Thursday, January 28, 2021

HOMILY – Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Driving Out Demons

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        Jesus is in the Inaugural phase of his ministry. He is teaching with much authority as the one Moses foretold in today's reading from Deuteronomy. And his first miracle happens at a religious gathering.  

The man with an unclean spirit asks an important question:  “Jesus, what have you to do with us?” In other words, “Jesus, what do you want from us.”

As shared in this week’s parish wide email, "Jesus starts to build the Kingdom of God not by overcoming the evil that is out there – in the world of the unfaithful – but by first casting out the evil that is present in here – within the lives of those who are trying to be faithful. That's us."

This perspective is found in the book "Come Follow Me."

This is the same inaugural message found in the poem The Hill We Climb so beautifully shared at the recent Presidential Inauguration by Catholic Amanda Gorman.

The 22-year-old Youth Poet Laureate stole the show with her words of warning about the need to live into our better angels.

If you have not read it yet, I have posted it on Facebook. 

Here is just a snippet of her prophetic and cleansing words for us all shared on the same Capitol steps defiled just a few weeks ago:

“So we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another, we seek harm to none and harmony for all.”

This is the message of Jesus today. We must look inside ourselves first, drive out the demons in our own hearts first in order to take the first steps toward the way of peace.

This is an exorcism worthy of much prayer time.



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