Third Sunday Of Lent
St. Longinus
Sirach,
Chapter 48, Verse 12
When Elijah was
enveloped in the whirlwind, Elisha was filled with his spirit; He worked twice
as many marvels, and every utterance of his mouth was wonderful. During his
lifetime he feared no one, nor was
anyone able to intimidate his will.
Is there anything that threatens or frightens you? Are
there bullies or organizations (IRS/COVID-19) that scare you? Does the threat
of terrorism or the coercing by dark government out of control worry you? Then
welcome to the 21st Century. We need the spirit of Elisha so that
all may know that we feared no one in our lifetime and were not daunted by
threats nor were we overawed by demonstrations of power and that we are
resolute in our following of the gospel.
O
LORD, you have probed me and you know me; you know when I sit and when I stand;
you understand my thoughts from afar. My journeys and my rest you scrutinize,
with all my ways you are familiar. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold,
O LORD, you know the whole of it. Behind me and before, you hem me in and rest
your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; too lofty for me to
attain. (Ps. 139:1-6)
“Woe
to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill
and cumin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and
mercy and fidelity. But these you should have done, without neglecting the
others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! “Woe to
you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and
dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee,
cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.”
(Mt. 23:23-26)
Christ
again foreshadows His victory (this time over the devil), but as we move closer
to Passion tide, He also hints at the way in which this will be done.
·
The
holy Church gave us, as the subject of our meditation for the first Sunday of Lent, the Temptation
which our Lord Jesus Christ deigned to suffer in the Desert. Her object was to
enlighten us with regard to our own temptations and teach us how to conquer
them.
·
Today,
she wishes to complete her instruction on the power and stratagems of our
invisible enemies; and for this she reads to us a passage from the Gospel of
St. Luke. During Lent, the Christian ought to repair the past, and provide for
the future; but he can neither understand how it was he fell, nor defend
himself against a relapse, unless he have correct ideas as to the nature of the
dangers which have hitherto proved fatal, and are again threatening him.
·
Hence,
the ancient Liturgists would have us consider it as a proof of the maternal
watchfulness of the Church, that she should have again proposed such a subject
to us. As we shall find, it is the basis of all today’s instructions.
Assuredly, we should be the blindest and most unhappy of men, if, - surrounded
as we are by enemies, who unceasingly seek to destroy us, and are so superior
to us both in power and knowledge, - we were seldom or never to think of the
existence of these wicked spirits. And yet, such is really the case with
innumerable Christians now-a-days; for, truths are diminished from among the
children of men [Ps. xi. 2].
·
So
common, indeed, is this heedlessness and forgetfulness of truth, which the Holy
Scriptures put before us in almost every page, that it is no rare thing to meet
with persons who ridicule the idea of Devils being permitted to be on this
earth of ours! They call it a prejudice, a popular superstition, of the
Middle-Ages! Of course, they deny that it is a dogma of Faith. When we read the
History of the Church or the Lives of the Saints, they have their own way of
explaining whatever is there related on this subject. To hear them talk, one
would suppose that they look upon Satan as a mere abstract idea, to be
taken as the personification of evil.
·
When
they would account for the origin of their own or others’ sins, they explain
all by the evil inclination of man’s heart, and by the bad use we make
of our free-will.
·
They
never think of what we are taught by Christian doctrine; namely, that we are
also instigated to sin by a wicked being, whose power is as great as is the
hatred he bears us. And yet, they know, they believe, with a firm faith, that
Satan conversed with our First Parents, and persuaded them to commit sin, and
showed himself to them under the form of a serpent. They believe, that this
same Satan dared to tempt the Incarnate Son of God, and that he carried him
through the air, and set him first upon a pinnacle of the Temple, and then upon
a very high mountain. Again; they read in the Gospel, and they believe, that
one of the Possessed, who were delivered by our Savior, was tormented by a whole
legion of devils, who, upon being driven out of the man, went, by Jesus’
permission, into a herd of swine, and the whole herd ran violently into the
sea of Genesareth, and perished in the waters. These, and many other
such like facts, are believed, by the persons of whom we speak, with all the
earnestness of faith; yet, notwithstanding, they treat as a figure of speech,
or a fiction, all they hear or read about the existence, the actions, or the
craft of these wicked spirits.
