Observations placeholder
Saint Columba - Eleanor C Merry - Battles the demons of disease
Identifier
013954
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Eleanor states that the battle was against a disease which was sweeping the area at the time - the demons were actually goblins!
A description of the experience
Eleanor C Merry – The Flaming Door
The story is here quoted in full:
" When he began to pray suddenly he sees a very black host of demons fighting against him with iron darts; and as had been revealed to the holy man by the Spirit, they wished to invade his monastery and with their darts to kill many of the brethren. But he, one man against innumerable foes-and such foes- taking the armour of the Apostle Paul, fought in brave conflict. And so for the greater part of the day the war was waged on both sides, neither could they, innumerable as they were, vanquish the one; nor was he strong enough alone to drive them from his island, until the Angels of God, as the Saint afterwards related to a few persons, came to his aid, and for fear of them the demons, terror-stricken, quitted the place. And on the same day the Saint, returning to the monastery after the flight of the demons from the island, speaks this word about the same hostile bands, saying: ' Those deadly foes . . . who have this day been put to flight from the boundaries of this territory to the Ethican land shall there, like savage invaders, attack the monasteries of the Brethren and bring about pestilential diseases, by the virulence of which many shall be attacked and die ! ' " He afterwards added that the prayers of the monks there had greatly mitigated the attack. And this was proved correct, only one monk having died.