From Forums of the Virgin Mary:
How the Immaculate expels demons in exorcisms.
We are used to hearing that the Church’s Exorcism Manual, that is, the prayers and imprecations that exorcists must recite to expel demons from those possessed, is based on appealing to the power of Jesus Christ.
But there are times when saints and angels take precedence by being present during the sessions, to collaborate, as Father Gabriele Amorth and other exorcists have said.
And there are cases in which it is the Virgin Mary herself who takes charge of the exorcism and only when she is present can the demon be expelled.
Here we will talk about one of the most famous exorcisms of the Church, where the demons were only expelled when the exorcists invoked the Virgin Mary.
In Illfurth, a city in Alsace between France and Germany, but today under French jurisdiction, there is a large image of the Immaculate on a 10-meter pedestal near the main square.
It was dedicated as a thanksgiving to the liberation of two children possessed by demons, and has remained in the memory of the area for two special events.
Because of the number of supernatural events that took place and because it was clearly seen that the expulsion of the demons took place through the intercession of the Most Holy Mary.
By 1864, about 1,200 people lived in the city.
And in a house in front of where the statue is located today, the Burner family lived with 5 children , whose head of family was an itinerant seller of matches and tinder.
By the fall of 1864, Teobaldo and his brother José, who were not yet 10 years old, fell ill with a mysterious ailment.
They became so emaciated that they looked like ghosts.
While the different doctors consulted could not give a diagnosis.
And a year later the abnormal events began.
The children turned on their backs and spun like a top with dizzying speed.
They hit the furniture with surprising force.
Their lower abdomen swelled disproportionately and it seemed that they had a living animal that moved up and down.
Their legs were intertwined and no one could separate them.
They conversed with each other in foreign languages despite not yet knowing how to read or write.
For hours the two children remained calm but suddenly they changed their attitude, they gesticulated and shouted nonstop with a man’s voice, hoarse.
It came from them, although their mouths were closed.
Sometimes, while sitting down, an invisible force would throw them against the walls. [scroll past ad for more]
And when they woke up from the trance state, they devoured disproportionate amounts of food.
The phenomenon began to take public status and the number of visitors who came from everywhere grew
And the explanation arose that a poor, ill-considered old woman, who for her bad life had been expelled from her native village, had given them an apple and that was the beginning of the mysterious illness.
The fear that the children felt in the presence of blessed objects, their violent opposition to the Church, to prayer, to the priests, became increasingly clear.
They uttered abominable and coarse blasphemies without ever having heard them.
They no longer prayed.
The names of Jesus, Mary, the Holy Spirit, when pronounced by those present, made them shudder and tremble.
The vicar, Karl Brey, a priest known for his sanctity of life, tried to do his best with blessed objects, medals, crosses, holy water, but every time he did, they were seized by a violent fury.
He realized that he was in the presence of a case of real possession.
He informed the episcopal authority, which appointed a commission of three ecclesiastics to work on the case.
They concluded that it was demonic possession.
Because they were even able to distinguish when a few drops of holy water were mixed into their food.
Once a small relic of Saint Gerard Majella was placed before Teobaldo’s eyes.
The boy gnashed his teeth violently and in real desperation yelled “Get out of here, Italian!”
And he was especially furious about the Saint Benedict medals, so the whole town tried to always carry one with them.
The demons that possessed Tybalt sometimes referred to their master having arrived, arriving with other satellite demons.
And Tybalt appeared to him about thirty times.
It had the head of a duck, the nails of a cat, the feet of a horse, and a body with dirty plumage.
In each appearance it flew over the bed and threatened to drown him.
While Tybalt threw himself at him and ripped out handfuls of feathers.
The feathers gave off a foul odor and, when burned, left no ashes.
And in 1868, the bishop, informed by the clergy and the mayor, ordered an exorcism.
And he summoned a group of Benedictines from the famous Swiss abbey of Einsiedeln to carry it out.
The children were separated and assigned to two nuns, whom, although they had not seen them before, they called them by their religious names and asked about their relatives, saying their names.
The demons showed true horror for the cassock or religious habit , and could not bear to touch children with any of those garments.
On the other hand, they were happy when a layman covered them with his cape or any other garment.
A metal crucifix that was placed around José’s neck immediately twisted into the shape of an X without anyone touching it.
The exorcists asked each child which was the demon that possessed them, as the manual asks.
Teobaldo had Ypes, who was a deaf demon who called himself the Count of Hell with 71 legions under his command, and when he manifested he left the child deaf
And the other demon was Oribas.
And José was possessed by Solaletiel, who spoke impeccable English and another demon who never wanted to reveal his name.
During the exorcisms the demons spoke about hell, about the Archangel Michael.
They also said that they had witnessed the temptation of our first parents and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
They recounted the passion of Jesus Christ, telling how Jesus was bathed in sweat when he saw the sins of men.
And how they stirred up the Jews and the Romans to condemn and scourge the Lord.
They even talked about Luther.
They said they didn’t want him in their house for fear that he would turn everything upside down.
And they built a barracks for him at the entrance to Hell
During the exorcisms, which were performed separately on each of the children, the demons outraged and mocked the most holy things, not excepting God himself.
But they never dared to insult the Blessed Virgin Mary.
And when asked why, they replied,
«It is not allowed to me; the crucified one forbade me»
And they reacted with horror to any medal or statue of the Virgin Mary present at the site of the exorcism.
They even detected a statue of Michelangelo’s Pietà, with the dead Jesus Christ on Mary’s lap, which was kept in a closet.
The first exorcised was Teobaldo and the exorcists repeated the prayers of the Manual of Exorcisms over and over again , to the great suffering of the demons, but they kept repeating that their time to leave had not yet come.
Until finally, the exorcist took an image of Our Lady and said:
“Look at the Blessed Virgin Mary. Again she will crush your head.
She forces you to leave here, Unclean spirit, from the sight of the Immaculate Conception. She tells you to run away.”
And during that time, those present recited the Remember.
Then the demon uttered a deep cry more formidable than ever.
And writhing like a snake, the boy fell to the ground and fainted.
The demons were gone.
Later and in another place, the solemn exorcism happened to Joseph.
The exorcist repeated the prayers and imprecations several times, and the demons resisted.
Until, addressing the demoniac, the exorcist said:
«In the name of the Virgin Mary, I conjure you to come out of this child!
And the demon simply said “now I really have to go.”
The boy experienced his last seizure and it was over.
Both children did not remember what had happened to them, they did not recognize the exorcists or where they were.
And in honor of liberation, the people erected the statue of the Immaculate Conception with the following inscription,
«In perpetual memory of the liberation of the two possessed Teobaldo and José Burner due to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary Immaculate. In the year of the Lord 1869».
In short, this episode of history, which is known as the exorcism of the Illfurth demoniacs, is the clearest proof of the power of the intercession of the Blessed Virgin to expel demons that possess people.
There were hundreds of testimonies of what happened there.
But although to save words it is said that the Immaculate Virgin Mary expelled the demons, in reality she did it with the power given by Her Son.
She interceded and He agreed.
And if she has that power of intercession in the expulsion of demons in possessed people, we must conclude that it is the same power that she has to help us in the rest of the issues and before our pleas.
Well up to here what we wanted to talk about the formidable intercession of the Immaculate to expel the demons of the demon-possessed of Illfurth.
[resources: spiritual warfare books]