January 13, 2015
Tuesday, 1st Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Heb 2:5-12
Gospel: Mk 1:21–28
Jesus and his disciples went into the town of Capernaum and Jesus began to teach in the synagogue during the Sabbath assemblies. The people were astonished at the way he taught, for he spoke as one having authority and not like the teachers of the Law.
It happened that a man with an evil spirit was in their synagogue and he shouted, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: You are the Holy One of God.” Then Jesus faced him and said with authority, “Be silent and come out of this man!” The evil spirit shook the man violently and, with a loud shriek, came out of him. All the people were astonished and they wondered, “What is this? With what authority he preaches! He even orders evil spirits and they obey him!”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life Experience)
It was the belief in those days that addressing an opposing spirit with the precise name was one way of gaining control over that opposing spirit. Thus, when the evil spirit addressed Jesus as the Holy One of God, he was not confessing but trying to put Jesus under his control. Evil spirits by nature resist God even as their lips pronounce the exact description of God. Resistance is manifest in what the evil spirit said to Jesus in today’s Gospel reading. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” was a Hebrew expression of “hostility” (see Judges 11: 12, 2 Chr. 35:21, 1 Kgs. 17:18) or “denial of common interest” (Hos. 14:9, 2 Kings 3:13).
We too will eventually resist God if we allow evil spirit to possess us. We allow evil spirit to possess us through frequent commission of sin. Habitual sinning takes us far away from God. Each evil act is a step closer to perdition as we develop hostility towards God. At deathbed many hardened sinners have cursed God instead of taking advantage of their last precious minutes to repent.
Those who keep evading the right path with a view to take it when death is near also submit themselves to the evil spirit. The strategy of taking the last bus does not always work. Procrastination has its own risks. While God can always forgive us even at the last minute, the devil is not willing to surrender us back to God any time we want to return to Him.
We have heard of people who struggle so much to get away from the loop of habitual sinning but to no avail. To them every rising becomes prelude to another fall. This is surely the work of the devil. But for as long as these people struggle in resistance, the devil will never have complete power over them. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website:www.frdan.org.
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