Anyway, I strongly doubt that Pokemon contains demons, just as I strongly doubt that food fights and mason jar bombings will win converts to the Faith. However, while I was joking on the internet with my friends about this matter, one of them did mention a weird anecdote. He said that he knew someone in passing, who had talked to an exorcist– and said exorcist had told him that a demon once claimed he’d come to posses his victim through Pokemon.
My friend’s response was that the exorcist was nuts or lying. But a third commentator had a different idea. “Well,” she said, “Even if the exorcist did hear a demon say that, the devil is the father of lies.”
I blinked. I’d never thought of it that way, in all my years on the Planet Charismatic and in all my years recovering. The devil is the father of lies. I knew it wasn’t the Holy Ghost terrorizing all the grown-ups in the Community with tales of demons in video games, levitating plates and subliminal messages in Disney movies. The Holy Ghost is not the spirit of fear. The Holy Ghost wouldn’t claim the nutty heterodoxies I grew up under. I’d presumed it was mass hysteria, a kind of group psychosis, responsible for the heresies.
But maybe it was the devil.
I’m not saying I know that it was. But, if you were the devil, wouldn’t you like to sow a lot of fearsome red herrings in someone’s spiritual life?
If you were the devil– if you were a being who could impersonate an angel of light or even the Holy Ghost, and if all you wanted was for people to be afraid, despairing and eventually damned in exchange for the least pleasure possible– wouldn’t you pull something like this? Wouldn’t you get your human subject tied up to an idol like a paddleball to a paddle, and whip them around in just this way?
Isn’t it so very demonic, to strain out the gnat and swallow the camel? Didn’t Jesus warn us about that thousands of years ago?
How very, very demonic to waste all your time searching for demons in Pokemon and Harry Potter and coloring books with mandalas, instead of cultivating a life of virtue. How horrible to assume that silly pastimes are the ultimate spiritual enemy, and all the time not notice the real enemy. How hellish to fear that stretching in a yoga position might accidentally be bowing to an idol, while not noticing that your spirit hasn’t bowed to Christ in ages. How dreadful to spend your whole life purging anything that might possibly remind you of “the occult” and ignoring the seeds of pride, envy, avarice, acedia, anger, greed and lust that, if not uprooted, could actually be the vessel you ride into hell. Not because God wants you to go to hell, but because you were too busy running after trifles to heed His voice.
That’s exactly what the devil would do.
What a chilling thought.
It doesn’t matter whether you spend your spare time throwing fruit at 8-bit demons or catching Pokemon, a long as you’re not neglecting your prayer life and your duties as a Catholic. It doesn’t matter, for the spiritual life, whether you read interesting fairy tales or The Cooper Kids Adventures, whether you watch Bedknobs and Broomsticks or Superbook. None of those will drag you to Hell or Heaven. I can’t imagine that God cares what aerobics video you’re using to get in shape, either, if your motives are pure. The Lord wants us to be fully alive, to live lives of virtue and to become saints. Any concern which distracts us from this is from the Evil One.
By all means, if you find that games are distracting you from sanctity, stop playing games or limit them. But for many, games are just something to relax the mind as part of a fully integrated life.
Scruples, nipicking and being a busybody about other people’s hobbies, are from the Evil One.
Ignore the Evil One. He’s not worth a moment of your time. Get away from him and go play a game, if you like. Catch a Pokemon. Watch a Disney movie. Cosplay. Collect stamps. Do something you enjoy. Recreation isn’t wrong; recreation is a human need. Even nuns in cloisters have set times for recreation almost every day, though I don’t think many of them play video games. All things in moderation, all things in proper balance. Enjoy yourself. The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Joy; at the Lord’s right hand are pleasures forevermore. It’s the devil who wants you tied up in sanctimonious knots.
Put down the spiritual banana and go have some fun.
(image via Pixabay)
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