Self-Whatever
2026-04-27
I received my catechumen prayers yesterday, praise God!
I knew prior to receiving these prayers, there would be exorcism prayers involved in them. During the prayers, the priest blows air on you, makes the sign of the cross over you, puts his hand on your head, and says some prayers to exorcise Satan and the demons who prowl about this world. Then you renounce Satan, affirm Christ, say the Symbol of the Faith, and there was also this part where we got to spit on the curb to literally spit on the devil. Those of you who aren't new here know that I literally fight demons and that I see them in my dreams, so of course there was a bit of anticipation behind receiving the prayers and formally beginning my catechesis. I wasn't sure exactly what that expulsion would look like, but let me tell you about the dream I had last night after receiving those prayers.
These demons are very good at taking the forms of people in my life, and will often use their likeness as vessels to influence my thinking in a certain way. I don't want to get into specifics because that's not what I do here, but I'll tell you a key moment that made last night's dream particularly impactful. There was someone holding a metal rod, and I knew that it was a demon getting ready to wail on me again. But I remember distinctly looking at it with a particular zeal. I wasn't going to fight it; instead, I was ready to take the beating yet again. Have you ever seen someone who looks like they're about to get their ass beat, but then they look so crazy that the guy getting ready to beat their ass just backs off? That's pretty much what happened in my dream. I braced for the impact and knew that I could take it if it happened, but ended up not receiving anything at all.
There's obviously a ton there for me to process, but I remember waking up this morning feeling, just, zapped. A lot was swimming around in my head, and as I'm writing here to you right now, I can't understand exactly how I feel about the whole thing. I'll be honest: I hoped after the exorcism prayers, I might stop dreaming entirely. But I don't think that's how it works, unfortunately. I am uniquely qualified for this kind of thing, I think. One remarkable thing to me was that since I had just had the exorcism prayers, I knew I wasn't possessed to any degree, but the feeling I had staring that demon down was truly different. In waking life, I'm a rather meek person; usually, I have a calm disposition and know how to peacefully talk my way through most things. I've had some situations where I've had to get physical with people, but this time in my dream it was different.
I was so ready to take that beating. I knew that even if it did happen, it wasn't going to hurt.
This step I've taken in my faith marks a new period in these recurring battles I expect for years to come. I'm reminded of that famous passage at the beginning of the Book of Joshua where the Lord gives him some reassuring words:
Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the Law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may achieve success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will achieve success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not be terrified nor dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
For those not familiar with Joshua, he led the tribes of Israel after the death of Moses to take them to the Promised Land and through the conquest of Canaan and the famous fall of Jericho. Battles don't always have to look like those we see in wars, and for most of us leading mostly nonviolent lives today, the real battles we have to face are spiritual. We can't be fearful in the face of our own thoughts and actions, and if Christ taught us anything, it's that the best way to show strength is to eat shit and show love to those who desire to hurt us. I don't have any enemies, and the person I have to be most vigilant with is myself; it's an almost tempting thing to hurt myself. I used to take all of the anger I'd feel toward others and direct it toward myself in the form of self-harm through drug addiction and self-hatred. I know now the most courageous thing I can do is show myself the same patience I show others.
Finding ways to love myself can be a tough thing, especially since I'm still trying to break a lot of the bad habits I cultivated when I was younger, and honestly, every day is an effort toward bettering that self-relationship. One thing I struggle with is intellectually understanding that self-denial and self-love are not mutually exclusive things. The culture surrounding Current Year, especially regarding self-love, has so much language around what is self-serving. I'm sure that anyone who has been in therapy can speak to that; if something doesn't "serve you" or "give you joy" then you should take it out of your life, or so the advice typically goes. But giving up things for ourselves is perhaps the most radical act of self-love one can do. Doing self-serving things conflates self-love and self-importance. I'm not important. I matter, but you matter more.
And that's the real crux of it right there. If there's anything I need in life, God will provide it for me through the people who love me, people who know me, and those who don't. He loves all of us more than we can understand, so that's why I feel so emboldened to show patience and restraint in the face of anything that might make me angry. There's no desire to prove anything to anyone because God always sorts it all out. I can have my anxieties or resentments or grudges or whatever else might cultivate desires of the flesh, but I know that looming above all of that is the wisdom that God has passed down to us for generations. In that wisdom, I can find those moments of peace.
In those moments, I can remember how it feels when it gets taken away.
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