·
Are such people Christians, or have
they lost their senses?
One would scarcely have expected that this species of incredulity could have
found its way into an age like this, when sacrilegious consultations of the
devil have been, we might almost say, - fashionable. Means, which were used in
the days of paganism, have been resorted to for such consultations; and they
who employed them seemed to forget, or ignore, that they were committing what
God in the Old Law, punished with death, and which, for many centuries, was
considered by all Christian nations as a capital crime. But if there be one
Season of the Year more than another in which the Faithful ought to reflect
upon what is taught us both by faith and experience, as to the existence and
workings of the wicked spirits, - it is undoubtedly this of Lent, when it is
our duty to consider what have been the causes of our last sins, what are the
spiritual dangers we have to fear for the future, and what means we should have
recourse to for preventing a relapse. Let us, then, hearken to the Holy Gospel.
Firstly, we are told, that the devil had possessed a man, and that the
effect produced by this possession was dumbness.
·
Our
Savior casts out the devil, and, immediately, the dumb man spoke. So that, the
being possessed by the devil is not only a fact which testifies to God’s
impenetrable justice; it is one which may produce physical effects upon them
that are thus tried or punished. The casting out the devil restores the
use of speech to him that had been possessed.
·
We
say nothing about the obstinate malice of Jesus’ enemies, who would have it,
that his power over the devils, came from his being in league with the prince
of devils:- all we would now do is, to show that the wicked spirits are
sometimes permitted to have power over the body, and to refute, by this passage
from the Gospel, the rationalism of certain Christians.
·
Let
these learn, then, that the power of our spiritual enemies is an awful reality;
and let them take heed not to lay themselves open to their worst attacks, by
persisting in the disdainful haughtiness of their Reason. Ever since the
promulgation of the Gospel, the power of Satan over the human body has been
restricted by the virtue of the Cross, at least in Christian countries; but
this power resumes its sway as often as faith and the practice of Christian
piety lose their influence. And here we have the origin of all those diabolical
practices, which, under certain scientific names, are attempted first in
secret, and then are countenanced by being assisted at by well-meaning
Christians. Was it not that God and his Church intervene, such practices as
these would subvert society? Christians! Remember your baptismal vow! You have
renounced Satan: take care, then, that by a culpable ignorance you are not
dragged into apostacy. It is not a phantom that you renounced at the Font; he
is a real and formidable being, who, as our Lord tells us, was a murderer
from the beginning [St. John, viii. 44].
·
But,
if we ought to dread the power he may be permitted to have over our bodies; if
we ought to shun all intercourse with him, and take no share in practices over
which he presides, and which are the worship he would have men give him;
- we ought, also, to fear the influence he is ever striving to exercise over
our souls. See, what God’s grace has had to do in order to drive him from our
soul! During this holy season, the Church is putting within your reach those
grand means of victory, - Fasting, Prayer, and Almsdeeds.
·
True
sweets of peace will soon be yours, and, once more, you will become God’s
temple, for both soul and body will have regained their purity. But be not
deceived; your enemy is not slain. He is irritated; penance has driven him from
you; but he has sworn to return. Therefore, fear a relapse into mortal
sin; and in order to nourish within you this wholesome fear, meditate upon the
concluding part of our Gospel. Our Savior tells its, that when the unclean
spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through places without water. There
he writhes under his humiliation; it has added to the tortures of the hell he
carries everywhere with him and to which he fain would give some alleviation,
by destroying souls that have been redeemed by Christ.
·
We
read in the Old Testament that, sometimes, when the devils have been conquered,
they have been forced to flee into some far-off wilderness: for example. The
holy Archangel Raphael took the devil that had killed Sara’s husbands, and
bound him in the desert of Upper Egypt [Tob. viii. 3]. But the enemy of
mankind never despairs of regaining his prey. His hatred is as active now, as
it was at the very beginning of the world, and he says: I will return into
my house, whence I came out.
·
Nor
will he come alone. He is determined to conquer; and therefore, he will, if he
think it needed, take with him seven other spirits, even more wicked
than himself. What a terrible assault is this that is being prepared for
the poor soul, unless she be on the watch, and unless the peace, which God
has granted her, be one that is well armed for war! Alas! with many souls the
very contrary is the case and our Savior describes the situation in which the
devils finds them on his return: they are swept and garnished, and that
is all! No precautions, no defense, no arms. One would suppose that they were
waiting to give the enemy admission.
