Communion with the Trinity is the key to the Christian life, Deacon Armand Danis told Our Lady of Pentecost Summer Institute.
It’s also the key to evangelization, and to spiritual warfare, he
said.
Danis, a retired Catholic high school principal and
counsellor from Thunder Bay, Ont., spoke on deliverance, and on discovering your
spiritual gifts. But before addressing his formal topics, he presented extensive
citations of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other Church documents to
underline the point that Catholic Christianity is not about following rules,
earning grace, or judging other people.
“We are not selling a product,” he said. “Our faith
is about a relationship.”
Drawing on his counselling background, he noted that
psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs lists self-actualization
as the highest human need. But from a Christian point of view, he said,
transformation, in and by Christ, is the pinnacle of life.
And that transformation is a free gift, he said. Too
many Catholics think grace is earned, by being good and going to church.
In fact, he said, that’s backward. Grace is a free gift from God that makes it
possible to be good and go to church.
Grace, he said, is simply participation in the life
of God. “What do we have to do to participate in the life of God? Want to.”
Evangelization, he said, is not an intellectual
exercise. It’s an outgrowth of our relationship with God. When we have the
intimate relationship God offers to us, we have the power to be His presence in
the world, as instruments of His love, and in that way draw other people to
Him.
This “spirituality of communion” makes us open to
everyone. All humans are made in God’s image, he said, “so whoever you meet in
this context is your brother and your sister.”
Concerning spiritual warfare, he warned that “the
existence of the Evil One is real,” but if we are in communion with Christ,
there is noting to fear from the devil.
“We are never alone,” he said. “We can dispel the
Enemy, not of our own doing, but because we have this intimate relationship with
our Friend and our Lord, who does it as simply as flicking a mosquito off your
arm.”
While actual demonic possession is rare, Danis said, lower levels of
demonic activity are more common. They begin with simple temptation, to
which all of us are subject. Temptations fall into three main categories, as
shown by the Gospel accounts of Jesus temptation in the desert: pleasure (in
Jesus’ case, turning stones into bread); power (the devil offering Him the
kingdoms of the world); and lack of responsibility (the
devil’s demand that Jesus throw Himself down from the peak of the
Temple).
Next comes oppression, in which we experience
a frightening sense of lack of control in our lives. Job suffered from this in
the Old Testament, and Danis said that when his wife, Mary, was diagnosed with
cancer, the couple suffered from oppression for a time—not the cancer itself but
the initial fear and hopelessness.
Another level is obsession, where the lack of
control is real. This happens especially with addictions, including drugs,
alcohol, and abusive sexual behaviour, but also with occult activities such as
the use of the Ouija board.
Danis said it would take a whole weekend to talk
about deliverance in detail, but the most common form of deliverance is
self-deliverance, especially as found in the Lord’s prayer: “deliver us from
evil.”
“Every time we say it, it’s a deliverance prayer,” he said. “The
Lord’s prayer is one way to assure ourselves of communion with the
Trinity.”
Concerning spiritual gifts, Danis said there is no known finite list.
God gives countless gifts, some for specific situations and some for ministry.
Discerning them can often be a matter of looking for the fruits of the Holy
Spirit, as these may point to gifts we have received even though they aren’t
exactly what we prayed for.
He
told the story of a 22-year-old man diagnosed with cancer, and with days to
live. Danis prayed for him, and though he was not cured—he in fact died
within a few days—he received a massive spiritual healing that extended
to everyone around him, and left him content and joyful.
“It
can be a question of touching hearts rather than the external condition we’ve
prayed for,” Danis said.
At
other times, he said, he has seen the external situation change as a result of
prayer. During his teaching career, one of his students cut his lip badly,
obviously needing stitches. As he left to take the boy to the hospital, he had
the other students pray, and when they got to the emergency room the cut was
gone.
“What do you think that did for the faith of the children in
the classroom?” he asked.
