‘It’s clearly satanic!’
I looked at the man sat opposite and my mind started to race… Having sat and listened to the facts presented I struggled to draw any other conclusion. But could it be so? Was there really a supernatural backdrop to what was taking place? The facts seemed hard to dispute.
***
Earlier that evening I had made my way down a deserted London street. Minutes later my finger pressed a buzzer marked: Basement. A door opened, and I found myself descending a narrow flight of stairs to the basement area of a large house.
Sat waiting for me was a man who wishes to remain anonymous. Suffice it to say I know who he is and, more importantly, what he is. On reading an article about the closing of an abortion clinic in London, one I had had published some months previously, he contacted me to say that he wanted to tell me ‘things that would be of interest’. Now, at last, we had met, and, as he bid me sit, began his tale.
***
He was involved in the Pro-Life fight. On that front line, he had prayed outside clinics for years. He had helped any expectant mother he could. But, this was not what he wanted to speak of. There was another ‘story’ he wished to share. It was a ‘back-story’, and one that pointed to a reality behind this struggle between life and death, light and darkness, good and evil.
This is a tale of places east and west, south and southwest around London. Four points of the compass, four buildings that today have a common purpose, and so, for now at least, have become four dark marks upon the map – four places prayed outside as the young, and not so young, arrive distressed and leave traumatised. These unholy sites were the key to what he was to tell me. And so, let us begin to the south west of London.
There is a large house standing in an affluent area. It is today an abortion clinic. Anonymous, hidden even, publicly it draws little attention to its works and the many women who are enticed there. For years now, a prayer vigil organised by The Good Counsel Network has been held outside it – something that has drawn only vitriol. Respectable people have shouted abuse and told those that pray to leave the neighbourhood as they are affecting the house prices. Such a reaction is not unexpected. What was unexpected, however, was something much more sinister. A man approached the vigil and started abusing those stood outside praying. Again, not unexpected, however, his rage grew in intensity before his anger turned on the Church, and, then, unexpectedly, the mask slipped and he started to pray to Satan…
The man sat opposite me had not been surprised by this, though, and went on to explain why. When a woman decides to leave, not to go in, to keep her baby, then, literally, all hell is loosed. It happens every time, he says, just before something good occurs. There was another reason, it seems, for this peculiar reaction, however, and that involves the property itself.
It was once a convent. A hostel run by nuns for young women come to London to study or work. Somewhere in the middle of it, there is a chapel, one used in the past for the Holy Sacrifice, but, now, used for an altogether different purpose…
On that sad note, let us move to the south.
There is another similar place of sadness; one sat on the side of an urban hill. In this crowded city quarter stands another large building dealing in counterfeit ‘health services’. Paradoxically, the local protestant church, still situated beside it, once owned this house and its grounds. In fact, from the adjacent church building one can look straight into the arbortuary’s waiting room – standing as it does in hollowed ground of sorts.
I looked at the man opposite to me as he continued to speak; it felt as if a light was slowly coming towards me through a dark passageway.
Next, we moved out to the east, and a discovery.
***
Here there is another place, another old house set in its own grounds. Now, no longer a family home, it is, instead, a place of desperation with its trade largely concealed. Another vigil prays outside there too. Once a bishop and priest came to join it. Thereafter, it proved to be a very different affair. The usual hostility directed towards those taking part in the vigil increased tenfold. In fact, on that day, there was reported a strange fury not witnessed before. The man telling me this then added something surprising: there was no earthly way that those so angered could have known about the significance of who had arrived there.
In retrospect, it is indeed odd, given what was discovered later that day. Initially it was thought that the coming of a bishop must have provoked this, however, there was more to it than that. The bishop had appeared with a brother priest alongside. When he had reached there, this accompanying cleric was staggered by what he beheld. As he stood looking at the property in front of him, he realized that it was none other than the very house his family had once owned. It was there his father and uncle had both been raised – the latter also going on to enter the priesthood. Only the visiting priest could have known the precise history of the house. Nevertheless, what was revealed that day was that whatever – or more particularly whomever – was inside also knew. Now, in that house, once the epitome of a Christian home, a new spirit is abroad, and seemingly one that knows all too well why it is there.
Our final destination is west London. It is there it stands, nondescript, a substantial suburban house with a discreet sign offering yet more ‘health services’ to women, its trade being nothing of the sort, of course. Nevertheless, the building has a curious feature, one attached to the wall outside, and unmistakable: a plaque to St. Michael the Archangel. Its presence tells of a different period in the history of the building in question.
It was once an Anglo-Catholic convent. For years, a group of devout women prayed in its chapel, being as it was a place of healing for troubled souls; later, it was to become a maternity home. In short, the building’s past use was the very antithesis of what is now taking place there.
How many houses in London have a plaque to the Archangel attached to their walls? Few, very few, and today above that plaque there is a sign advertising an altogether different entity’s services – a final ignominious gesture.
‘Now do you see?’ It wants to be there. Its diabolical presence is drawn to these holy places, it is the real enemy …’
And, with that, he finished speaking. The room returned to silence, and, as it did so, the only conclusion that could be drawn came into unmistakable relief.
All the buildings had been used by church authorities or lived in by devout Christians. What was now being plied in them was no coincidence. There was a desecration taking place, a gleeful mocking of what had gone before – the Holy Sacrifice, the love of husband and wife, the welcoming and care of children and their being raised in a Christian home…
A murderer from the start, envy was the devil’s first emotion, and, no doubt, it shall be his last…
***
As the door banged shut behind me, I retreated back to a nearby train station through the now still streets.
Night had fallen, and with it everything seemed peaceful, but then I remembered what I had just heard and with it came a disturbing realization, namely, that God’s enemy never sleeps, however, just as quickly as this thought entered another replaced it – the Heart of Jesus is also awake and watching… And, therein lies our hope.
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