·
Then
Satan, to make his re-possession sure, comes with a seven-fold force. The
attack is made; - but there is no resistance, and straightways the wicked
spirits entering in, dwell there; so that, the last state becometh
worse than the first; for before, there was but one enemy, - and now
there are many. In order that we may understand the full force of the
warning conveyed to us by the Church in this Gospel, we must keep before us the
great reality, that this is the acceptable time. In every part of the
world, there are conversions being wrought; millions are being
reconciled with God; divine Mercy is lavish of pardon to all that seek it. But,
will all persevere? They that are now being delivered from the power of Satan,
- will they all be free from his yoke, when next year’s Lent comes round?
·
A
sad experience tells the Church, that she may not hope so grand a result. Many
will return to their sins, and that too before many weeks are over. And if the
Justice of God overtake them in that state - what an awful thing it is to say
it, yet it is true, - some, perhaps many, of these sinners will be eternally
lost! Let us, then, be on our guard against a relapse; and in order that we may
ensure our Perseverance, without which it would have been to little purpose to
have been for a few days in God’s grace, - let us watch, and pray; let us keep
ourselves under arms; let us ever remember that our whole life is to be a
warfare. Our soldier-like attitude will disconcert the enemy, and he will try
to gain victory elsewhere.
Prayer. We beseech Thee, Almighty God,
regard the prayers of Thy humble servants, and stretch forth in our defence the
right hand of Thy majesty.
EPISTLE. Epliesians v. 1-9.
Brethren:
Be ye therefore followers of God, as most dear children. And walk in love as
Christ also hath loved us, and, hath delivered Himself for us, an oblation and
a sacrifice to Grod for an odor of sweetness. But fornication and all
uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not so much as be named among you, as
becometh saints: or obscenity, or foolish talking, or scurrility, which is to
no purpose: but rather giving of thanks. For know ye this and understand that
no fornicator, nor unclean, nor covetous person (which is a serving of idols),
hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with
vain words. For because of these things cometh the anger of God upon the
children of unbelief. Be ye not therefore partakers with them. For you were
heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord. Walk ye as children of the
light: for the fruit of the light is in all goodness, and justice, and truth.
Aspiration. O Lord, free my heart from all inordinate
desires for temporal goods and sensual pleasures. May a childlike fear of Thee
guard my tongue, that I may not speak foolish or sinful words.
GOSPEL. Luke xi. 14-28.
Therefore, they shall be your judges. But if I by the finger of God cast out devils, doubtless the kingdom of God is come upon you. When a strong man armed keepeth his court: those things are in peace which he possesseth. But if a stronger than he come upon him and overcome him: he will take away all his armor wherein he trusted and will distribute his spoils. lie that is not with Me is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through places without water, seeking rest: and not finding, he saith: I will return into my house whence I came out. And when he is come, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then he goeth and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and entering in they dwell there. And the last state of that man becometh worse than the first. And it came to pass as He spoke these things, a certain woman from the crowd lifting up her voice said to Him: Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the paps that gave Thee suck. But He said: Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.
What are we to understand here by the dumb devil? The evil spirit, who so controls those of whom he has possession that they are dumb, and through a false shame keep away from confession.
By what power did Christ cast out the devil? By His divine power, which worked so suddenly and perfectly that the possessed was at once freed and able to speak.
How did Christ show the Jews that He did not cast out devils by Beelzebub?
1. By the parable in which He explains to them that the kingdom of Satan cannot stand if one evil spirit is cast out by another.
2. By pointing to their own children, some of whom were enabled to cast out devils by the power they had received from God (Mark ix. 37, 38).
3. By His whole life, and His works, which were in direct opposition to the devil.
Prayer. O Jesus, conqueror of the dumb
devil, strengthen me, that if I should have the misfortune to sin against Thy
holy commandments, I may have courage to overcome my false shame, and confess
my sins in sincerity and humility. O my Savior, be Thou my leader in the fight,
that I may foil those arms of the devil: my evil inclinations, idleness, bad
company, bad books, and human respect, and grant that I may never relapse into
sin, but serve Thee with perseverance. Amen.
