Weekly Reflection 012906AD

Sunday, January 29, 2006AD

4^th Sunday in Greentime

Who Needs an Exorcism?

Beginning in 1970, Roman Catholics (and other Christians, such as Lutherans and Episcopalians) began to hear the Sunday Scriptures proclaimed over a three year cycle. Since we have been through the three year Lectionary (the red book from which the Sunday Scriptures are read) a full eleven times since 1970, Christians are more Scripture-savvy that at any time before. Two of the great benefits that the Holy Spirit prompted from Vatican II (1962-1965) were, indeed, the greater emphasis upon the vernacular liturgy and the three year Lectionary.

Still, some Scripture readings appear neuralgic. In the first years, in which Catholics became more familiar with the Gospel of St Mark, many were put off by the frequent exorcisms that Jesus performed. Who needed such stories in the 20^th century?

That all changed in 1974 with the release of the motion picture, The Exorcist, based on a novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty, a NYC author. Now people were listening intently and they made phone calls to rectories asking about symptoms of exorcism possibly manifest in one’s spouse. (It happened!!!)

Blatty said, in an interview at the time, that he, indeed, did believe in demonic possession. When asked why we don’t see much of it in the modern world, he answered that it served evil’s purpose better to have a low profile in modern, enlightened cultures that felt such thoughts ridiculous.

Today, people go one better than Blatty by demonstrating that maybe not only individuals, but families and cultures, can be possessed by the demonic as well. All one has to do is to use the words “addiction, compulsion and enmeshment” for “demonic possession”. One might see reality in a different way.

There is a nexus between the individual and family and culture. If an individual is addicted, compulsed or enmeshed in something bigger than oneself, sooner or later that affects the family. In addition, the same holds true for addicted families affecting both individuals. In addition, an addicted culture affects families that constitute it.

St Paul wrote about the “principalities in the air”. He was probably talking about forces that were bigger than an individual or a family or a culture could handle on its own. Whatever contributed to addictions, compulsions and enmeshments qualify for what St Paul was saying. The demonic today might be the unbridled quest for power, prestige, profits, popularity, pleasure. The list goes on. Jesus, in His startling, but not quaint, exorcisms demonstrated that God’s Power is stronger than that of evil. Modern Catholics (and other Christians) need the encouragement of these exorcism stories very much, because of our neurotic, non-stop, noisy, narcissistic, numb culture. We find that we might be more in need of an exorcism than we might think.

In and through and with Christ Jesus, we believe that God is in us and we are in God every nanosecond. We cannot overcome addictions, compulsions and enmeshments (viz., possessions) on our own, we need support groups. That was one of the reasons why Jesus of Nazareth formed the Jesus Movement.

Who needs exorcisms these days? Maybe, in a sense, we all (individuals, families and cultures) could use an exorcism or two. Call it as you see it. Something has gone wrong with the way things are. Jesus says that God will fix it if we believe God can (or even has to do so). 012906AD jfq