GABRIELA OSORIO VILLASEÑOR PSY. D. WWW.PSICOTERAPIACATOLICA.COM 11 Our great enemy Sin (a conscious and voluntary act, which can be venial or mortal) is undoubtedly a primary source and cause of considerable suffering: think, for example, of families that break up over uncontrolled sexual urges that lead to physical betrayal between husband and wife in a marriage. Sin can have terrible consequences, not only on a spiritual level, because it damages not only our relationship with God, but also with ourselves, others and society. It makes us enslaved and vicious, diverting our divine intellect from the truth and preventing us from gaining freedom through the virtues. Losing Sanctifying Grace means losing relationship with God and not receiving His strength. Those who live in a state of Grace already have many fewer reasons for suffering. There are so many divine instruments that we Catholics have and help us face the difficult challenges of life and improve our mental stability: first and foremost, the 7 sacraments (Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders and Matrimony), instituted directly by Christ, direct instruments of grace, healing and salvation. However, we have a great enemy who wants our earthly despair and unhappiness, as well as the perdition of our soul. he (with letter "elle" deliberately lowercase even though we are at the beginning of the sentence after a period...) is not a creation of fairy tales; he is a spiritual being endowed with a great but treacherous intelligence. To deny his existence is not to be immune from his attacks; indeed, this is precisely his greatest victory. The devil acts in 2 ways. 1. In the ordinary way through temptations and our thoughts; he cannot enter thoughts by causing them internally, because the use of intellectual power is subject and subservient to the will; the devil incites us to think and desire evil through the arousal of the passions, digging into our deepest Freudian Es to induce us to sin. 2. Extraordinarily (always under divine permission because he is still a mere "creature" of the One Creator), manifesting in possessions, obsessive compulsive disorders, psychosis, vexations and infestations. Many (but by no means all!) of the listed manifestations can easily be reduced to mere mental disorders, treated pharmacologically at home or in psychiatric hospitals. But there are objectively unexplained and well-documented cases, with dozens and dozens of incredulous, stunned, frightened, shocked witnesses. I had the opportunity in the writing of this text to speak with an exorcist priest, who confided in me that he, when faced with an alleged demonic possession, always contacts a psychiatrist; the opposite, however, has never happened.
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