Tuesday,
September 04, 2018
22nd Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading:
1 Cor 2:10-16
Gospel: Luke 4:31-37
Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee, and began teaching the people at the Sabbath meetings. They were astonished at the way he taught them, for his word was spoken with authority.
In the synagogue there was a man possessed by an evil spirit who shouted in a loud voice, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I recognize you: you are the Holy One of God.” Then Jesus said to him sharply, “Be silent and leave this man!” The evil spirit then threw the man down in front of them and came out of him without doing him harm.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
A story is told of a husband who was always paranoid about his position of authority in the family. His constant refrain was: “No! Nobody orders me around. I’m the boss in this family!” The wife had to put up with him for the sake of peace in the house. But he was getting unbearable. One day, the wife had her last straw. She took a long knife and started chasing her husband around the house. Shivering in fear the husband hid himself under the bed. “Come out, you coward!” shouted the wife. With broken voice the husband replied, “I will not! Nobody orders me around. I’m the boss in this family!”
This anecdote takes us to the heart of the Gospel story. Jesus ordered the evil spirits to come out. Unlike the husband in the anecdote we have cited, the evil spirits submitted themselves to Jesus’ authority and came out of the man they had possessed. They even recognized him as the Holy One of God. This docile submission by the evil spirits surprises us. By nature devils do not follow God’s orders. They became devils precisely by orchestrating a rebellion against God. The terms devil and obedience are miles apart in meaning: obedience is to light while devil is to darkness. How do we interpret then the devil’s obedience to Jesus’ order in today’s Gospel reading?
The Gospel reading is not about obedient devils but about a powerful God. The devils had no choice but come out of the man they had possessed because it was Jesus giving the order. Those who do the work of God experience this tremendous power over evil. Whenever a person does God’s will, he assumes moral power that not even devils can resist. We call this the power of moral persuasion. Such power reaches fullness when a person, acting as agent of God’s will, live morally. His very life constitutes a standing order to others to stop doing evil, an order so powerful which even devils find hard to resist. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M. Email: [email protected].
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