Ghost Stories ~ Father Dominic Legge, OP

In the middle of the night at a large, old, and now only partly occupied Dominican priory in rural Ohio, a Dominican woke up to see an unknown man, wearing the white habit of the order, standing at the foot of his bed, looking at him. The figure pointed insistently at the bookcase against the wall, and then turned and walked out of the room.

After breakfast the next morning, the friar took aside the superior of the house. “One of our guests walked into my room last night. It was very strange.”

“What guest?” the prior replied.

“The visiting Dominican – someone I didn’t recognize. He came into my room in the middle of the night.”

“But we don’t have any guests staying with us,” the prior insisted. “You must have been dreaming.”

“I don’t think so.”

When he returned to his room, he studied the bookcase: nothing unusual there. He peered behind it, moved it a few inches. Intrigued, he now strained to pivot the bookcase away from the wall. A forgotten door, unopened for decades, stood before him.

Are you hooked? Everyone loves a good ghost story, especially at this time of year. This one has circulated for decades among the friars of my Dominican province. But do you believe in ghosts? Are they real?

The popular fascination with “paranormal phenomena”, perhaps always with us, certainly seems to have grown in our time. Could this be because, as Father Gabriel Amorth writes: “where religion regresses, superstition progresses”? We have a spiritual dimension that is very hard to suppress. If you don’t believe in God, often you’ll end up believing in lots of things (Tarot cards, astrology, crystals, or other New Age superstitions) much less reasonable, and much more spiritually dangerous.

The Christian tradition bears impressive witness to purely spiritual beings who can have real contact with us: angels and demons. Although their power is far greater than ours, they are still creatures of God. They either are entirely in His service, or they have chosen, eternally and irrevocably, to hate Him – and, consequently, to hate us human beings, since each of us is loved by God. There are no spiritual beings who are free agents. Whether or not Hollywood admits it, every one of those spirits believes in God and is subject to Him. “Even the demons believe – and shudder.” (James 2:19.)

So are ghosts real? That depends on what you mean by “ghost.” They could be apparitions of demons. This is probably what happens when one tries to contact the dead at a séance or with a ouiji board. Since they’re liars, they usually try not to appear malicious. Engaging these spiritual powers, the Catechism warns, “conceal[s] a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers.” Such attempts “contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.” It’s very dangerous. (By the way, vampires, zombies, and the “undead”: definitely not real, unless they’re demonic apparitions. Witches and sorcerers? I’ve met people who claim to be such.)

Could ghosts be the souls of the dead? Perhaps, although not in the way Hollywood usually depicts. The souls of the dead are never homeless: they find themselves, in short order, in either Heaven, Purgatory or Hell. Is it possible that we could somehow encounter them? When permitted by the power of God, yes. In fact, when the Church celebrates her saints – the reason that Halloween exists, since it is “All Hallow’s E’en,” the night before the great Catholic feast of All Saints – she rejoices that we have such friends in Heaven who can help us in our need.

But what about ghost stories and haunted houses – or haunted Dominican priories? (My ghost story – slightly embellished here, as any good ghost story should be – has many priests who suspect it is true.) We cannot say for sure, but it could be that God sometimes permits souls in Purgatory to appear to the living to seek the help of their prayers. And that means that the best remedy for seeing a ghost is to pray for it!

The door opened; the friar peered into a dusty closet containing a bureau. Inside the bureau, he found a stack of yellowed slips of paper: Mass intentions. Some priest had long ago left these promises to say Mass for the souls of the dead without fulfilling them. Perhaps that is why the unknown Dominican desired so much that these papers be found – so that the duty he had failed to fulfill in his life could be completed by his brothers who remained alive.

The room was turned into a chapel, an altar erected. Many Masses were offered there. The unknown Dominican never appeared again.

A young man learns what’s most important in life from the guy next door

It had been some time since Jack had seen the old man. College, girls, career, and life itself got in the way. In fact, Jack moved clear across the country in pursuit of his dreams. There, in the rush of his busy life, Jack had little time to think about the past and often no time to spend with his wife and son. He was working on his future, and nothing could stop him.

Over the phone, his mother told him, “Mr. Belser died last night. The funeral is Wednesday.” Memories flashed through his mind like an old newsreel as he sat quietly remembering his childhood days.

“Jack, did you hear me?”

“Oh, sorry, Mom. Yes, I heard you. It’s been so long since I thought of him. I’m sorry, but I honestly thought he died years ago,” Jack said.

“Well, he didn’t forget you. Every time I saw him he’d ask how you were doing. He’d reminisce about the many days you spent over ‘his side of the fence’ as he put it,” Mom told him.

“I loved that old house he lived in,” Jack said.

“You know, Jack, after your father died, Mr. Belser stepped in to make sure you had a man’s influence in your life,” she said

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Beautiful Reasons for Praying the Rosary Even More

Often Father Gabriel Amorth, Chief Exorcist of the Vatican writes: One day a colleague of mine heard the devil say during an exorcism, “Every Hail Mary is like a blow on my head. If Christians knew how powerful the Rosary was, it would be my end.” The secret that makes this prayer so effective is that the Rosary is both prayer and meditation. It is addressed to the Father, to the Blessed Virgin, and to the Holy Trinity, and is a meditation centered on Christ.

I write in addition to the above: Please enunciate each word of the Rosary clearly and distinctly. Do not trample on the heels of the words of anyone with your words.. Do not speak over the leader if you are following or the respondent if you are leading the Rosary. Remember that they also are having a conversation with Mary Our Mother and it is not polite to speak when someone else is speaking.

In the case of the public Rosary there are only two people speaking: the Leader and the respondents. Each is speaking to the Blessed Mother and listening carefully to her response within their hearts as they meditate on the scene before them in their consideration of the mystery being spoken of and interpreted and translated into their lives.

Spread this powerful prayer of exorcism, the Rosary, which contains the Our Father, the Perfect Prayer, prayed five times in the recitation of each set of the Rosary’s Mysteries, backed up by the powerful prayers of Our Mother who prays with us as we pray 53 Hail Mary’s.

The Eternal Father described to a group of us, through a Visionary Friend of mine, what happens when we pray the Rosary, saying, “When you pray Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now……, the Blessed Mother comes instantly to your side to pray with you. And she does not come alone. She brings angels with her. And not just one or two for she is the Queen of Angels, so choirs of angels come with her. And she and Jesus are joined at the heart and cannot be separated so she brings Jesus with her. And Jesus cannot be separated from the Trinity so He brings the Father and the Holy Spirit with Him.

And where the Holy Trinity is, all of creation is, and you are surrounded by such beauty and light as you cannot imagine in this life. Your Mother comes as Our Lady of Grace with her hands outstretched. Rays of light emit from her hands piercing your body, healing you and filling you with graces. This is your inheritance which was poured out from the heart of Jesus on the Cross, when the centurion pierced His Heart with the spear, into the only pure vessel ready to receive such graces at that time, Your Mother.

Now as you pray the Rosary, or even just recite one Hail Mary, you receive your portion of these graces. He also said at this time, “Anyone who goes to Mary and prays the Rosary cannot be touched by Satan.”

Is it any wonder that anyone who prays the Rosary from the heart is so blessed and protected and powerful in their prayers for others?