Abbey-Roads2

Ghost stories are very popular. 

I loved ghost stories as a kid, although the really scary ones seemed more like devil stories than ghost stories.  A blogger friend posted a kind of cool story about strange things happening in her house, which got me thinking about this stuff. 

My crazy mother claimed to have heard  our dead neighbor lady calling her name outside our back door one Saturday night about midnight.  She sent my dad out to have a  look, and sure enough - they claimed - Mary Raiola’s slipper prints were in the snow, walking to the door but not leaving any tracks of walking away.

You have to realize what was going on there.  My parents were still drinking at that time of night, dad was watching TV at the kitchen table, mom sat across from him with the Police radio plugged into her one good ear - she was deaf in the other - while reading a Harlequin romance novel.  And she heard  Mary at the door.  Maybe Mary was just stopping in on her layover in purgatory to tell Betty and Kenny they should consider giving up drinking?  Could be.

I’ve never really experienced anything - at least anything that left evidence of a spirit visiting.  Visitations from souls in purgatory have happened to the saints of course - these troubled souls were asking for prayers.  I believe that.  Yet it seems to me scary visitations are more demonic in nature.  After all, why should we be afraid of a dead relative or friend?

What to do? 

So what do you do if you are bothered by ghosts?  I’m no expert, but first I would go to confession, make frequent Holy Communion, and pray - especially the prayers of the Rosary.  I use holy water all of the time - holy water is a powerful sacramental - Teresa of Avila sent the demons fleeing with it.  Of course, having Masses said, along with prayers and suffrages for the souls in purgatory is also very good.

Perhaps one of the best things to do is ask a priest to bless your house - if you can find one who will do it that is.  (Although, I think most priests believe in the after life and that spirits could haunt - that’s kind of sarcastic.)  Nevertheless, some ’exorcism prayers’  should only be performed by a priest.  Lay people should only use prayers that are approved for the laity, such as the prayers to St. Michael.  There is a long exorcism prayer to St. Michael (referenced above)  which Vatican officials, and I believe exorcists such as Fr. Amorth,  warned lay people not to use, since it could arouse the demons to attack mode.  (I can’t find documentation on this however.)

Prayers.

Holy images and the St. Benedict medal are efficacious as well.  Yet I am convinced devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus  is very  efficacious, especially if an image is exposed and venerated in the house.  One of the prayers associated with this devotion is actually a sort of exorcism prayer used by the Israelites when they moved camp:

“Arise O Lord, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee before your Holy Face.”  - Numbers 10: 35

Another good prayer is the final blessing used after Compline:

“Visit this house, we beg you O Lord, and drive far from it all the snares of the enemy.  May your holy angels dwell here and keep us in peace, and may your blessing be always upon us.”

Trust in God.

We ought to remember however, that the normal way for the devil to act upon us is through temptation to sin, which is why I think frequent recourse to prayer and the sacraments is our best defense.  And we need to trust in God who will not allow us to be tempted beyond our strength.  Remember Teresa of Avila’s counsel concerning the devil.  As regards fears of the devil, she said:

“I pay no more attention to them (fears and vexations) than flies.” - Life 25, 20.  (Which is another good way to deal with evil and impure thoughts BTW.)

Then on how useless the fears concerning him, St. Teresa wrote:

“I don’t understand these fears, ‘The devil!  The devil!’, when we can say ‘God!  God!’, and make the devil tremble.” - Life 25, 22

While the saints sometimes experienced  apparitions of the demons, even they were mostly harassed by the devil’s  temptation and vexations.  The wonderful paintings depicting St. Anthony of Egypt and his temptations illustrate that for us.  The devil tempts us so that we may reject Christ and the Gospel, and choose to join him in  hell.  Prayer, mortification, avoiding sin, and frequent reception of the sacraments is the best  antidote to his temptations and vexations.  In one of the epistles we are told, “Resist the devil and he will flee.”  - James 4

And, “Perfect love casts out all fear.” - 1 John 4

Nevertheless, if you are bothered by ghosts or spirits  in some way, always  consult a priest.

[Header art: Temptation of St. Anthony.]

I woke up this morning thinking about what nursing homes are going to be like for baby-boomers.  (I’m so hoping to die before that happens.)

My first thought was that if I make it to that stage, I would have to live with a bunch of women, since most men die before women.  Tight perms and ugly clothes - for the women, not me.

A day in the life of…

Someone will wake you up, get you dressed, and sit you in a wheel chair, speaking directly in your face very loudly.  They’ll switch on TV to their favorite program while they make your bed and potty you, slinging a cold wet face cloth over your face, swathing your mouth with Listerine.  You’ll sit there or in the lounge waiting to be taken down to breakfast, which will be cold and tasteless, eating with people you wish you’d never met.  (It will be a Jean Paul Sarte type of hell.)

Just think - you’ll be living in a home that you pay for some way or another, but you won’t have kitchen rights, you won’t be able to get your own coffee or meals; you certainly won’t be able to smoke or drink, and you will be treated pretty much like a child.

The nursing assistants, who will be working there because they just got out of prison or can’t get a better job, will lean over into your face and shout, “We are having entertainment today!”

“Do we get cookies too?”  I’ll ask.

“Yes honey!  Cookies and juice!”  She screams back.

“What’s the entertainment?”  I mutter as she walks away.

Turning, she quips, “It’s Beatles day!  The High School band is coming and they are going to have a Beatles concert!  Yeah, yeah, yeah!”

“They’ll butcher it!”  I mumble.

Then all the losers who are in band come into the Home, doing an “Up-With People” routine, grabbing our hands and waving them in the air like we just don’t care, torturing my bursitus.  It’s a veritable Woodstock, a real “happening”.  The old bag in the wheel chair next to mine nudges me, smiling her toothless grin and says, “My son brought me a joint, come over to my room tonite and we’ll smoke it.”  Only she’s the one with ahlzhiemers and forgets her son died of an overdose several years ago.

Refreshments are served after the wheel chair dance and concert and we get our cookie and dixie cup of cranberry juice.  Various rock and roll artists are being played in the background, the same old, same old; CCR, the Stones, Grand Funk, etc.  While I wonder to myself why we can’t ever have a Motown day, or Disco day, it’s always rock’n'roll.  I guess that’s what the kids like.

Nap time.  Everyone must take a nap.  Back to bed.  The NAs are going through my drawers and clothes, so I yell, “I don’t have any money, get the hell out!”  I realize the afternoon shift personnel can barely speak English.  Next thing I know I’m getting another tranqulizer.  That’s not so bad.

Then supper - sitting with the same old bags at the same table, eating meager portions of awful food, listening to their same old stories on how much more successful their husbands were than me.  I tell them their husbands were closet queens just to shake them up.  That always works well.

Television in the lounge after that, and then thrown back into bed after one last potty trip, telling the NA I haven’t had a bowel movement in over a week.  The NA responds, “Que?”  Oh well, at least they are generous with the sleeping pills. 

We baby-boomers have always liked our drugs.  That will make it nice - if the NAs don’t steal them first that is.

Tomorrow we will have Euthanasia Registration Day.