Monday, February 24, 2025

Monday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

(Sirach 1:1-10; Mark 9:14-29)

Today’s gospel has a parallel at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel.  After he was baptized and heard God proclaiming him His Son, Jesus confronted the devil in the desert.  Here, he comes down from the mountain, where God again declared him His Son, to battle again with the devil.  This time the devil has possessed a boy.

On both occasions Jesus triumphs.  The devil, no match for God’s grace, yields to Jesus’ command.  He tells his disciples that the reasons he succeeds can be found in the prayer he makes.  He has prayed for the boy’s deliverance. 

When we pray constantly, we will experience many marvelous deeds.  They will surprise us at times, not being the expected answers to our requests.  Social scientists might tell us that prayer makes little, if any, difference among the people they survey.  Yet we know from believers that prayer’s effects may be uncanny but nevertheless are real.

Sunday, June 9, 2024

TENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

(Genesis 3:9-15; II Corinthians 4:13-5:1; Mark 3:20-35)

This Sunday we return to the Gospel of Saint Mark where we left off in February before Lent. Jesus is proclaiming the Kingdom of God in Galilee. Many people are impressed by his preaching with authority. But two groups appear in the passage we just heard that do not want him to continue preaching.

The reading says that Jesus' relatives come looking for him. It adds that they think he is `”out of his mind.” It does not mention why they think so. Perhaps they want Jesus to work in Joseph's workshop.

Jesus' preaching has also caught the attention of Jewish leadership in Jerusalem. These priests and scribes of the Law send representatives to Galilee to discredit his message. Earlier in the narrative Jesus challenged the local scribes when he ate with sinners and when he performed healings on the Sabbath. Now scribes from the holy city come saying that Jesus' conduct shows him to be possessed by a devil. Therefore, they say that he can cast out demons because he is in league with them.

Jesus responds to the accusation with parables. He compares the situation of a possessed man casting out demons to a kingdom where there is civil war or a family where there is resentment between brothers. Under such conditions the kingdom and the family could not survive.  Just so, if he, being possessed, tried to expel a demon, he would not be able to do so.

With the mention of diabolic possession we wonder about the possibility of its existence today. Experts assure us that there are possessed people. But while it is a relatively rare and very frightening thing today, in the gospels it occurs regularly and is frequently connected with illness. For example, Luke tells how Jesus healed many “who were troubled by unclean spirits” (6:18). It seems that where two thousand years ago physical and mental illnesses were attributed to demons, today there are medical explanations for them.

However, this does not mean that there are no demons lurking behind diseases. We remember C.S. Lewis fascinating book Screwtape Letters. In this work the devil advises his demon nephew that his objective is to make a person think that demons do not exist. Then, says the devil, the person can be brought under the demon’s power with ease. The devil's strategy in our case may be to make the patient think that the most important thing in life is to find excellent doctors. Then the patient may forget about God as our best recourse in all situations.

The passage ends with Jesus’ naming as family those who do God's will. He does not care that other people do not have blood like his in their veins as long as they submit to the Lord. In this way Jesus extends the family table to all who love their neighbors from the heart. May we love like this and find a place at his table.

Homilette for Friday, February 13, 2009

Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

(Genesis 3:1-8; Mark 7:31-37)

Although the serpent is frequently looked on as the devil, Genesis never says it. It is an intelligent creature with a gift also for smooth talking. It might be considered a person’s divided mind which poses contrary arguments to the positions he or she holds in conscience. As we learn growing up, these contrary ideas often make us our worst enemies.

In the garden the serpent tempts the woman not with lies but with distorted truth. “Did God really tell you not to eat of any of the trees in the garden?” it asks. There was something in God’s command about not eating fruit but the prohibition was hardly universal; indeed, it was limited to one tree. Humans often exaggerate the extent of prohibitions. The Church’s Lenten penance, for example, does not require fasting everyday but on two days and abstaining from meat on eight. The woman herself begins to play the devil’s game. She says that God told them not to touch the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil as well as not to eat it. Both she and the devil make God appear as opposed to human welfare. On the other hand, they paint a picture in which humans have to oppose God’s will in order to attain it.

It has been said that Genesis is true not because it reveals what happened at the beginning of history but because it shows what happens everyday. Like the woman and her partner, we can easily talk ourselves into sins like gossiping and stealing and sometimes into truly abominable acts like abortion and betrayal. For our own welfare as well as the benefit of others, we need to make every effort to form our consciences well and then to heed carefully what they tell us to do.

Homilette for Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Tuesday, XXII Week of Ordinary Time

(Luke 4)

In the gospel yesterday Jesus says that the Spirit has anointed him to let the oppressed go free. Today we see exactly what he means. Before we examine the story it is necessary to make a few notes about demons. We tend to see demons as tempters that nudge us to do what is wrong. The demons of the gospels, however, did not affect people morally, but physically and mentally. True, Satan makes appearances in the gospels, but he is not a demon but the devil, who tries to allure Jesus into sin. Today we don’t speak of demons possessing people with physical or mental disease. We use other terms like “cancer” and “bipolar condition” to describe these maladies. We should remember, however, that Jesus came to put an end to all conditions that oppress people.

The man possessed by a demon is already in the synagogue where Jesus is teaching. Evidently, the words of the other rabbis and the prayers of the people do not bother him. But Jesus teaches with authority; that is, he not only knows what he is talking about but also has the power to execute what he says. Jesus’ words disturb the demon who cries out in a loud voice trying to intimidate Jesus. He says, “’I know who you are – the Holy One of God.’” Jesus, however, is more than ready for the challenge. He speaks up more forcefully (exorcism is often a duel of words), “’Be quiet! Come out of him!’” The demon submits to Jesus’ power by dispossessing the oppressed man.

With the amazing success of science over disease we have difficulty thinking of Christ healing people. Of course, we should think of Jesus as working through medical professionals. But he also is at work beyond their powers to bring us from sickness to wholeness. God’s grace may not overcome the physical or mental symptoms of disease. But it can strengthen the person to accept them knowing that their harmful effects will dissolve in eternal life.