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Dear father Angelo,
First of all, I thank you for your precious help, your words bring comfort and hope, as well as clarity. I apologize if my letter will be tormented and long.
I ask you about extraordinary ways of salvation ,demonic infestations and curses. In my case they are all linked to each other.
Many years ago a young man to whom I was attached died suddenly and neither he nor his family was a believer.
Several years later I felt the desire to pray for him, I felt I was close to him.
Could it be possible that he was saved and he is in Purgatory, and also my “need to pray” was not just suggestion?
Even when another person I was very attached to died a strange fact happened: the night before he died I went to sleep and I heard a voice in my head asking for help, it had the same tone as that person.
I don’t want to be proud father, I am the last person who can help, I’d like to know how I can discern in these cases and how I can behave, Maybe these events are only suggestion and stress, I am very confused…
Anyway that young man just before he died had brought an object from the north Africa; later a small skull was discovered hidden between the geometric textures of decorative pattern. They told us that in those areas it’s common to curse objects like that and the curse could have caused his death. Can A curse kill a person ? Now the object is at the house of one of his relative’s who didn’t get rid of it. In that house some strange events happen: furniture which moves noisily on its own ( neighbors are witness), objects of little value disappear and reappear in absurd places, lights switch on by their own, the small table and the chair of the terrace overturned.
It must be said that the relative and her daughter turned to a mysterious healer who solved those problems but other appeared as health disorders ( that woman has an autoimmune disease).
Can these facts be caused by suggestion?
Since prayer is the strongest weapon, is there anything we can do?
Thank you so much, I remember you in my prayers and I hope the same.
May the Lord bless you.

a priest answers

Dear,
I regret I read only today your letter. I apologize you.

So much for the salvation of the young man, we can only hope.
We Know God does everything to lead to salvation every man.
We are sure of the salvation of the people who have been canonized by the church, and declared saints.

You felt the wish of pray for that young man and you did it.
Your prayer may help his salvation.
God could take into account the prayer and the intercession you would have done for him to accord him, at least in extremis in the interior part of his heart, the grace of penitence and conversion.
After al,l the sacrifice of Christ had retroactive power because it was the cause of salvation of the righteous of the Old Testament, similarly we can think about our prayer and intercession.

I’m not surprised by the fact you told me about the voice you heard the night before a loved one died and you heard his distress call.
The father Marie-Joseph Lagrange, founder of the Ecole Biblique of Jerusalem, the night before his father died felt a strange agitation.
His Father died in France, he was in Salamanca in Spain. In those times one could not communicate by telephone.
We can’t deny that some people by telepathy or other reasons decided by God can fell something serious is happening far from them.
Father Lagrange felt a similar phenomenon when, being in Jerusalem, his book were being judged by the Congregation of the Holy Office in Rome.

It is not easy for us to establish the boundaries of what has happened through the phenomenon of telepathy or divine disposition. Certainly we cannot speak of autosuggestion if we feel something extraordinary while ,although we unconscious of it , something that concerns us is happening at a great distance.

On the subject of the curse of death we can only say that in some cases this has happened.
Several years ago the Jesuit magazine “la civiltà Cattolica” , when it talks about Italians who resort to superstitious practices and curses, has mentioned the death curse too. They underlined the fact that, who made the curse asked for compensation only after the occurrence of the effect. That was so that nobody should think that he was a fraud.

I can’t exclude that the strange phenomena you speak of and that happen in the relative’s house of the young man are linked to a spell.
What that woman reports is true. It isn’t self-suggestion.
I know for sure about facts like what you told me.
There is no unanimous thought among experts on their genesis.
Likewise, there are diseases which do not have organic but preternatural causes, that is, they come from the devil, as what happened in the case of Job.

To rely on “Mysterious healers”, as you call them, is very dangerous (to say the least!)
Even the use of white magic, as this practice is understood today, has contacts with the occult, with the one with whom God has strictly ordered us not to have any relationship.

What we can do when our homes are haunted by spirits.
Certainly the blessing given by the priest is very precious.
St. Thomas says that the sign of the cross keeps demons away and that the sign of the cross made with holy water keeps them out.

However, the best and safest thing is to keep oneself in God’s grace.
That’s because -except for some divine permission as happens in the life of some Saints- if one lives in grace he is protected as by a hedge from the incursions of the devil.
The book of Job speaks of this hedge. Likewise, the grace of God constitutes like a shield, an armor, which defends from the curse and from the incursions of the demons.
Psalm 91 says:” He will shelter you with his pinions, and under his wings you may take refuge; his faithfulness is a protecting shield”. (pha 91,4) and : “Though a thousand fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, near you it shall not come.”. (Psalm 91,7).

In the New Testament this defense is recalled in particular by the Letter of St. James when he writes: “So submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
“So submit yourselves to God” is the same as keeping the commandments and living in grace.
“Resist the devil” means run away from sin.
“he will flee from you” : is the most consoling outcome because there is no longer any fear of the devil and his incursions because then it is we, shining and fortified by sanctifying grace, who put terror in him and put him to flight.
Thank you very much for the prayer you have made for me.
I warmly reciprocate, I wish you all the best.
Father Angelo.

Translated by Emanuele Menchiari