Posted on 10/08/2021 5:10:59 AM PDT by MurphsLaw
Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Luke 11:15-26
Friends, in today’s Gospel, we learn of a person possessed by a demon. Jesus meets the man and drives out the demon, but then is immediately accused of being in league with Satan. Some of the witnesses said, “By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons.”
Jesus’ response is wonderful in its logic and laconicism: “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house. And if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?”
The demonic power is always one of scattering. It breaks up communion. But Jesus, as always, is the voice of communio, of one bringing things back together.
Think back to Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand. Facing a large, hungry crowd, his disciples beg him to “dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” But Jesus answers, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.”
Whatever drives the Church apart is an echo of this “dismiss the crowds” impulse, and a reminder of the demonic tendency to divide. In times of trial and threat, this is a very common instinct. We blame, attack, break up, and disperse. But Jesus is right: “There is no need for them to go away.”
“When an unclean spirit goes out of
someone,
it roams through arid regions
searching for rest
but, finding none, it says,
‘I shall return to my home from
which I came.’
But upon returning, it finds it
swept clean and put in order.
Then it goes and brings back seven
other spirits
more wicked than itself who move in
and dwell there,
and the last condition of that man
is worse than the first.”+++
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