going to lie, I was tired. I was grumpy. I was like, Mom, why would you pick this one? They had all the apostles there, Peter, James, and John.

Why would you pick Ariana? She's like, I don't know. I just grabbed one. I was irritated. She said, just drink it. I was like, fine. I was like, oh, before we get driving, I need a Texas dude and remind him of his 54-day novena. And he said, hey, thanks for the reminder.

I said, by the way, what's your daughter's name? I'll pray for her, Ariana. In that case, it was a confirmation for this man. It was actually a signal grace for this man that, hey, prayer is going to work for your daughter. Do this novena. Pray. For me, it was like a little wink from God saying, even when you're tired, even when you don't want to drive, even when it looks like things aren't going your way and you wanted this saint or Peter, even mistakes, I have my hand behind it. So God will often just kind of give us a pat on the back and say, 333, bro, I'm here with you.

Remember me. I'm with you. There's no chance. Everything happens in my providence. Amen. All right. We got about 10, 15 left on to make sure we cover your stuff there. Let's go.

We've talked about temptation a lot. And also, that's probably good because I imagine that's for most people. That's probably where they're going to be battling spiritual. We're humans. We're tempted. Everybody's tempted. Christ is tempted, right? We're never tempted beyond that which God gives us the ability to resist, right?

Exactly. Yeah. So let's talk about the extraordinary activity of the devil. And although it's, you know, exorcism is extraordinarily rare. The extraordinary activity of the devil is a lot more common than most people think. So this activity generally falls into two categories. A person has a demon or they're infested with a demon or a location has a demon. A location has a demon because people have invited that in.

They've done, I like to think of it as insects. If you leave candy out, you're going to get some bugs. Well, there's some things that you can do in your house that are going to invite demons. If you use Ouija boards, if you practice witchcraft, you do seances. If you have an abortion in your house, if you sell drugs, if you invite prostitutes over, you're going to invite demons into that location. The way to get rid of those, if you have a local infestation, is to give that space over to Jesus Christ, get rid of all of that bad stuff, make a formal act saying, Lord, I give you this house. The devil is very legalistic as you've heard on this show and begin to pray in that location.

So just as certain things can be inviting to demons, certain things can also cause them to want to get out of there. One of the things that I've done in my ministry is that I go to people's homes. I don't do this anymore, but I'd go to people's homes, help them identify new age things, sinful things. I would have them put holy water in their own home because they are the owner of the house. So it's more effective if they renounce Satan. And then we would pray the rosary together as a family. There was one circumstance.

We were in this massive mansion, huge. We knelt down to pray the rosary. In the middle of the rosary, the door flung open and then slammed closed. We all felt, even though that's a very scary thing to happen, this door was like, 20 feet tall, brass, very heavy door. In the middle of the rosary, this gust of wind just blew it open and then shut it closed. There was an overwhelming piece in the house that everybody just felt it. I think, as we've seen in certain exorcism cases, where there is a sign that the evil spirit is leaving. So you make this location inhospitable to demons. And I would say, in my experience,

because I work in high school youth ministry, the high school kids, you know, they're doing bad things, Catholic ones. They're struggling. In your work with ministry with young adults, how common is spiritual warfare both overt and then obviously, I mean, they're prime targets, but how common do you find some of this extraordinary activity? So I would say in the case of local infestation, I would say maybe one in five of my students, one in four of them will say that they have had weird things happen in their house. In the middle of the night, they will hear things moving, things will open and close, lights will turn on and off, but that it will only last for a season. Like maybe it will last for a week and I'll say, hey, what's going on your house?

Well, it just kind of went away slowly. Fortunately, they tell me about it. I'm like, hey, you guys, you have anything there that's Asian religion, African religion? Do you have any African statues? Do you look at pornography there? It's very common. Now, the next one that is, I think, far more common than people realize, I'm even shocked. Diabolical obsession and diabolical oppression, I would argue,

at least in my experience, this is just my opinion. I would say at least three and five people experience a diabolical obsession, at least three and five. I, even though I'm a very holy guy compared to the world, I still on occasion will experience a diabolical obsession of a certain type. Diabolical oppression, we'll talk about that in a moment. But before I get into this, I want to be very clear. There are sometimes medical reasons why a person might have extreme depression. There are medical reasons why a person might have extreme anxiety.

