DEMONS

 INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 22 Tuesday in Ordinary Time  is, “Demons. 

TODAY’S GOSPEL: THE DEMON

Yesterday we began the Gospel of Luke as our weekday gospel reading. Here we are at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in Luke. Yesterday we had the coming out of Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth Today’s scene has Jesus going into the synagogue of Capernaum. This time the crowd doesn’t get angry at him. The unclean demon in this man in this synagogue acts up. He yells out that he knows who Jesus is: the Holy One of God. [Cf. Luke 4:31-37]

To understand the Gospels more, to understand the scriptures more, to understand life more, we better have an understanding of demons.

Making a very broad generalization, all cultures up to the Age of Reason - accept demons - evil spirits - the evil eye - unknown forces - that force or seem to push people to do dumb things - as well as hurt themselves and others.

In today’s society, we don’t talk about demons like we hear about them in the gospels. Yet if we read the papers, watch the news, we hear story after story of hurtful things people do to other people.

And if we know ourselves, we know we sometimes do something we regret . We resent doing something, but we did it. And we say things like, “I don’t know what got into me.” “I was acting kind of crazy last night.”

People can become crazed, dazed, dumb. Sometimes they can do something in a split second that ruins their life. They say, “Something possessed me.”

THE MOVIE THE EXORCIST

I always thought that the movie The Exorcist [1971] did our faith a lot of good.

Of course the firm story was a bit much too much with the head twisting and the throwing up pea soup scenes - but if you watched the movie as a parable - it had some scary and powerful messages.

The one that grabbed me was when the mother of Regan, Chris MacNeil, comes to the priest and asks, “How do you go about getting an exorcism?” I thought it was interesting that the mother is called “Chris” - a name very close to the name “Christ” and the priest name is “Damien” very close to the name “demon”.

Father Damien Karras who is also a psychiatrist - when asked to do an exorcism says: “I beg your pardon? Well, the first thing I'd have to get into a time machine and get back to the 16th century. Well, it just doesn't happen anymore, Mrs. MacNeil since we learned about mental illness, paranoia, schizophrenia. Since the day I joined the Jesuits, I've never met one priest who has performed an exorcism. Not one.”

Even though exorcisms are rare, even though we have a better grasp on mental sicknesses, chemical unbalance, a host of other understandings of the human personality, there is still a need to articulate what the wisdom in the scriptures have come up with.

In today’s first reading from First Corinthians 2: 10b-16, Paul says we can life a natural life or a spiritual life.  We could add that a person can lead a demon filled life as well.

Faith and prayer can help. Counseling can help. Psychiatrists can be very helpful - and often necessary.

And this man in today’s gospel reveals what the other characters in the crowd don’t know or get. He says, “I know who you are - the Holy One of God.”

CONCLUSIONS

So the Christian message is that Jesus is central. We know who he is and he can help us every day. That’s our faith. Christianity is more the following - connecting - with Christ - in a relationship - more that thinking our religion is just us with a list of truths we follow.

 Next, we are not a Christian who refuses medical treatments - saying we’re relying totally on God - so we will not use modern medicines.

If our children or our people are having mental problems - we need all the help we can give them - and there is help at times.

And finally there are observations in the scriptures to this day that can really help us. In a homily for today’s readings, entitled, “Evil Spirits”, by Father Joseph Donders, gives a good example about what it means to be possessed by an evil spirit - what it might mean.

He was working in Africa and he  tells about a 14 year old boy in Kenya who got a bike. He was a poor street kid. He fixed it up a bit - but he needed gears. He brought it to a bike repair shop. When he went to get his bike, he didn’t have any where near the money to pay for it. The shop said if he didn’t find the money in about 2 weeks, they would confiscate it.

To get money, he stole a radio from the school. He got caught - couldn’t sell it - and when he handed the radio back to Father Donders he says, “Father, don’t think I stole the radio!” The priest asked him, “If you didn’t, who did,” He answered, “The bike.”

Then Father Donders said, “He was right. The bike became an obsession, like an evil spirit mastering him.”

Grasp that, you’ll get  a better grasp on understanding the scriptures whenever Jesus and demons are mentioned.

 PICTURE  ON  TOP: Jesus healing the man in the temple at Capernaum.