by David Kiely
He had received her in a book-lined study in the monastery. The room, with its faded antiques and heavily polished furniture, seemed an appropriate setting for the elderly exorcist, who had made himself comfortable in a leather wing chair.
Angela confesses that she has the greatest difficulty with people’s ages, but to her, Father Ignatius was as old a priest as she had ever come across still fulfilling his ministry. She had traveled a long distance to see him. At first she considered going to see somebody in Galway; but she was known there because of her job in the drugstore. She thought it wiser to seek help farther afield. She needed anonymity. A relative suggested that Father Ignatius could help. In some circles he was known to have experience of “troublesome” cases.
Angela was at pains to communicate to the priest her need of his services without delay.
“My home was under siege,” she tells us. “I was a refugee in my own town. Since that terrible night, with the ‘visitor’ from God knows where, I’d been forced to live in a guesthouse. I dared not go home again. I went back during the day to grab some things, but I couldn’t stay more than a minute. The place gave me the creeps—even in daylight.”
At first, she could not come straight out and confide in this kindly stranger details of the insane enterprise—and yes, she thought of it then in those terms—that had brought her to such a pass. She cursed herself long and hard for being a fool. Her gullibility had exposed her to unknowable danger. She had come to know the nature of such danger. But, for the time being, she was content in wrapping it in terminology that only hinted at the truth. Angela was at pains to point out that she had not been a willing participant in Barry’s scheme. She was the victim. She was a little vexed that he seemed not to understand that.
“I hear what you’re saying, Father,” she told him. “But I never went to any seances or that sort of thing. And I never asked for those strange out-of-the-body experiences that started this. They just happened.”
“Did they, now?” The priest looked at her intently. “Fair enough. But I’m not so interested in what happened to you at seventeen. At that age we all have fantasies about flying and being astronauts and heaven knows what else. No, I’m more interested in the present. Tell me something: that first time you found yourself ‘in the spirit,’ as they say, in your friend’s bedroom and then looking down on her body at the crash scene, what kind of state were you in—prior to all that?”
“What d’you mean, Father?” She laughed nervously but saw that he was not amused. “I was in bed asleep, of course.”
“That’s not quite what I mean. Would there have been drugs or drink involved?”
“Well…yes.” She hesitated. “I’d been drinking both times.”
“To the point where you blacked out?”
Angela could only nod a response, too ashamed to say anything more.
“I thought as much. Now, please don’t take this the wrong way, Angela, but I’m wondering if you appreciate how foolish that is—that drinking to the point where you black out. Most people don’t, you see. Most don’t give it a second thought. But I do. And here’s the thing: when you’re out of your mind with drink, or indeed drugs—they’re all the same in my book, Angela—you actually leave yourself open. And anything can come in.”
Angela had never heard the like of it. It was ludicrous and she told him so. If that were the case, she argued, then a sizable swath of the population of Ireland was possessed. That was what Father Ignatius was implying.
“If you drink to excess,” he countered, “to the point where you forget who you are, you leave yourself vulnerable. That’s all I’m saying. More evil acts are carried out under the influence of drugs and drink than most of us like to think about.”
She could not fault him on that. She hesitated. The full import of his words had registered.
“My God, Father, are you saying I’m possessed?” It was an appalling prospect.
“No, not possessed, but you certainly left yourself open to the possibility. You see, Angela, Satan is very clever. Not only can he use our weaknesses to fool us; he can also use our ignorance and vanity to lull us into believing falsehoods. That’s the trap. Your weakness was believing you needed to contact your mother, and your ignorance in the area of occult practices led you to think it was actually possible.”
“But I really did see my mother, just as I remember her.”
“Exactly! Just as you remember her. We all carry around memories of people close to us who’ve passed on. I get people coming to me from time to time with that sort of story. They’ll have been to this or that clairvoyant or medium, and they all come out with the same sort of nonsense. ‘Oh, such-and-such told me something that only my dead husband or wife or whatever would have known.’ And I tell them what I’m going to tell you now. Satan knows all about us as well. And there’s nothing to stop him looking inside our heads and using the memories we have of our loved ones to fool us.”
“He can do that?”
“He can do many things. He could even appear to some of our greatest saints in the guise of Our Lord or the Blessed Virgin. Why do you think the Vatican is so cautious when they hear of yet another sighting of the Virgin Mary across the world? They have to be cautious; they know the score. Out of the many hundreds, only a handful have been officially recognized.”
She had to ask. It was the question that had gnawed at her for days. It would not let go of her.
“The thing that’s in my house, Father…is it…is it the Devil?”
Father Ignatius gathered his thoughts before replying.
“That friend of yours—Barry. He sounds to me like he’s involved in the occult in a big way. Very dangerous territory, black magic and all of that….”
Angela was opening her mouth, intent on explaining her naiveté, but Father Ignatius held up a hand.
“Oh, no doubt he told you it was white magic?”
The priest’s perceptiveness astonished her. “Yes, he did. He said he was a healer, and he used white magic to help people.”
