Meditation Minute

My Dearest Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

 

“Whoever is not with me is against me.” 

 

Gospel Reading: Luke 11:14-23

 

Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute, and when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke and the crowds were amazed. Some of them said, “By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons.” Others, to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven. But he knew their thoughts and said to them, “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? For you say that it is by Beelzebul that I drive out demons. If I, then, drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own people drive them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man fully armed guards his palace, his possessions are safe. But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him, he takes away the armor on which he relied and distributes the spoils. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

 

There are only two teams in the battle between good and evil and there are no bystanders. Jesus lays out the ultimate challenge – either you believe that He was sent by God or he is a companion of Satan.  The Jews must decide that they are either with God or not.  There is no middle ground.  We are given a simple command to follow God; yet we tend to harden our heart to his will.  We want to put God to the test.  We want him to perform our will and not his.  “If today you hear his voice” then “come into his presence.”  When we were young children, we would put our fingers in our ears to avoid hearing what we perceived as unpleasant commands or orders from our parents.  We considered that message as “bad news.”  As young adults, we sometimes block the ears of our soul to keep from hearing God’s commands because we don’t want to hear what he has to say, we block out the Good News of his love for us.  We get confused by the messages around us. 

 

Today’s Gospel goes deep to the root of the problem.  Here we see Jesus driving a mute demon from a man and after the demon has left his body, the man is able to speak.  The people who witnessed this miracle were amazed, yet at the same time they questioned Jesus’ authority to perform the miracle.  The people tested him asking for a sign that he was truly from heaven.  If he could not perform this sign, then it was by the power of Satin that this man was cured.  Why did the people question the miracle of Christ?  Why were the people so divided?  Who created this mistrust?  Satin tries to confuse the scene by creating conflict and doubt in our souls.  He tries to divide the parties to cause them to question the pure goodness of what just happened.  Yet we close our hearts to God’s wonder and awe.  At times our spiritual life can be deafened by the mute demon.  He sends us things to separate us from good.  Unfortunately, we are tempted and fall prey to his ways.  We must be able to build a strong defense to protect ourselves from Satin.  We do this through prayer, through the sacrament of the Eucharist and through reconciliation.  These should become habitual habits in your life for they will become the armor that protects you.  It is in the whispers that we will hear Christ.

 

A Simple Prayer

 

Lord, I am with you.

Help me detach myself from my sinful ways.

Help me attach myself to God’s love and wisdom

So that I can be a disciple of God for others.

 

Yours in Christ

Michael Marcon

 

PS

 

We are at the midpoint in Lent.  Is God’s message coming through loud and clear or is it being confused by Satin.  Are you finding it difficult to stay on course.  Victory over evil comes through prayer and consistency.  Satan hates consistency, he loves chaos.  In Lent, we try to separate ourselves from things we think are evil (e.g., X Box, television, candy).  “We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God.” (Thomas Merton).  God has not created anything evil.  Everything God created is good.  As a fallen people, we make those things evil.  That is why during Lent, we separate ourselves from the evil acts we commit with the gifts that God has given us.  The obstacle in joining God’s team is in our “self”, not in the objects we have given up.  Thomas Merton goes on to say, “The only true joy on earth is to escape from the prison of our own false self, and enter by love into union with the Life who dwells and sings within the essence of every creature and in the core of our own souls.”  St Silouan conditions this state as a state of humility.  “But to be saved, we must humble ourselves, for the proud man, even were he to be set down in Paradise would not find peace there but would be discontent, and say, ‘Why am I not up in the front rank?’ But the humble soul is filled with love and does not seek to be in the foreground. The humble soul wishes good things to all men, and in all things is content.” (St Silouan the Anthonite)