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ReplyDeleteBe Not Afraid of the Devil
Posted By Patti Maguire Armstrong On January 26, 2011 @ 12:00 am In Arts & Entertainment,The Marquee | 4 Comments
Back in the days that I was working on being the bravest person on the planet, there was not much I was afraid to try. I even parachuted out of an airplane the week before I was scheduled to leave for the Peace Corps in Micronesia. One of my favorite things to do with like-minded friends was to backpack through mountains where we had to tie our food up in trees at night so the bears wouldn’t get it (only lost food once). But there was one thing I would NOT do. I refused to see the movie The Exorcist or anything of its ilk. No, jumping out of a plane alone at 3,000 feet was a piece of cake compared to sitting on the ground watching anything that had to do with the devil.
Then, last month, I accepted an invitation to go to Los Angeles to participate in a press junket in January for the movie The Rite starring Anthony Hopkins and also to interview the actors at a press conference afterwards. “Sure, I’ll go!” I responded, remembering how much fun the last junket was. But after getting off the phone, I began also to remember that I had never actually become the bravest person on the planet. I was still afraid of scary movies, particularly anything connected to the devil. That evening, my son, Luke warned, “Mom, you aren’t going to like it.” My husband agreed, “It’s a psycho/drama. You hate those kinds of movies.” When I told my siblings, my brother Brian emailed me. “Have you looked at the trailer? Good luck with that.”
What was I thinking? But then, I did something that took away my fear. I interviewed three exorcists. My intent was to write a series of articles on exorcism to go along with the movie review. After talking with them, my fear evaporated. The bottom line is staying close to God and His sacraments protects us from evil and fills us with grace. What especially uplifted me and drove away the fear was to hear each exorcist and also a bishop state that the sacrament of confession is more powerful than the rite of exorcism. The sacraments confer grace on us while the rite of exorcism is a blessing that moves a person towards grace. Yes, I decided, I could go see this movie after all.