“Ah yes, he would say that, wouldn’t he? ‘White’ sounds very proper—more acceptable, you might say. That’s the trap, you see. That’s how the gullible get sucked into these things.” Father Ignatius looked at her steadily. “There’s no such thing as white magic, Angela. There is only black, and all forms of magic are practiced with recourse to Satan.” He leaned forward. “Now, I don’t want to alarm you, my dear, but I’d say that Barry has called up something of that nature to attack you.”
“When you say ‘something’…”
“An evil spirit, a demon. It sounds like it to me. Those noises you heard in the night, that inhuman presence you felt. This is done to frighten you, to cause great fear. But let me assure you that there’s no more to fear; the good Lord will deal with it. We can get rid of it.”
“Do you mean, Father, that you’ll do a…” She was hesitant to voice the word.
“An exorcism. That’s what you’re trying to say. Well, no, Angela, I don’t expect we’ll be doing a full exorcism. Not in the sense I think you mean it. Nothing as dramatic as that. But we shall see.”
The priest patted her shoulder.
“By the sound of it, it’s your friend Barry who really needs the exorcism,” he said. “Not that he’d ever submit himself to one—more’s the pity.”
Angela had not been a practicing Catholic since her teens. For her, prayer was a distant memory; prayers recited to ward off evil belonged to a distant past. She did not know what to expect that Friday. It was October 8, 2004.
Father Ignatius was due to arrive at seven o’clock. Angela, still too afraid to venture into her home, was sitting outside in her car when the blue Vauxhall pulled up. She was surprised and slightly uneasy to see that he was accompanied by two others. He had given her to understand that he would come alone.
The driver was a burly priest who introduced himself as Liam Mulryan. He would assist Father Ignatius, Angela learned, as would the third member
of the party, Sister Immaculata, a soft-spoken, elderly Carmelite.
They entered the house.
The two priests excused themselves at once, explaining that they would “have a look around the place.” In truth, they were ascertaining where “presences” might be strongest.
Yet all seemed tranquil on that particular evening. Angela had half-expected to sense something, but the house gave off nothing more sinister than the disused feeling houses do when left vacant, even for a short period. All the same, she was nervous. Sister Immaculata kept her company in the kitchen as she prepared tea. She was grateful for the nun’s cheeriness. She seemed intent on keeping the atmosphere light.
“People come to Father Ignatius all the time,” she said, “with stories about disturbances in their homes. A lot of the time it’s a case of an old house settling on its foundations, or air in the water pipes, that sort of thing. On the odd occasion it’s something else entirely, and we come along to help out.” She smiled.
Angela did not like the sound of that.
Presently, tea having been drunk, the two priests began their preparations. A Mass would be said in the living room. The table would serve as the altar.
Father Ignatius lit the candles and draped a purple stole about his shoulders. Sister Immaculata and Father Mulryan produced printed prayer sheets and knelt down to one side. Angela joined them. The service was about to begin.
It was nearing eight on a mild fall evening. All was quiet both inside and outside the house at the end of the cul-de-sac. The curtains were drawn against the darkness. The main light in the living room was on.
The celebration of the Mass passed off without incident. Angela was relieved, thinking all was over.
“Far from it,” she says. “Little did I know it was about to begin. Father Ignatius said that he wouldn’t be doing an exorcism, but that was before he saw the house. I don’t know what him and the other priest saw, but it must have been enough to convince them there was something seriously wrong.”
After the closing prayers, Father Ignatius announced that what he enigmatically referred to as “the blessing of the house” would commence. All made the sign of the cross. The celebrant opened his book and proceeded to read aloud.
“In the Name of Jesus Christ, God and Lord; through the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin, Mother of God, Mary, and Holy Michael the Archangel, the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints, and relying on the holy authority of our office, we are about to undertake the expulsion of any evil spirits that are present here.”
There followed a respectful silence as Father Ignatius placed his book upon the table and joined his hands.
“May God rise up and may his enemies be dissipated,” he entreated.
“And let those who hate him flee before him,” the nun and the younger priest said in unison. Sister Immaculata held her prayer sheet close to Angela and indicated the responses. They would be given by three voices.
“Let them be dissipated like smoke,” Father Ignatius continued.
“As wax flows before fire, so let sinners perish before God,” the trio answered from the text.
“Look on the cross of the Lord. Be defeated, all enemies!” The exorcist’s voice was gaining in volume.
“The ancient strength will conquer, the King of Kings!” The words of the nun and young priest rang out with the certitude of the faithful. Angela strove to keep up.
The strange-sounding, medieval words were affecting her. As she spoke them, it seemed to her that they were charged with power and that she was to some degree partaking of that power. The solemnity of the occasion and the earnestness with which the three religious prayed caused her to dwell on the gravity of her situation. She was uneasy.
“Let your mercy be with us, O Lord!”
“According to our hopes in you,” said Father Ignatius, concluding the prayer. All bowed their heads in silence.
From upstairs came the unmistakable sound of a door opening. Angela gasped and looked at the others, but they did not stir.
Father Ignatius took up his prayer book again.
“We exorcise you, each unclean spirit, each power of Satan—”
The words were cut short as the same door was, quite audibly, banged shut.
