The One Light

Friday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Est 4:17 Within your will, O Lord, all things are established, and there is none that can resist your will. For you have made all things, the heaven and the earth, and all that is held within the circle of heaven; you are the Lord of all.

Collect Almighty ever‑living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever

Scripture today: Galatians 3:7-14; Psalm 110; Luke 11:15-26

Some people said of Jesus, It is by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that he is driving out demons. Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven. Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them: Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebub. Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armour in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters. When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. (Luke 11:15-26)

The One Light There have been countless students of Aristotle, dubbed by very many — including Aquinas — as the Philosopher. His writings range from physical science to metaphysics, and some of them are abstruse indeed. Aquinas, who writes simply, produced much that is not easily understood. Certain of his fundamental points have taken a considerable time for scholars to appreciate, such as his idea of the act of existing. Any number of philosophers and theologians have written abstrusely — and in many cases convolutedly — on subjects religious. If we set this phenomenon against the writings of the prophets, and in particular the Gospel accounts of the teachings of Jesus Christ, we see a striking difference. Christ speaks simply and on broad, fundamental points. He announces astonishing mysteries in simple language. I and the Father are one, he tells his enemies. No-one can come to the Father except through me, he tells his disciples. The Father is in me and I am in the Father, he states elsewhere. He speaks of man blaspheming the Holy Spirit, and of the Spirit of Truth being our Advocate. So God is a trinity of persons. My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink, he told the assembled people at Capernaum. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I in him, he continued. The language of Jesus Christ is concrete, with a special predilection for analogy rather than abstraction. In this, he is squarely in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets and not at all in that of, say, the Greek philosophers. However, he transcends them all in the content of his straightforward teaching of the ineffable mysteries of God and our salvation. He is the Light of the world, and the world’s Redeemer. Connected with this is the range of very basic issues that feature in his teaching. For instance, it is notable how often he stresses the judgment of God, and how we must always be ready for it. We live a hair’s breadth from our judgment. Very common too is his teaching on Heaven and Hell. Granted his Revelation, Christ stresses its large and obvious features.

One instance of this pattern is our Gospel passage today (Luke 11:15-26), arising from the despicable attempt to smear Christ with the taint of collaboration with the demonic. He was driving out demons, yes, but this was just a demonic strategy — so they said. He was in cahoots with Satan. The two were hand in glove, with Satan himself arranging to dislodge his underlings from their nests so as to enhance the prestige of Jesus. With this prestige, he could then lead the people astray from their proper guides, the religious leaders of the day. In answer to this gratuitous and malicious accusation, our Lord immediately showed the absurdity of such a tactic. Would any king wishing to advance his hegemony, collaborate in destroying his own strongholds? Now, in refuting his enemies, our Lord makes points about the demonic world which are revealing. Firstly, there is the broad point conceded and used by his enemies, that there is a demonic world that is very personal and very inimical to man’s interests. There is Satan, and there are demons. We forget this in our day, and characteristically we do not believe it. That is not to say that there are not those who believe in the demonic — there is plenty of dabbling with the occult. But the ordinary man in the street tends to think that this visible world is all that there is. The forces of evil that bear on him are grounded in this world. Christ teaches modern man the simple and immensely important point that the unseen Satan is out to get him. The Devil wants to devour him like a roaring lion, seeking its prey. At the Last Supper, he referred to Satan as the Prince of this world, and said that at that point he was “on his way.” Here in our Gospel today, Christ refers to the demonic as a kingdom, and that Satan is the king of this black realm. He is the head of a dark household. Man is, then, up against a kingdom and if he is not part of the Kingdom of God, his prospects cannot be very promising. Further, Christ warns that though he may expel a demon from where he has been, one must be vigilant because the demon can return, and with colleagues. That is to say, one can fall away into a terrible predicament, if Christ is gradually abandoned.

Let us ponder long and prayerfully on the broad and simple revelation granted to us by Christ. This revelation has been the basis of millions upon millions of human lives, and has inspired profound and soaring thought and writing. Its teaching, simple in its Gospel expression yet ineffable in its mysteries, brings before us the fundamental realities for which we have been created. Among them is the grand choice. There are two lords, and two kingdoms. There is the Lord of all lords, Jesus Christ, and the Kingdom of which he is king. There is also the Prince of this world, who heads a murderous, hate-filled and aggressive host. What is it to be, then? Ah! Jesus, my Lord and my God! Him forever!

(E.J.Tyler)

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A Second reflection: (Luke 11:15-26)

Jesus Is the Stronger One The first thing we tend to think about God is that he is powerful. Indeed this is the first thing professed by the Creed about the one God — that he is not only powerful, but all-powerful. We believe in one God, the Father almighty. This is a source of immense consolation, and it surpasses the religious sense and belief of many of the religions of man. Man turns to the divine in order to have access to a higher power. In his ministry, our Lord revealed his divine power in so many ways. He showed that there was nothing that he could not do for the one who asked him, except for those things that depended simply on the free will of the one asking. Our Lord is the strong one, strong over the forces of nature and strong over the invisible spiritual forces that are the enemies of man. In Luke 11: 15-26 our Lord casts out a devil and compares his strength with that of Satan. Jesus is "someone stronger than he is", who "attacks and defeats him," taking away "all the weapons he relied on," and sharing "out his spoil."

Let us then gather with Jesus and fight with him daily, relying on the strength and power of his grace, never being discouraged. With him we can win the blessing of holiness, and bring that blessing to others.

(E.J.Tyler)

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