Spiritual warfare: Step 4
Protecting Your Family and Marriage
Your home is a domestic church. God gives you real authority to guard it.
The enemy wants to divide
“Satan will try to divide families. I think husbands and wives really need to be careful about that. He wants to break apart your relationship.”Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, Lila Rose Show E243 at 0:19:15
He distinguishes normal friction, since “neither of you are perfect,” from a resentment that sticks and fills the mind with distorted ideas. His advice: sit down together and have an honest conversation. (Lila Rose Show E243 at 0:20:30)
Fr. Ripperger describes the same tactic: the first thing demons try in a marriage is to give one or both spouses a perspective that divides them. (See The Exorcists Speak.)
The authority God gives parents and spouses
Msgr. Rossetti explains that within the family there is a real, God-given authority:
“As a mother and a wife you have a special authority over your own body, your husband and your kids.”Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, Lila Rose Show E243 at 2:09:29
“You can do it for your kids. You can do it with your husband. He can do it with you, because there is this authority you have in the family.”Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, Lila Rose Show E243 at 2:12:29
Even so, he recommends praying to God, to Mary and to Jesus rather than confronting the demons directly. Step 5 explains why.
A father’s duty: provide and protect
“Your job as a father and as a husband is to provide not just materially for your family but to provide spiritually by becoming holy and praying for them on a regular basis.”Fr. Chad Ripperger, Shawn Ryan Show #285 at 3:36:51
“You as a father, as the authority figure, have to make sure you never allow your own sin to introduce the demons into your own house.”Fr. Chad Ripperger, Shawn Ryan Show #285 at 3:37:24
That means, he says, being willing to “say prayers of protection for your children and your wife on a regular basis.” (Shawn Ryan Show #285 at 3:37:37)
A simple family plan
- Sunday Mass together, and confession as a family on a regular schedule.
- Daily family prayer: even ten minutes, a decade of the Rosary, or a blessing of the children at bedtime.
- Forgive quickly. Unforgiveness is an open door (Step 2).
- Guard what enters the home: screens, media, and anything occult.
- Bless the house and keep holy water and a crucifix in it (Step 3).
- Consecrate the family to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
- Offer small sacrifices for one another, as Fr. Ripperger recommends with fasting. (Shawn Ryan Show #285 at 3:45:09)
Watch: the family under attack, and healed
Fr. Chad Ripperger, The Conor Gallagher Show
How the devil attacks the family, and how parents can respond.
Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, Conversations with an Exorcist: Tormented by the Past
On old wounds and how Christ heals them.
Fr. Dan Reehil, Lila Rose Show E359
Sin, abuse and redemption; a pastoral conversation about healing. Some themes are mature.
Sources
- Lila Rose Show E243, Msgr. Stephen Rossetti
- Shawn Ryan Show #285, Fr. Chad Ripperger
- Tucker Carlson, Fr. Chad Ripperger (quoted on The Exorcists Speak)
- The Conor Gallagher Show, Fr. Chad Ripperger
- St. Michael Center, Tormented by the Past
- Lila Rose Show E359, Fr. Dan Reehil
Quotes come from the interviews’ captions, lightly punctuated, with links to the exact moment so you can hear them in full context. Video descriptions summarize each conversation; they are not quotations.
