This is my homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Mark’s Gospel is different than Matthew and Luke. There is no account of Jesus’ birth, just the story of John the Baptist, the Baptism of Jesus, a bri
That’s quite a way to begin a public ministry: by casting out a devil. Jesus, we are told simply turns to the possessed man and says “Quiet! Come out of him!” and the man has a convulsion and with a loud cry the spirit comes out of him.
Now, I’m afraid if Mark approached a modern screen writer with that script it might not make the cut. It lacks the dramatic appeal, the extended tension and the sudden surprises that modern horror films use to portray an exorcism.
There are four such films making the rounds on Netflix, Hulu and HBO now. One is called The Vatican Tapes in which “a priest and two Vatican exorcists do battle with an ancient satanic force to save the soul of a young woman.” Then there’s The Evil Dead in which “5 friends go to stay at a remote cabin only to accidentally release a bunch of demons from a book.”
The third is Deliver us from Evil in which “a police officer encounters a frightening alternate reality when a renegade Jesuit priest (notice there’s always a renegade Jesuit priest in these movies?) convinces him that demonic possession may be to blame for the gruesome murders.” And finally The Rite, in which a seminarian “reluctantly attends exorcism school at the Vatican. While he’s in Rome, he meets an unorthodox priest (I wonder if he’s a Jesuit) who introduces him to the darker side of his faith.”
Those of us who are a little older remember bring scared out of our wits by Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, but the plot really hasn’t change much over the years.
But what Jesus is doing in today’s Gospel is something more than starring in a fictional horror film. What Jesus is doing is real life. As real as the next sin I am tempted to commit, the grudge I am tempted to hold or the next war we are tempted to wage.
Since God created mankind in his own image and likeness, endowed with the free will to love or to sin, the world has been one long struggle between light and darkness, walking toward and alongside the Lord or walking away from and against him.
Eve and her husband chose to walk away from God, and that original sin was redeemed by the sacrifice of Calvary, as in a perfect sacrifice of love, the Son of the Living God offered his life to set us free from our original sinfulness.
But, as the Catechism reminds us, there is a bit more to the story, for, “behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy.” The author of genesis depicts him as a snake in the grass, or perhaps in a tree.
Another movie I remember from years ago depicts him as a little red man with horns and a long tail, whispering into my ear: “Go ahead! Don’t worry! It’ll be a lot of fun!”
He is the fallen angel who goes variously by the name of Satan or the devil. Like our first parents, this angel was originally made to be good, but with the free will God gave him, he and the other demons chose to reject God. Thus, does Saint John call him “a liar and the father of lies.”1 The Lord Jesus himself calls the devil “a murderer from the beginning.”2
The Prince of Darkness then, is far more frightening than any horror movie can portray, for he doesn’t just jump out from behind the door and make us scream, he tempts us to reject the God who made us: to choose selfishness instead of love, hate instead of mercy and myself instead of my brother or sister.
Yet Satan is far less powerful than the scary movies, for he is just a creature like us, and no match for the God who made him.
And while the darkness of this world, from selfishness to murder to pandemic sickness can all be traced back to the Devil and his minions, we are the sons and daughter of God, who made heaven and earth, whose only Son by the Power of his Precious Blood, shed for us upon the Altar of the Cross for our salvation,
Seven times does Jesus Exorcise demons in the Gospels, and each time it is by a simple command. “Come out of him!” “Get out of there!” Be gone!” And the devil has no choice but to obey.
For, in the words of our beloved Pope emeritus, the Cross of Christ is the devil’s ruin. And while the powers of darkness may still tempt us to choose power or wealth, or pleasure over sacrifice, mercy and a holy life, we always have a choice. Or, again, in the words of Pope Benedict:
Overcoming the temptation to subject God to oneself and one’s own interests…giving God first place, is a journey that each and every Christian must make over and over again. “Repent” is an invitation we [will soon] hear during Lent, it means following Jesus…; it means letting God transform us…It means recognizing that we are creatures, that we depend on God, on his love, and that only by “losing” our life in him can we gain it.
That’s not quite so scary as the latest horror movie, I’m afraid. But it’s real life, in which the powers of darkness and sin have nothing to offer us but a dead end of crippling selfishness. But you have been called to the freedom of the children of God! And how blessed you are to be called to the supper of the Lamb!
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1 - 1 John 3:8; John 8:44. Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 392.
2 - John 8:44; cf. Matthew 4:1-11.
