Evil possession

October 24, 2016
Monday
30th Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Eph 4:32—5:8
Gospel: Luke 13:10-17
Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath and a crippled woman was there. An evil spirit had kept her bent for eighteen years so that she could not straighten up at all. On seeing her, Jesus called her and said, “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” Then he laid his hands upon her and immediately she was made straight and praised God.But the ruler of the synagogue was indignant because Jesus had performed this healing on the Sabbath day and he said to the people, “There are six days in which to work; come on those days to be healed and not on the Sabbath.”But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Everyone of you unties his ox or his donkey on the Sabbath and leads it out of the barn to give it water. And here you have a daughter of Abraham whom Satan had bound for eighteen years. Should she not be freed from her bonds on the Sabbath?”When Jesus said this, all his opponents felt ashamed. But the people rejoiced at the many wonders that happened through him.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)

Andy Serkis the British actor who plays the bulging-eyed schizophrenic cave dweller Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy said that he studied his cats to develop his character’s sinister throaty voice. The success of the Gollum character is in its ability to project in the physical the moral condition of being addict and desperate. Gollum did this by being bent in posture and crawling all the time. The throaty voice also reinforced the character. In an interview Serkis said: “I used to drink a lot of Gollum juice which was honey and lemon and ginger and fruit teas. I had a lot of lower back injuries because of the decision to make him crawl because he is an addict and I wanted to reflect that sense of desperation”.

In real life situation no extra effort is needed to make such projection. On its own the internal condition manifests itself as symptoms like sickness, or as detestable overt acts in cases of internal moral degradation. In today’s Gospel reading the fact of evil possession was manifest in the woman’s bent posture. The devil alienates a person from the community. Probably because of such alienation she learned to stoop down to avoid the questioning eyes of the community.

Serkis was successful in becoming the Gollum movie lovers well remember because he began creating this movie character from the deepest recesses of his consciousness. If we let Satan into our souls, would he be less creative than Serkis? – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM, MMExM, MAPM, REB. Email: [email protected].

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