Jesus’ Work Gathering into a United Kingdom, 27th Friday (I), October 8, 2021

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Friday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
October 8, 2021
Joel 1:13-15.2:1-2, Ps 9, Lk 11:15-26

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Twenty-three years ago today I was ordained a transitional deacon at St. Peter’s in the Vatican and the day after, which was Friday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, I had the privilege for the first time to proclaim the Gospel and to preach, at a Mass at the Chapel of Our Lady of Fatima in the Dorothean Sisters’ Casa Fatima across from the North American College in Rome. The Gospel was today’s and for that reason I’ve always had a special affection for it and a particular gratitude to God, because it’s not easy to preach on. So right from the beginning I had a chance to put into practice what I was instructed to do at my diaconal ordination, to “believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach,” I had to do so explicitly with far greater dependence on God, far greater cooperation with the Holy Spirit. Whenever I have had the chance to preach, therefore, on Jesus and Beelzebul, it always reminds me of the summons God gives to turn to him for the light of faith, not just on this anniversary but every time I preach.
• Let’s get into the scene. Over the last two days we have been listening to Jesus teach us about prayer and how to relate to God the Father. He instructed us to ask the Father with confidence not to let us fall when tempted and to prevent us from the evil one. He then taught us about the importance of persevering in prayer with the Parable of the Neighbor asking for Three Loaves at Midnight so that we may learn how to persevere in the Christian life until the end. Today’s readings focus on that necessary perseverance in life because of the way that devil persistently tries to tempt us to choose to divide ourselves from the love of God and the love of neighbor.
• We see in the Gospel the opposition Jesus faced by those who refused to believe in him or his works. By this point, Jesus had already worked all of the miracles foretold by Isaiah (61) that would mark the advent of the Messiah: he had proclaimed the Gospel to the poor, healed the sick, made the blind see, the deaf hear, the mute speak, the lame walk. He had liberated the captives from the snatches of the devil by countless exorcisms. He had fed multitudes. He had walked on water. He had done so much. The people who didn’t believe in him couldn’t deny the facts, but they could give another interpretation: he wasn’t working them by God’s power but by the devil’s, an attempt to justify their lack of faith in him and their opposition. Jesus, in his words to them, spoke about the work of the devil and the main thrust of his own saving work. The work of the devil is to divide and the main focus of Jesus’ work is to save us and sanctify us by bringing us into communion with God and in Him with others. Christ during the Last Supper prayed for a unity among us resembling the Trinity. He did that through his incarnation, his life, his passion, death and resurrection. We prayed in the Gospel verse about what he how he had said that when he would be lifted up on the Cross, he would draw all men to himself — and out of the clutches of the evil one. We remember from St. Mark’s Gospel the two essential aspects involved in life with Jesus: he calls us to be with him and to send us out. The devil wants to divide us from Jesus and prevent our going out as effective, ardent apostles. And he normally seeks to achieve both objectives by division, dividing us from genuine love of neighbor and thereby separating us from God. This is exactly the opposite of what Christ seeks: to gather us to him and to send us out to gather others. And then he gives everyone a choice. He said that Satan wouldn’t do exorcisms because he would then be defeating himself. It’s only God who could do so. God comes in Christ as the “stronger man” to conquer the power of Satan and take his “spoils,” knowing that his “spoils” would be souls Jesus would take out of his hand. He warned his critics at the end of the Gospel to see that God had freed them through the Old Covenant from the domination of the evil one, but that a worse fate could await them if they ceased to live by faith. The devil could return with seven demons and the new state would be worse than the one even before they had been given the Covenant. The whole thrust of Jesus’ words were to help us to respond to Jesus’ desire to gather us into his family and to send us out to gather with him.
• We see in the first reading how through the prophet Joel sought to gather elders and all those who dwell in the land into the house of the Lord for prayer. Joel is the eighth of eight post-exilic prophets we have been examining over the last three weeks. The exiles had returned with great hope and joy from Babylon to Jerusalem, and, as we’ve seen, pondered anew with detail the word of God, committed to keep it, and rebuilt the temple. But eventually they started to fall back into their old habits and the Prophet Joel needed to wake them up. That’s what Joel did, reminding them that the house of God was “deprived of offering and libation.” At the end of the Gospel today, Jesus mentions that once the devil has been banished and finds the house of the soul swept and in order, he returns with seven stronger demons to try to tempt them to fall even worse. That’s what was happening with the Jews. After they had gotten things back into order, they were now descending anew. That is a perennial concern for everyone.
• As we celebrate this votive Mass of the Sacred Heart, we focus on how the Good Shepherd out of love seeks to gather us together, to make us one body, one spirit in him. But like Joel he lamented to St. Margaret Mary that despite all he has done in giving us the sacrament of communion, most treat him with indifference, irreverence, coldness, sacrilege and scorn. Many deprive ourselves of “offering and libation,” of his body and blood. He himself blows the trumpet and sounds the alarm, that the day of the Lord has come, that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and he wants us and others to come to be with him in the light of that kingdom. At Mass, Jesus, the Strong Man, seeks to bring us together with Him and others. He gives us the help we need to defeat the devil’s attempted sabotage of our lives. He assists us to believe what we read, teach what we believe, and practice what we teach. He reminds us that we are the disciples of him who has defeated the devil and conquered even death and sin and helps us to commit anew to his rebuilding project in us and to the work of gathering with him into a united kingdom that will stand strong into eternity.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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