The Strong Man and the Stronger Man

Third Sunday of Lent
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  For many men, especially as they’re in adolescence or a young adulthood, one of the worst things you can say is, “You look like your mother.”  I can’t be sure if this applies to daughters being told they look like their dad, but I can’t imagine a young girl wanting to hear she looks like a guy.  The physical comparisons, whether between mother and son or father and daughter might be somewhat true, but, at least for guys, it’s not the sort of thing you want to hear. 
    In a different vein entirely, but still something that shouldn’t be compared is our Lord and the powers of evil.  Christ was not afraid to use physical force with objects (as in the cleansing of the Temple) or sharp words with people (as in his rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees) to get his point across.  So the fact that He used neither of these in today’s Gospel demonstrates just how patient Christ could be.  There He is, working to free people from the dominion of the evil one, and people start surmising that He must be doing the work of the evil one.  I can’t say that I’d be as patient as our Lord in such a situation.

St. Irenaeus

    Instead, the Savior asks them how Satan is supposed to survive if he’s undermining his own work?  He says the words that Abraham Lincoln would paraphrase some eighteen hundred years later: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”  And then Christ speaks about His own work.  The strong man in this explanation is Satan, but the stronger man is Christ.  St. Irenaeus the early second century bishop of Lyons and martyr, writes in his magnum opus Adversus Haereses:
 

For as in the beginning [Satan] enticed man to transgress his Maker’s law, and thereby got him into his power; yet his power consists in transgression and apostasy, and with these he bound man [to himself]; so again, on the other hand, it was necessary that through man himself he should, when conquered, be bound with the same chains with which he had bound man, in order that man, being set free, might return to his Lord, leaving to [Satan] those bonds by which he himself had been fettered, that is, sin.  For when Satan is bound, man is set free; since none can enter a strong man’s house and spoil his goods, unless he first bind the strong man himself.

We are the spoils, the ones that Satan first duped, but that Christ freed from slavery to Satan, while Christ bound up Satan and put an end to his dominion over us.
    But, Christ also notes in this Gospel that even with His work of freeing us from Satan, it’s not as if Satan just gives up.  Christ does His work of freeing us, but we have to continue to cooperate in that work by standing guard against falling into that slavery again.  Because, as Christ noted, demons may be cast out, but he may return, and may bring his friends to try to wrest us back to the power of the enemy, so that we are more under Satan’s control the second time than the first.  As St. Peter warns us in his first epistle, the devil is prowling like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.  If we knew a lion was outside, we would be very careful about watching where it was, and making sure we were protected from an attack. 
    How do protect ourselves?  The works of Lent are a good starting point.  Prayer is a great way to guard against the enemy.  A daily habit of prayer is not only good to strengthen our relationship with our Beloved, a strong relationship with our Beloved keeps us from looking for other lovers.  Some people find that in the moment of strong temptations, prayer can help greatly.  Others find that, in the midst of strong temptations, it is very hard to pray.  But daily prayer, especially the Rosary, can assist in keeping watch against attacks of the enemy.
    Fasting also helps us to fight off temptation.  It may not always seem obvious how fasting helps, but we are a union of body and soul, and so when we discipline one, we discipline the other.  Fasting is intended to raise our mind to heavenly things, since we are not focusing as much on satisfying the body.  It reminds the body, which is so often the way that Satan tries to get us to follow him instead of God, that just because the body wants something does not mean that it gets it.  Bodily desires have to be subordinated to the soul, which has to be subordinated to the will of God.  And fasting helps to put that divinely established order back into line.
    Lastly, confession is an important part of regaining freedom and remaining free from the grasp of the enemy.  Of course, if we have fallen into mortal sin, confession restores us to sanctifying grace, the grace that allows us to be received into heaven.  It removes the obstacles to God’s grace that we have put up, and unshackles us from attachment to the enemy.  But even if we only have venial sins, confession strengthens us to work on avoiding those sins, and helps us to avoid falling into other sins, which can be more grave.  Confession not only treats the disease, but also helps prevent us from getting the disease in the first place.  Many exorcists have said that the best way to make sure that we are not susceptible to demonic oppression or possession is to make frequent confessions, since confession means that we want Jesus to be Lord in our life and we wish to serve Him, not the enemy. 
    In the end, resisting the devil means doing the will of God.  God does not want us to be slaves of Satan, but wants us to be God’s children, united with Christ.  Christ always works to free all those created in the image and likeness of God from enslavement to sin so that they can live in the freedom and joy of the children of God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Jesus is Alive!

