Ready for battle

The background of today’s gospel selection is a man possessed by an evil spirit. 

Jesus expelled the demon from the man, and the man spoke. The Pharisees watched this stupendous miracle as it happened. They saw Jesus drive the demon out of the man; they saw the man who had been mute, speaking. And they said, “Jesus expels demons because he is a devil himself; his power is from the Prince of Devils.” How could these deeply religious men witness Jesus’ godly works and see them as the works of the devil?

How could they have missed the spiritual reality that unfolded before their very eyes? It wasn’t hidden. They should have recognised it. They saw what they wanted to see, not what was there. They saw Jesus as opposed to them, a threat to their power and privileges. 

And what about us? Do we shift our gaze from the spiritual reality to the ease, the pleasure, the power, or whatever else it is that we want?

The perspective of St. Ignatius Loyola is that there’s a battle going on inside of our hearts. We know it too well.

Let us pray that we will not allow the faculty of spiritual discernment to atrophy and waste away. That we will instead make use of it, hone it, exercise it so that we will always recognise God’s reality in our lives.