“…each infestation of the enemy from hell, each legion, each congregation, each satanic sect—”
Heavy footsteps, sounds produced by a number of booted feet, were crossing the landing. Several moved quickly and as one, as if marching to some ethereal command; others dragged behind as if they belonged to the wounded. They paused abruptly at the head of the stairs, marching on the spot. Angela bit her lip in fright. Sister Immaculata laid a comforting hand on her arm.
Father Ignatius glanced at the ceiling and waited for the commotion to cease.
Presently, it did. He looked back at his text and continued, unperturbed.
“In the name and by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ! Be uprooted and put to flight from the Church of God, and—”
The phantom footsteps began descending the stairs, tramping out a slow, ordered rhythm. It seemed that they paused and marked time on each and every tread. Their determined marching was like that of a platoon of battle-weary soldiers advancing in a final push. With each tread gained, the marching grew louder.
Tramp, tramp, tramp.
“Be uprooted and put to flight from the Church of God—”
Tramp, tramp, tramp.
The footsteps were drawing ever nearer. Angela let out a little cry. Of the company, she seemed to be the only one who was showing fear.
“…and from the souls that were made in the image of God and redeemed with the blood of the divine lamb.”
Tramp, tramp, tramp.
The phantom army had reached the bottom of the stairs. The measured tramping of so many pairs of boots now filled Angela’s hallway. All that separated the group from the horror was the living-room door. Father Ignatius took up the crucifix and pressed it to his lips. Father Mulryan remained kneeling with his head bowed in prayer. The nun passed her prayer sheet to Angela. She spread her arms wide and gazed heavenward. She was about to speak. Abruptly, the din in the hallway ceased.
The nun seized her chance. She spoke out into the tense silence, in a voice that was loud and confident. “Father, in your goodness, come to us now,” she implored. “Now in our hour of need. O good Jesus, hear us. Save us, O Lord. Save us, your servants, from every threat or harm from the Evil One. We beg you, we beg you!”
Angela’s hands began to tremble. The prayer sheet fell from her grasp. Father Mulryan calmly retrieved it and handed it back with a reassuring smile.
Sister Immaculata continued. “We beg you, Father, through the intercession of the archangels St. Michael, St. Raphael, and St. Gabriel to protect us now. To protect us now in our hour of need. Come, O Lord; come, O Holy Spirit; come, O Holy Virgin Mother; hear our call. Deliver us from the evil that is present here.”
Father Ignatius lowered the crucifix. Sister Immaculata placed an arm about Angela’s shoulders. The young priest raised his head and looked toward the door as if in expectation.
All waited. As if on cue, the next manifestation presented itself.
The sinister scratching and scuffling that had driven Angela from her home started up on the other side of the door. She began to shake and sob in terror. She was unprepared for any of this; it was to have been a simple “blessing of the house.”
Father Ignatius took up the crucifix and held it aloft, facing into the danger.
“Do not dare further!” he commanded in a loud, authoritative voice. “Do not dare further to defile this place, most cunning Serpent. Do not dare further to deceive the human race.”
The scratching noises grew louder.
“…to persecute the Church of God, to strike and shake the chosen of God like chaff. God the Father commands you. God the Son commands you. God the Holy Spirit commands you.”
The scratching began to lessen.
&
nbsp; “Christ orders you, he who is the eternal word of God become man. He who destroyed your hateful jealousy against the salvation of our race.”
There came a frantic pounding, as if a dozen heavy boots were kicking against the door, drowning out the words of Scripture. But Father Ignatius would not be deterred. His voice soared above the cacophony.
“He who humiliated himself, making himself obedient to death. He who built his Church on a firm rock and provided that the strength of hell would never, would never prevail over that Church. He who will remain with his Church for all days, even up to the end of human time.”
The door flew open. All heads turned. Just as suddenly, it banged shut again. This action was repeated twice more in rapid succession, sending tremors through the room. The candles guttered wildly, then died; the bottles of holy oil and water fell over.
Angela made to stand up. She was terrified. She wanted to escape, out through the back door. The nun tightened her arm about her shoulders.
“We’re nearly there,” she whispered. “Have faith, child. God is good.”
Father Mulryan righted the bottles and relit the candles. The exorcist took up the holy water and began sprinkling it about the room.
“The sacrament of the cross commands you! The virtues of all the mysteries of the Christian faith command you. The most exalted Mother of God, Mary the Virgin, commands you. She, though lowly, trampled on your head from the first instant of her Immaculate Conception.”
Angela felt her fear dissipating under the comforting arm of the nun and the words spoken so commandingly by the priest.
He laid aside the holy water and unstoppered the bottle of holy oil. Sister Immaculata helped Angela to her feet. She and Father Mulryan each placed a hand on her shoulder. Father Ignatius anointed Angela’s forehead with the oil.
“I command you and bid all powers who molest this servant of God, by the power of God Almighty, in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior, through the intercession of the Holy Virgin Mother, to leave this servant of God forever and to be consigned to the unquenchable fire, to that place that the Lord God has prepared for you.”