Easter Vigil & Easter Sunday

The thought had crossed my mind, but apparently someone put up a billboard on 23 that says something like, “Jesus is dead.  April fools!”  I have to admit, it is a little weird that Easter falls on April Fools Day.  But as we assemble to celebrate our Lord’s Resurrection, we should ask ourselves if we truly believe that Jesus is alive.  And if we believe it, is that belief evident in our actions?

It’s very easy to treat Jesus like we treat any other deceased teacher or famous figure.  Someone recently told me that a lot of young people today see Jesus in the same light as Mahatma Ghandi, or Abraham Lincoln, or Socrates, that is, that they were good people, who taught and did good things, but now they’re gone, and relegated to history books and their writings.  Jesus is simply one of a long list of teachers and do-gooders who have graced the earth with their presence.  

But there is a major difference: Mahatma Ghandi, Abraham Lincoln, and Socrates, along with all the other teachers and good people, are all dead.  Jesus is alive, and we know it because His disciples, who, as our Gospel relates, were not looking for Him to be alive, saw the risen Jesus.  We can joke about “Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?” (because Ulysses S. Grant is actually in a sarcophagus above ground), but the tomb of Jesus is empty.  I have seen it, and there’s no one there.

I think it can be easy at times to treat Jesus like a deceased relative that we loved dearly.  We like to remember that person; we probably have a nice picture of that person in our home.  Maybe we even talk to that person from time to time.  I know I have a picture of my deceased grandmother in my home, as well as the pictures of other friends who have died in my office.  And we do profess by faith in our funeral Masses that, for the faithful, life is changed, not ended.  But with Jesus it’s even more dramatic.  His Body and Soul and united and He is active in the world.  

And it’s not just that he’s alive in the people who believe in Him, in their hearts and in their minds.  He’s more alive than that.  People saw Him, touched Him, heard Him, and ate with Him.  And we can, too.  

I think about my friends who are alive, and the way I think of them, versus how I think of my deceased relatives.  There’s a difference.  I’m not sure I can quite explain it, but there is.  You probably know what I’m talking about.  But when we think of Jesus, in which category do we put Jesus: our alive friends, or our deceased relatives?

So what does it look like to actually believe and act as if Jesus is alive?  What are some of the ways that others can know that we believe Jesus is alive?  One way is by our actions.  St. Paul (in our second reading) encouraged us to put away the old yeast, “the yeast of malice and wickedness,” and to live with the new “bread of sincerity and truth.”  If Jesus is alive, then He encourages us and strengthens us by the power of the Holy Spirit to live in a new way, a way that patterns our life on the life of Jesus.  We reject hatred, we reject vengeance, we reject evil desires, and we live for honesty, for love, for forgiveness, and for virtue.  

I don’t know about you, but I also talk about my friends who are alive a lot more than I talk about my deceased relatives.  Yes, we talk about the deceased especially around holidays.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  But we tend to tell stories about what we do with our friends, our communications with our friends, and how much we value our friendship especially when that friend is still alive.  I’m sure I bore people to death with some of my stories from ride alongs with my State Trooper friends.  There are things with other friends that seem funny to me that make no sense to people who don’t know my friends.  And I often will sing the praises of friends who help pick me up when I’m feeling down.  

Do we do the same with Jesus?  We might have to think about it, but we all have stories about times that we have spent with Jesus that are memorable.  Some of those stories may even sound crazy, but we know that it was Jesus and that He was there with us.  And how many times have we experienced the love of Jesus?  And yet, how often do we talk about that?  About ten chapters after our second reading, St. Paul also says to the people of Corinth, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain; you are still in your sins.  …If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.”  In other words, if Jesus is dead, if Jesus was just a good teacher who went the way of all the other good teachers, then redemption is not ours, and we are the most pathetic people.  

But Jesus is alive.  It’s not an April Fools joke.  Recommit yourselves this Easter to living like Jesus is alive: not only remembering Him on each Sunday as we come to Mass (that is important), but talking with Him, listening to Him, inviting Him to be a part of your life, talking about Him, and living a life like Jesus’ to the best of our ability.