Sunday 4 (B-2006): Deliver us from every evil

“In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit.”

It is impossible to know how this poor man became possessed. Nor is it clear why the demon in him is called “unclean” or what he was doing in a synagogue, a place you would not expect to find him.

Yet, there he was, ranting and raving, the demon terrified of being destroyed by Jesus and, so to speak, “blowing the cover” of Jesus’ humanity by trying to blurt out his divine identity, “the Holy One of God.”

All of this suggests a strange conclusion: evil is attracted to good. Why does evil seek man out if not because, basically, man is good? The more evil can gain access to the good, the more evil it can become. Because, essentially, evil is but a parasite of the good. The greater the good it conquers, the greater the evil it will be.

When the Son of God appeared on earth, it was not just some unclean spirit but the Devil himself who tried to gain control of him.

Evil is most likely to be found seeking entry where, in our human logic, it is least to be expected: in the synagogue, before the face of Jesus Christ. But evil does not follow logic. It follows the good. It seeks to enmesh itself with the good, to the point that we can be deceived into thinking that evil is good, and good evil.

Those who have already given evil entry no longer hold evil’s interest, unless they seek to be freed from it. Evil does not rest at home with its booty, but strives insatiably to increase its dominion.

Evil is always “avant-garde”, on the front line, reconnoitering to spot any weakness in the defenses of the good.

Evil knows that if it does not keep moving, the good will regain its ground. The battle between good and evil will never know any truce, stalemate or negotiated compromise.

The outcome must be total victory or total defeat.

Jesus rebukes and exorcizes evil because he wants to see man restored to the condition of being “very good”, God’s will for him from the beginning.

The people in the synagogue at Capernaum are astonished by the authority of the man Jesus over demons. They ask “What is this authority?” They do not know that he is “the Holy one of God.” They see him as just a man and so their question is understandable.

This question of theirs takes us into the deep realms of the relationship between the divinity of Jesus and his humanity.

Because if God had wanted to defeat evil simply by using his divine authority, why would he have needed to become man? He could have decreed evil’s defeat from heaven.

Yet here they had before them a man who did not even invoke the power of God to cast out the devil: he did it by his own authority.

In other words, Jesus did not expel demons simply as the Son of God, but also as the Son of Man.

So the next question arises: was it solely by virtue of his incarnation that the Jesus was able to expel demons, forgive sins, heal the sick and raise the dead? If so, then why did he himself have to suffer, die and rise again?

It was not simply by his incarnation that Jesus delivered mankind from evil. It was in virtue of what we call his Paschal Mystery, his death and resurrection, that Jesus definitively destroyed every form of evil afflicting mankind.

When the man Jesus exorcized the demonic in the synagogue, he knew that he could do it because he knew that he would one day destroy the devil himself in his own humanity by his death on the Cross.

His exorcisms, healings and other miracles were simply signs which anticipated the total restoration of each human being and all human beings in virtue of the death and resurrection he was yet to accomplish.

All the people Jesus helped in his public life would later die. The signs given to them had their value, not in the temporary relief from some temporal woe, however awful, but in giving them the gift of faith in himself. This gift would eventually unite them forever to the crucified and risen Lord, that is, to his immortal and glorified humanity.

By his death and resurrection the humanity of Jesus became for ever the instrument by which his divinity would grant to our human nature eternal freedom from all evil, that is, eternal life.

Therein is total victory for the good, the “very good”, the Supreme Good.

From this it follows that if we want to share in that total victory, we must submit ourselves completely to the glorified humanity of Jesus Christ. Where is that humanity that we may surrender ourselves to it?

It is the Catholic Church which is the presence of that humanity in history; the Church is the continuation of that humanity until the end of time.

Man is therefore called to become part of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, through baptism. He is to receive worthily Christ’s sacramental body and blood and vow total self-surrender to him.

This means passionate familiarity with every aspect of his humanity, what he taught, his way of thinking, feeling, loving, praying, suffering.

It means getting rid of anything in our own humanity which simply cannot be reconciled with him, that is, it means willingness to let our own “unclean spirits” be exorcized by his Holy Spirit.

Make no mistake: unclean spirits are not just sexual impurities, but any habit or attitude which defiles and denigrates our own humanity.

What are these habits and attitudes?

Anything against Christ-like love of God or neighbor, or against the Ten Commandments or the eight Beatitudes. Recall the seven capital sins (called capital because they lead to other sins) - pride, greed, envy, anger, lust, gluttony and sloth.

The Catechism tells us that tradition also recalls others “sins that cry to heaven”: the blood of Abel, the sin of the Sodomites, the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt, the cry of the foreigner, the widow and the orphan, injustice to the wage earner (Catechism, n. 1867).

How can we be freed from all these uncleannesses?

The best advice is the oldest: avoid the occasions of sin, make a regular and heartfelt confession to the priest so as to receive back the innocence of your baptism through sacramental absolution; pray with fidelity, with earnestness and with vigilant awareness of the reality of God and of evil.

As your condition in life permits, try to be detached from material things, give alms to the poor, exercise self-discipline, self-sacrifice and true self-love.

Trust in the mercy and compassion of the Savior without using it as an excuse to sin.

Remember, too, that the authority of Jesus is eternal and it lives on in his Church in the persons of the Pope and Bishops.

By the power and promise of Jesus himself, they cannot err in matters of faith and morals. As private individuals they can certainly err and be unclean in their own lives and behavior; all the above is as true for them as it is for everyone.

But when it comes to teaching the will and truth of Christ in matters of faith or morals, they cannot err quite simply because Christ cannot err. We must believe, on the strength of the Word of Christ, that “who hears them, hears Christ.”

So, with great humility and trust, listen to their authority in such matters and make their judgment your own as if Christ himself were speaking to you.

Human thinking, however persuasive, scientific and attractive, is no match for the life-giving power of Christ’s Word.

Human freedom is only truly free when it is freed by the Truth of Christ.

Do not give sin an inch; do not flatter yourself that you are virtuous; do not call evil good and good evil or you will talk yourself into damnation.

Today, Christ stands among us in this church ready and willing to liberate us from all evil. Let us entrust our sinful souls to the authority of his Word of eternal love.

And if that love rebukes us, let us accept joyfully that it does so only to cleanse us and restore us to sanity.

Msgr. Peter Magee

Sunday, January 29^th, 2006

Annunciation, DC: 7.00 am & 1.00 pm