Friday of the 27th
Week in Ordinary Time
October 9, 2015 8:30am
The context of today’s gospel is
that Jesus has just expelled a demon.
He says something curious.
“If an unclean spirit is driven out of someone, it will return and find
the house swept clean and in order.
And then it will bring seven other unclean spirits with it, and they
will re-enter that person and the last state will be worse than the first.”
This sounds very strange.
If a person is going to end up
being worse off, why bother casting out the unclean spirit in the first place?
Jesus’ idea seems to be that it
is not enough just to cast out an unclean spirit, to rid ourselves of some bad
habit or behavior.
We have to replace that with
something good.
If we don’t, the bad behavior or
habit may return and we might even be worse off.
For example, instead of just
trying not to avoid wasting lots of time watching senseless TV programs, we can
fill that gap by reading something worthwhile, maybe something about parenting
or some spiritual reading to nourish our faith.
Instead of just trying to avoid
over-drinking or even drinking any alcohol at all when we know we should not do
that, we can commit ourselves to eating healthy foods and drinking healthy
beverages.
The idea is that if we fill our
lives with good practices and habits and with the Lord and his grace, then the
casting out of evil or breaking of sinful ways can be effective.
They will not so easily return
because there will less or no space for them to reside.