I am not saying that we do not first consult doctors. As we've discussed on this program, demons can aggravate things that you have naturally wrong with you. So just as you can, you know, lust and the desire for the opposite sex or in some cases the same sex for some people, the devil can aggravate or make extreme your temptations towards lust. If you are naturally an anxious person or you naturally have a sadness, the devil can manipulate your emotions to make it worse. A diabolical obsession is where the demon is not only putting bad thoughts in your mind, but he's also exerting an influence over your will. When I would have temptations to lust, my mind would be overwhelmed with sexual thoughts. It would be like I would be trying to grasp for air to not think about something sexual.

My will would feel like if you're driving a car, it would feel like somebody's trying to grab the wheel and ram the car off the road. you have just enough strength to say I have free will. But if you are not to give in for a moment, you would give in to that temptation. I would call that a diabolical obsession of lust. I have found that when you begin to pray the rosary especially, but if you just meditate on the life of Christ, you use prayers kind of rhythmically especially because it's kind of like Mary said, a battering ram. That diabolical obsession won't last more than three or four days. I have had people say, I began praying the rosary and my temptation got worse. It was the worst ever.

That is a sign that the demon does not like that, persevere and he will let go. He'll be like, this isn't worth it. Now, I've been really surprised where there have been, especially some women I'm thinking of, that recently have began to pray all of the mysteries of the rosary every day. And they said, oh, I'm so surprised. Like I used to have anxiety and I'm not anxious anymore. or I used to be an insomniac. I couldn't sleep at night.

And I wasn't praying the rosary for that. But all of a sudden, like, I sleep peacefully through the night. I lay down and I close my eyes. And next thing you know, it's 6 a.m. the next morning, I didn't wake up in the middle of the night. My depression has gone away. I've been on antidepressants my entire life. I began praying all the mysteries of the rosary. And all of a sudden, it's gone.

If your illness or if your depression goes away with prayer, it's possible that it could have been aggravated or instigated by an evil spirit. I'm not telling people to not take their medications, not get medical advice. Let's say, for example, every time a retreat comes up, you get migraine headaches, and it's only when the retreat comes up. Perhaps it's possible that that could be a diabolical spirit trying to keep you from doing God's will. You're starting a new program, for example.

I know somebody told me, I'm starting this new spiritual program, and I've been getting all these health issues, and they didn't exist before. It could be that could be spiritual. That could be a diabolical attack on you. That's right. And for our solo script to our friends out there, we know there's biblical precedents that we have people who are afflicted and Christ responds when they ask who sinned that this person should be born blind or who's sitting out and say, you know, Satan has bound this person up. And sometimes God allows people to be afflicted so they can be set free to show off in his glory. So there's biblical precedent for Satan binding. I believe it's the woman bleeding in the crowd who said this woman who Satan is bound up for however long. There is precedent for. spiritual illness. Obviously, Saul is terribly afflicted by demons. So, I mean, while rare, it's, it does, there is precedent for it. And if you have these or you suspect this, and I meet many young people, so I use lust as an example, but I know that there's many young people who

struggle with the temptation of suicide or they have a hatred of themselves, the obsessions that I had after my conversion, was an overwhelming sadness about life, like almost a despair, where I couldn't look at my children because it made me. sad to think about them because I knew we were all going to. It was just like a cloud of negativity. When I prayed the rosary, my mind was clear enough for a moment to recognize this isn't normal. Something is wrong with you. You're being attacked. Rebuk this in the name of Jesus and Mary and cling to Jesus in the Gospels. And what will happen there is that you will encounter Christ and it will dissolve. One quick thing about the rosary and spiritual warfare, this is critically

important. We've talked about on the show before. The devil doesn't sleep. He has been watching humanity for thousands of years. He's not under every single rock either, but he knows and he watches us day and night. He knows how to tempt us. And the devil has a special hatred for the family. The majority of wounds that have been brought up on this program have been wounds inflicted on young people or when they were young or in different members of the family that have impacted later generations. The devil hates the family because the family. is an image of the Holy Trinity. And so he attacks the image of God. One of the apparitions

