Thursday in the Third Week of Lent, March 7, 2024

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.”

In certain cases, such as in the process of beatification or canonization, the Holy Church looks rigorously at actions proposed as miraculous.  Very often it is the matter of a cure from disease or infirmity.  Some basic criteria have become standard in judging whether a miracle has been performed or not.  One of these is that the healing must be instantaneous.  It cannot result from a long recovery.  As a result of the strict application of the criteria, many proposed miracles are not admitted.  The Church intends to set before the faithful only that which is true and verifiable.  When, therefore, the Church announces that a miracle has taken place at the shrine at Lourdes, the faithful can feel safe as to its actuality.  Even so, there are those who will mock the miracle — and all miracles — as evidence more of other people’s credulity than of divine intervention in our world.  For them, only what they can see or measure exists — that is, what other people say they have seen and measured.  Their world is a very narrow box.  It’s very limits infuriate them, yet they cannot seem to live without them.  There are even people who have seen miracles performed before them — actions which clearly go beyond the natural — and they will squirm and fight with themselves and cross their eyes at what they are looking at rather than to accept what is happening.

This is what those do who witness the Lord Jesus exorcizing mute demon from this man.  We are told that “the crowds were amazed” at this: these people had known the man before the demon possessed him and knew him to be loquacious, and then seen how he could not even cry out in pain.  Then Jesus came and expelled the demon.  The people knew very well that not every case of muteness was caused by demonic possession, but when the Lord exorcised a demon he did so by commanding it to leave.  He did not always speak when healing the sick and the lame.  This exorcism, which is a miraculous act, was evident to all present for it.  And yet there were those refused to believe what the Lord had done and in the panic which resulted from the clash of what they saw and what they thought possible, they ascribed the exorcism to the lord of the demons.  The Lord patiently explains how illogical these logical people were acting.  They would believe anything rather than the truth.

“When a strong man fully armed guards his palace, his possessions are safe.”  The Lord uses the occasion to reinforce his message, that the Kingdom of God has come upon them.  The “strong man” here, as the Fathers remind us, is the devil.  He is “strong” due to his angelic nature but also because of our fallen human nature.  Human beings were his possessions in the time before grace, but now comes a stronger man — divine in his nature — who attacks and overcomes him through his Passion, Death, and Resurrection.  Beaten, the strong man slinks away and is master only of those who choose him to be their master.  But his former possessions now belong to the stronger man, Jesus Christ, and he distributes them, as “spoils”, for his angels to guard.  They are also distributed to the world, sent forth to preach the Gospel and to baptize the repentant.  These are said to “gather” with Jesus.  Distributed to the far parts of the world, they gather together and bring in to harvest all the elect.