Reflection for Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Today’s Gospel is one of encouragement, a message of hope. It tells us that evil something alien to us, an intruder from without; something that does not belong in our world and should not be accepted as a part of what we consider to be normal. There are physical evils, diseases and sicknesses that beset us in mind and in body. Hurricanes, earthquakes, and natural disasters likewise plague us. We devote much of our resources to overcome them, or to at least sufficiently neutralize their effects so that we can live in harmony, peace, and fulfillment.
There are also Spiritual evils, spiritual disaster and sicknesses that beset us in mind and soul. And we should likewise devote our resources to overcome them. In this way we can live interior in harmony, peace, and fulfillment of God’s will us.
This inner sickness, this spiritual disease, is certainly alien to us, an intruder from the outside. We have an innate sense, an inner realization, that we were not meant to live in such a way that we are at war within ourselves. In biblical imagery evil insinuates from the outside as a serpent-a poisonous serpent spewing venomous lies that poison our peaceful relationships with each other and with God. This should not be accepted as the norm – as normal. Nor should we, when confronted with our own spiritual sickness, declare:” Oh, well, that’s just me. You will have to accept me as I am” while tat ma be our temporary condition -living in state of sin – it is not normal, it is not healthy, it is not the way we were ant to be. Nor it is what we really want to be. We need to see ourselves in those moments the way God sees us;we need to see ourselves as” being redeemed sinners who are loved by God.”if evil is the poison, then Jesus is the antidote.
But, we are constantly asked.” Does evil really exist? Time, magazine ‘s article went on to give us its own definition of evil namely, ” The de-humanizing of the other.”
Humanists tell us the evil is ” the outsider who invades our space.” Some say that evil is a disease. But what in our lives is evil? Power seems to be evil’s seductive call leading us into it abyss. We sin when we claim to have power over the lives of others and power even over God. Who has power over what? Well, whatever your answer is – we don’t. God does. Evil is found in broken relationships, broken because we’re substituted wholesome relationships with a God and others for the sake of money, power, being ” winners,” or some other tenuous status.
It is in Christ that our personal problems of evil and our social problems of evil can find an antidote, that healing presence that can overcome all that would poison our lives and our souls. I know of no other.
And Christ is here and present to us now in his gloriously risen body and precious blood in order that, claiming his power, there is no evil that uni and I cannot face …. and overcome. May you receive him now!
May God bless you all
Fr. Dominic