3 September 2024 - Tuesday of the 22nd even-numbered week
Homily
Jesus' activity in the Gospel often reminds us that true “power” lies not in the one who has strength and uses it to crush, but in the one who knows how to forgive and not respond to violence with violence.
In today's Gospel, we see another form of power in Jesus. He speaks with authority to the forces of evil, and they obey him. When he cured a man who was possessed by simply commanding the demon to come out of him, the crowd said: “ What kind of word is this? Because he commands the evil spirits with authority and power, and they come out!”
Because Jesus spoke “ with authority” , the demon knew who he was: “I know very well who you are ”, he told Him. Knowing who someone is and knowing someone are two very different things. We can know who someone is, we can even know a lot about him; but we cannot say that we really know someone until there has been a mutual relationship of trust and friendship between that person and ourselves.
Only the Spirit of God, Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthians, truly knows God. This Spirit of God is both the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son, the mutual love that unites them. The wonderful thing, says Saint Paul, is that we have the Spirit of Christ. And that is why it is also possible for us to know God. This knowledge of God is beyond all the knowledge about God that we can - and must - acquire through our reading and studies. (We can have done excellent theological studies and know everything about God and spiritual things; but we cannot say that we ‘know’ God if we have not established a personal relationship of love with him),
Let us ask for the grace to live ever more under the influence of the Spirit of love, who will enable us not only to know God truly, but also to drive out, through the all-powerful Word of Christ himself, all the forces of evil that may attack us.
* Today we celebrate the memory of Saint Gregory the Great.