in the Catholic Church is the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady told the sister, she said, the final battle is over marriage and the family. And a lot of times Christians think it's about the definition of marriage and the family, but that's not true. The devil has set up plots to destroy our families individually. He will put people in our lives that might tempt us to be commit adultery. There's just so many plots that the devil sets up. When you begin to pray the rosary, they say that our lady unties knots and undoes plots. I have other friends who are exorcists who have claimed that when they called upon the Virgin Mary in their exorcisms, the devil screams out in hatred and in frustration. They had these souls. They had these family

members, except she ruins everything. They're disgust and their hatred for Mary because they're smarter. They're more powerful than we are naturally, but they can never anticipate the mercy of God, the power of humility, and the intervention of the Virgin Mary. So I have seen it in families where the whole family is falling apart. There's many people watching this program where you're a faithful Christian, but your children are so far away from God and you don't know what else you can do. Hell has set up camp in their hearts and in their homes. I'm telling you, I have seen it time and time again when you use the battering ram. Hail Mary, full of grace. On repeat, every single time somebody begins to invoke the Virgin Mary, call upon the life of Jesus Christ, immerse

themselves in the gospel, one by one, the members of the family begin to receive an outpouring of grace from your prayer and your sacrifice. I have never seen it fail. I speak of it very Confidently, people accuse me of being prideful when you speak about the rosary. I'm only confident because I've seen it work in every circumstance where a person surrenders their life to God using the rosary as their means of growing closer to him. It never fails. John Paul II famously said, the number of people who are made saints by the praying of the rosary, it's impossible to count them.

Wow. I know this is a topic you have no passion about or you would ever want to write a book about. Oh, wait. Yeah. You actually, I love you, man. You do have a book coming out on this. And I know everyone, and I've heard it's the best book on spiritual warfare since Father Carlos Martin's mandatory tome, which I would have to submit for canonization in my tradition,

but we don't have a magistrate of them to do that. Beyond that, I've loved, tell us about your book. Yes. When it comes out. So as you mentioned, Father Carlos has his excellent book, The Exorcist Files. My son and my daughter have both read that. It's an incredible book. Fortunately for Father Carlos, I don't have a book on Spirit.

I have a chapter in the book about the rosary on the rosary in spiritual warfare where some of the topics that we discussed here today are discussed in detail. I recently wrote a book called The Power of the Rosary. That title is a nod to a book written by St. Louis de Montfort called The Secret of the Rosary. St. Louis de Montfort wrote his book in the 1700s. A lot has happened in the world since the 1700s. We've had world wars. We've had moral revolutions, technological revolutions. A lot has happened in the church since the 1700s.

His writing style turned off a couple of my friends. So I wrote a book called The Power of the Rosary, where we take the same zeal and fervor of St. Louis de Montfort, but we go through systematically the history of the rosary, how to pray the rosary well, spiritual warfare in the rosary, the benefits and promises of the rosary, and then tips to praying the rosary and succeeding in it, but most especially implementing the rosary as a family.

And you can pre-order the book now. It's called The Power of the Rosary. I recommend you get it off Sophia Institute Press website. You can get it anywhere that books are sold, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. All right. Well, we will link to that in the notes. So you too can take Gabe's words and practice. But he would say it's not Gabe's words.

It's actually the words of those who have come before him. Amen to that. Amen. Well, Gabe, we're just going to have to have you back on because I knew this was going to happen. because unfortunately, in the words of John 15, it is better that I should go. Or is it John 16, I forget.

But do you got to go. Thank you so much for joining us. We're going to have to have you back on because we've just scratched the surface. Oh, man, so much more. Thank you for your ministry. I also want to get into how you create incredible content. Go on his channel, Gabby after hours.

You'll notice it as a picture, if I'm correct, of Maximilian Colby. Is that sure? Yes, he's definitely one of the greatest saints of the modern era and my inspiration. Well, there you go. Well, and the words of St. Steve, Perry of the band journey. Don't stop believing. So God bless you all. Stay demon free. We'll see

Gabby again very soon, I assure you. Talk soon, folks.