Fr. Dwight Longenecker - Immortal Combat: Confronting the Heart of Darkness

Also by Dwight Longenecker:

An Answer, Not an Argument

Our Lady? A Catholic/Evangelical Debate

St. Benedict and St. Thrse: The Little Rule and The Little Way

Listen My Son: St. Benedict for Fathers

The Gargoyle Code

Slubgrip Instructs

Catholicism Pure and Simple

More Christianity

The Mystery of the Magi

Praying the Rosary for Inner Healing

Praying the Rosary for Spiritual Warfare

A Sudden Certainty

The Quest for the Creed

The Romance of Religion

Letters on Liturgy

Available at Amazon and at

dwightlongenecker.com

Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Immortal Combat

Confronting the
Heart of Darkness

SOPHIA INSTITUTE PRESS
Manchester, New Hampshire

Copyright 2020 by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Perceptions Design Studio.

Cover image: Crucifixion from the Isenheim altarpiece (ca. 1512-1516), detail of Christs right hand (XIR254900), by Matthias Grunewald; Bridgeman Images.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Sophia Institute Press
Box 5284, Manchester, NH 03108
1-800-888-9344

www.SophiaInstitute.com

Sophia Institute Press is a registered trademark of Sophia Institute.

ISBN 978-1-64413-290-6

eBook ISBN 978-1-64413-291-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020932960

You know the time; it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the works of darkness [and] put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and licentiousness, not in rivalry and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh. Rom. 13:1114

Contents

Part 1

Part 2

Foreword

You have in your hands a very good book, a very much needed book in an era in which the Church has largely lost sight of a major mission: direct confrontation with the devil. Is this not what Jesus was about? Did He not say He had come to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8)? Wasnt it Christ who said He would recognize His followers would know them! by several standards, the first of which was casting out devils (Mark 16:17)?

Other questions rise from those. Do we emulate Jesus? Does the modern Church? Do those at the helm of Catholicism roam the hinterlands, commanding demons to leave the afflicted, as Jesus and His apostles did?

The answer, all too often, of course, is no: too often, at Mass, the reading of the day concerns demonic manifestations, but the subsequent homily doesnt mention them. There is little or no instruction in this regard. We rely instead on movies. In our hyperscientific, academic age, spiritual warfare has become subjectum non gratum. There are more canon lawyers substantially more than there are exorcists.

This is where Father Dwight Longenecker enters the picture and the pulpit. Bold, imaginative, insightful, and engaging, Father Longenecker forges ahead without fear or favor in naming where evil is, what it looks like, how it hides itself, and where it manifests itself the most (in society and in all of us). Most important in the eyes of this learned, intellectual, and practical priest, is how to expunge evil and stop it from returning.

And so it is that Father Longenecker ably tackles our culture of idolatry. He drills deep into this time of prevarication. Citing the mirages, exaggerations, and blatant untruths of our time, he shows how people of the lie have caused distress in every corner and among those (dont be fooled!) of every politico-cultural stripe.

In so doing, this good priest agilely critically argues for a mystical, imaginative approach in addition to intellectuality. He shows how religiosity can cloak darkness how it can portray itself as an angel of light. He graphically shows us the importance of forgiveness. He demonstrates the significance of simplicity and humility (really, the same thing) in keeping evil at bay, which is important when we remember that, as one psychologist put it, evil is the word live spelled backward.

Evil is also living backward, for darkness aims us at the inverse of good, in the direction of the nether regions.

Most importantly, we find ourselves in these pages.

Do you have resentment? Anger? Jealousy? Hidden pride? We are faced in this book with all we need to expiate, recognizing how the demon leads us first into depression or regression, then into oppression and obsession, and, finally into possession. Can you not in these words hear the hiss of the snake?

We live in a time when the devil is especially active (one might say viral), and thus at a time when a book like this by a solid, conversant priest one who has been around the horn is desperately needed. The necessity is to show the interaction between humans and nefarious components of the spiritual world, and how to handle and, in some cases, survive it. In a phrase, this book presents a Catholic framework for spiritual warfare, with vivid images of everything from minotaurs and Gorgons to dragons which, as the reader will see, are not always the simple wanderings of fiction.

Father Longenecker does here what every priest should: he speaks about the devil and how he and his minions operate in our time.

According to reliable scholarship, Pope Leo XIII (18101903) had a vision of the effects Satan would have after the popes death. It foretold a horrible trial for the Church.

Do we not see this around us? And by eliminating mystical theology and exorcism from our seminaries, do we not now collect rotten fruit, such as (but certainly not limited to) the abuse crisis?

Woe to the Church if she does not acknowledge Satan, does not recognize his works, does not shed light in the devils dark corners, as Jesus did.

Follow Jesus do the same is what Father Longenecker is saying.

Its also what Sister Lucia dos Santos of Fatima indicated when she warned of our era as one of diabolical disorientation.

Open your eyes, your ears! Pray the scales away. Take a look backstage at what is really occurring in the world around us.

Too many in our seminaries, rectories, and dicasteries present the devil as an outdated product of philosophy or psychology. We have put the psychiatrists couch where once was the confessional. We fear the label of superstitious.

We have not the luxury of such thinking. The times are too dangerous for a solely theological approach. Like the angels, we must move swiftly. Like the angels who wage war, we must carry our swords into daily battle, resplendent with grace, and in the name of Jesus.

Michael H. Brown
Palm Coast, Florida
March 11, 2020

Introduction

I live in South Carolina, where signs outside country churches remind you that Jesus Saves. Complete strangers are likely to ask if youve been born again or have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. Down south, the old-time religion is still emblazoned on billboards, preached from pulpits and radio shows. Television preachers still weep and rage and remind you that Jesus blood will wash away your sins and that the Lord Jesus died to take away the sins of the world.

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