9th October. Friday of Week 27
Saints Denis and Companions; also Bl. John Henry Newman (see below)
1st Reading: Joel 1:13-15; 2:1-2
A solemn fast to avert the plague, reminding us of the fearful “day of the Lord.”
Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, pass the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God! Grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God. Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.
Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near — a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.
Gospel: Luke 11:15-26
Jesus casts out devils by the finger of God, not by Beelzebul, as his detractors claim
But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” Others, to test him, kept demanding from him a sign from heaven. But he knew what they were thinking and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? — for you say that I cast out the demons by Beelzebul. Now if I cast out the demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his castle, his property is safe. But when one stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away his armour in which he trusted and divides his plunder. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first.”
Saints Denis and Companions; also Blessed John Henry Newman
Denis came to France from Rome in the middle of the 3rd century and became the first bishop of Paris. He was martyred (beheaded) with two of his clergy during the Decian persecution of Christians, shortly after 250 AD. John Henry Newman (1801-1890) from London, England, was a scholarly Anglican cleric and preacher in Oxford, a leader of the high-church “Oxford Movement” which wished to return the Church of England to forms of worship traditional in earlier times. In 1845 he left the Church of England and was received into the Catholic Church where he was later made cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. He was instrumental in founding the Catholic University of Ireland, and wrote an idealistic work on the Idea of a University. His other writings including his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, The Grammar of Assent and the popular hymn “Lead, Kindly Light.” He was keen for lay people to be involved any public discussion of religion and morals and promoted the idea of consulting the faithful in matters of doctrine
By the Finger of God
A favourite way of answering a question, among the rabbis and with Jesus, is to ask another. While our culture demands instant answers, the Bible tries to induce a meditative attitude in God’s presence. Jewish liturgies testified to a long-standing tradition that God will transform the universe. In God we find not destructive force but a transforming love. Joel quotes from the covenant with Moses on Mount Sinai: The Lord, your God, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and rich in kindness. Somehow, when we are pushed to the limits of our patience, we can realize that God has plans for us beyond the horizons of this earthly life.
Jesus acknowledges the existence of supernatural forces of good and evil, devils and angels. He wrestles with these mighty powers and must silence his opponents who accuse him out of envy and fear, “by Beelzebul, he casts out devils!” No, he replies, but it is with God’s help that he faces down the power of evil. So we too cannot rely simply on our own unaided strength, but make God our refuge in the day of evil.
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Asking for signs
Some people put Jesus to the test by asking him for a sign from heaven. They want him to perform some spectacular sign. Yet, they are completely blind to the presence of God in the ministry of Jesus itself. Jesus declares in the gospel that it is by the finger of God that he casts our demons from people. God is powerfully at work in his ministry if only people had eyes to see it. There is no need for Jesus to do a spectacular sign. Sometimes we too can be overly fascinated by the unusual when it comes to our relationship with the Lord. We fail to see the ways that the Lord is present among us in and through the goodness and kindness and hospitality of others, in and through the selfless service that people show each other in all kinds of ordinary and simple ways, in and through the various expressions of love that people show one another, in and through people’s quiet prayerfulness. We can miss the deeper dimension of the everyday and the familiar. I think of the poet Joseph Mary Plunkett who wrote, “I see his blood upon the rose and in the stars the glory of his eyes.” Nature spoke to him of Christ. The best of human nature and human relationships can speak to us even more powerfully of the Lord. [Martin Hogan]