Exorcism in the Synagogue

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, and Jesus appearing in the synagogue at Caparneum, where he drives out a devil.

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 quietly and slowly 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!

AN INTRODUCTION FOR EXTRAORDINARY MINISTERS OF HOLY COMMUNION

 

ONLINE MEMORIAL BROCHURE

 JUST CLICK HERE

TO GO TO AN ONLINE VERSION

OF THE MEMORIAL BROCHURE

FOR RENEWING THE INTERIOR

OF SAINT CECILIA'S CHURCH!

Saving Nineveh

You’ve heard the story many times, and you heard part of it again today.

God goes to Jonah, and tells him that he wants him to go to the city of Nineveh, “and preach against it; for their wickedness has come before me”

By the second verse of the Book of Jonah, however, it becomes clear that this prophet isn’t convinced that the people of Nineveh will listen to him, so he gets on a boat bound for Tarshish. Tarshish is 2,500 miles away from where Jonah lived!

But the boat doesn’t get very far before a big storm breaks out and Jonah gets tossed into the sea and is swallowed by a big fish. For three days, Jonah prays to God from the belly of the

fish, telling him he has finally decided to obey him and go to Nineveh, and so God commands the fish to spit Jonah onto the shore, and he commands Jonah a second time: Go to Nineveh

and tell them “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed.”

Now, did you ever ask yourself why Jonah was so reluctant to go to Nineveh? It’s probably because Nineveh, the biggest city in the world at that time, was the capitol of Assyria, a nation

known for its brutality. In the British museum today, you can see a large collection of Assyrian stone carvings which proudly recount how they treated their enemies: impaling and beheading them, tearing down their cities and piling their citizens. One commentator writes that asking Jonah to convert Nineveh was like asking a Ukrainian to go to Moscow and tell Putin to repent.

So, Jonah must have thought that God was crazy. Those people in Nineveh are animals! They will eat me alive! Not even God can save them.

But then you heard what happened. Jonah goes to Nineveh and walks through the streets proclaiming (by the way, I suspect he just whispered it under his breath) “Forty days more and

Nineveh shall be destroyed.”

And what happens? The entire city repents, everyone from the King to the lowliest donkey put on sackcloth and ashes, turn away from their evil ways and return to the Lord.

Now, you would think that was a really great ending to the story. But no. Jonah is not thrilled that God has converted this people. So, Jonah goes out into the desert and sits there like a spoiled three year old, sulks and tells God, I am just going to sit here and die!

Why does he do this? Because God does not fit into his tiny view of what the world is supposed to be. Like a toddler, he is convinced that he, and his kind, are the center of the universe, and it is God’s job to give him everything he wants, and punish all those other people who are not like him.The Apostles said as much to Jesus once and he replied, “How

does it concern you, if I wish to be merciful?” Am I not God?

But since our first parents, the history of humankind has been a steady stream of disobeying God, because we’re convinced everyone but us should go to hell. If you ask a Hamas terrorist

what he thinks of the Jews, he would say “to hell with them.” If you ask a right wing Zionist about the Palestinians, he would say “to hell with them!”

And who, in our lives, do we see as “the other,” the resident of our own imagined Nineveh who is undeserving of salvation?

But as the Prophet Ezekiel tells us, God desires not the death of a sinner, but that they be converted and live (Ezekiel 18:33). And it is not our place to judge, and certainly not our prerogative to exclude anyone from God’s mercy. It is, rather, our place to pray for the

conversion of sinners, and the reconciliation of all nations and peoples.

Not very far from this Church, a talented priest with extraordinary pastoral skills, was once tempted to preach that all of us Catholics were going to heaven, and everyone else is going to hell. And while he was eventually reconciled to the Church, and God has done wonderful things through his followers, great damage was done by his failing to understand, as the Catechism teaches us that even those “who, through no fault of their own, do not

know Christ and his Church” can still be saved (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 848).

So let’s keep preaching by example and word to all men and women, even if they live in Nineveh.