1 Cor 2:10-16 / Luke 4:31-37
Paul speaks about the Spirit: The Spirit helps us appraise
everything.
In the ninth book of his Confessions, St. Augustine had an incident near
the end of the life of St. Monica, his mother. They were in Rome standing
at a window, overlooking a garden. Augustine writes: "We had gone
there . . .
to get away from the noisy crowd and rest. And so the
two of us.. . we enjoyed a way pleasant conversation. . . . We were
asking one another . . what it would be like to share the eternal life enjoyed
by the saints …"In the course of our conversation that day, the world
and its pleasures lost all their attraction for us." Augustine and
Monica experienced what Paul talks about in today's reading. Is our
attraction to the things of this world growing stronger or
weaker? "The Spirit will lead you into all the truth." John
16:13
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First
Reading
One word that
has been used to describe Christian living is "journey." An older and
perhaps more applicable word is
"struggle."
Paul describes the struggle between the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of the
world. It is an experience we all might have felt as we are torn by the
dilemmas of our life. Such a struggle can eventuate in growth toward Christian
maturity and wisdom. It enables us to rise above the spirituality and outlook
we had in primary or grammar school as we develop the spiritual tools,
criteria, mechanisms and strategies for dealing with adult life in a Christian
way. These are the materials of an appraisal of spiritual and secular things
that Paul describes. Their use results in our gradual approximation to the mind
of Christ. Slowly, we begin to be able to think like the Lord.
The closer we
are to the mind of Christ, the more dramatic is the struggle we have with the
spirit of the world. This is one reason why the Lord's confrontations with
Satan and the evil spirits in the Gospels are so stark and brutal. We are
witnessing in them the collision of two opposites. This is why the saints were
very conscious of sin and more aware of wrongdoing in the slightest things
than are most people. The light of Christ floods our minds revealing little
scrapes and scars that otherwise we would never have noticed. This inner light
constitutes the difference between Francis of Assisi and Jack the Ripper
****
Whenever
deliverance or exorcism is mentioned, we may think of something dramatic
happening, much like what we see in the movies. We may think of images of the
possessed person shouting and other weird things happening. We probably got
these impressions from what we read in the gospels about how Jesus cast off
devils and evil spirits. One such instance is in today's gospel when the evil
spirit that possessed the man shouted at Jesus. But Jesus said sharply,
"Be quiet! Come out of him." And the evil spirit came out of the man
without hurting him at all. We may not have seen such things happening,
especially in church. We don't expect such things to happen in church of all
places. But that doesn't mean that there are no evil spirits around. But if
Jesus gave the Church the authority and the power to cast out evil, then how is
it happening? In a less dramatic way,
but certainly, in no less a powerful way, we see it happening in the
Confessional. People who have heard the Word of God and have opened their
hearts to the cleansing and healing Word will realize the sin and the evil in
their hearts. They go for the Sacrament
of Reconciliation and there Jesus cleanses and casts out the evil in their
hearts, and they are healed and forgiven. Let us also listen to the Word of God
and open our hearts to the Word. And when we realise the sin and the evil in
our hearts let us go for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. There we will be cleansed and forgiven. That
is the power of the Word of God, and that is also the power and authority
that Jesus has given to His Church.
****
Let us pray: Lord our God, we say that authority means service, but
we experience that it is very hard to make this beautiful principle work. Keep
always before our eyes the example of your Son Jesus Christ. His authority was
healing and saving, respectful of people and yet committing us to get out of
our mediocrity. May all authority among us be humble, dedicated, self-effacing,
willing to serve to the end, and patterned after that of Jesus, your Son and
our Lord forever. Amen. God bless.
***
Saint Gregory the Great
Feast day September 3
Gregory was born about A.D. 540 in Rome, the son of a
wealthy senator. Like most of the nobility of his time, he was well-educated.
But unlike many, he was generous and concerned about those who were poor.
In his early thirties, Gregory was made the chief prefect,
or governor, of Rome. Gregory was attracted to the religious life and soon left
his position. He converted the family estate in Rome into the Abbey of Saint
Andrew, became a monk there, and founded six Benedictine monasteries on his
estates in Sicily. In about 578, he was ordained a deacon of Rome and sent as
the papal ambassador to Constantinople, where he served until 585. When he
arrived back in Rome, he was made the abbot of Saint Andrew’s.
In 590, Gregory was acclaimed pope by the clergy and the
people of Rome. Unwillingly, Gregory accepted the role, calling himself the
“servant of the servants of God.” Because of his political skill, learning,
talents, and deep devotion to God, Gregory was able to make peace with the
invading Lombards, save the city from famine by reorganizing the property and
granaries of the Church, and restore order within the Church. In 596, he sent
Augustine of Canterbury and 40 other monks to England to teach the Angles the
faith. Gregory is called the “Apostle of England.” He died March 12, 604.
