"Conversion of Mary Magdalene," Paolo Veronese, c. 1547
She had been suffering under a witch’s curse for a long time. The witch’s voice taunted her day and night. She had large, unexplained marks and scratches on her body. The last was a message etched on her back. In the hospital, the baffled doctors read it to her father: “She is gone. You lost.”
The witch was tempting her to sin and despair, but she valiantly resisted. She confessed everything to a priest and to her Dad. Moments later, she incredibly coughed up what the medical team described as "a black fluid that came out still boiling and a mass that began to move independently and crumble." They did not know what it was.
We did. It was a witch’s bolus, by which the witch helps keep the curse in place. Now, the curse was greatly weakened, if not broken.
In an exorcism, we use the 70/30 rule. Liberation typically depends about 70% on the efforts of the possessed person and 30% on the work of the exorcist and team. This is not to denigrate the importance and power of the Church’s authority or the power of the Rite of Exorcism prayed by a priest with ecclesiastical faculties. It is irreplaceable. But it is not effective without the possessed renouncing sin, rejecting the Evil One, and receiving the sacraments. I dare say many demonic afflictions would eventually cease on their own if the afflicted person engaged in an intensive process of conversion and sanctification.
This young woman rejected the witch and the curse; she confessed her sins; and she resisted the temptations, despite the incredible spiritual evil that was pressing upon her. Her courage and faith were the final catalyst for the witch’s bolus to be ejected.
The witch’s message scratched on her back ("She is gone. You lost.") could not have been more wrong. This strong young woman is not gone; she is not lost. God and her family did not lose. She is back and at peace. Love wins...always.