Lenten
Calendar[2]
Read: Take time to read the readings
before going to Mass today. You can sign up to receive the daily readings.
Reflect: Let us not forget that real poverty
hurts: no self-denial is real without this dimension of penance.” (Pope Francis, Message for Lent,
2014)
Pray: Pray in solidarity with refugees
around the world.
Act: When confronted with your own
weakness during Lent, don’t
give in to anger, frustration, and self-pity. Be patient and see yourself as
God does, with unconditional love.
St. Longinus was the Roman centurion who pierced the side of Christ with a lance. He is said to have converted to Christianity after experiencing the darkness after Christ's death.
St. Luke tells us that the centurion "gave praise to God", and exclaimed, "Truly this was an upright man." (Luke 23:47)
What was believed to be the Holy Lance of Longinus, was given to Innocent VIII in 1492.
Things
to Do:
- Read more
about the statue of St.
Longinus
at St. Peter's Basilica.
- Read The
Life of Saint Longinus from the Golden Legend
When Our Lord overcame the Devil in the wilderness, He quoted Scripture. In Scripture, the Devil and his demons go by several names and are portrayed by several vivid images, each one pointing to some important aspect of their nature and activity. To know these names and images is to understand better the kind of opponents we face in spiritual warfare.
·
The
Devil, literally, “one who hurls
[himself] across” the path of God’s plan; Mt 4: 1.
·
Satan, literally, “adversary, attacker”;
Job 1: 6; Mt 4: 10.
·
Beelzebul, the prince of demons, the name of
a pagan Canaanite god meaning “the Prince-God”; the Jews interpreted the word
as “prince of demons” because they identified false gods with demonic spirits;
Mt 12: 24– 27. The form Beelzebub, used in some Bible translations, is a
contemptuous adaptation of the name that means “Lord of the flies”; see also
Baalzebub as a reference to the Canaanite god in 2 Ki 1: 2– 6.
·
The
Serpent, the malicious intruder in
the Garden of Eden who led our first parents into sin; Gn 3: 1; Rv 12: 9.
·
Demon, from the ancient Greek term for a
lesser deity; St. Paul identified such pagan gods with demonic spirits; 1 Cor
10: 20– 21.
·
Unclean spirit, in the sense of morally unclean
or impure; Mt 10: 1.
The
Trinity is the sum, substance, subject and object of our prayer. We are
baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. One God, who
is three persons, is a mystery too deep for anyone to fathom. St. Teresa of
Avila had a vision on the Trinity she stated, “What was represented to me were three distinct persons, for we can
behold and speak to each one. Afterward I reflected that only the Son took
human flesh, through which this truth of the Trinity was seen. These persons
love, communicate with, and know each other…and this is a very great truth…In
all three persons there is no more than one will, one power, and one dominion,
in such a way that one cannot do anything without the others.” St. John Paul II
stated also, “God in his deepest mystery is not a solitude but a family, since
he has in himself fatherhood, sonship, and the essence of family, which is
love.” We are created for the sake of
love. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, (234) the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is
the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in
Himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the
light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching
in the "hierarchy of the truths of faith". The whole history of
salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the
one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men "and
reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin". God the
Father sent the Son so that we might receive the Spirit. God became what we
are, so that we might become what He is. He assumed our nature, so that we
might share in His. Heaven is nothing other than the sharing, that communion,
and it has begun with our baptism. All the sacraments and all Catholic liturgy
are about the Blessed Trinity. We have been taken up into the life of the
Trinity, even now. We do not have to wait to live in heaven, Heaven has come to
us—though we still await the day of consummation, when we shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is (Jn. 3:2). Our very nature speaks of the trinity
through our Mind, emotions and will. Will to serve!
Daily
Devotions
·
Today in honor of the Holy Trinity do the Divine Office giving
your day to God. To honor God REST: no shopping after SUNSET ON SATURDAY till
Monday. Don’t forget the internet.
[2]http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/march-24.cfm
[4]Thigpen,
Paul. Manual for Spiritual Warfare. TAN Books.
[5] Hahn, Scott, Signs of Life; 40 Catholic
Customs and their biblical roots. Chap. 34. Devotion to the Trinity.
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