Readings: Deut 18:15-20; 1 Cor. 7:32-35; Mk 1:21-28
Last
October, as millions around the world dress in ghostly costumes to mark
Halloween and the darker side of life, Pope Francis warned that the devil is no
myth and must be fought strenuously with "God's armor." He said: "This
generation, and many others, have been led to believe that the devil is a myth,
a figure, an idea, the idea of evil. The devil exists and we must fight against
him." In another Mass, Pope Francis adds: ‘Some of you might tell me: But
Father, how old fashioned you are to speak about the Devil in the 21st
century!’ But look out because the devil is present! The devil is here, even in
the 21st century! And we mustn’t be naïve. We
must learn from the Gospel how to fight against Satan.”
In
the gospel of today, we find Jesus driving out an unclean spirit from a man in
the synagogue. Jesus performed an exorcism of demons. Whenever he exorcised, he
liberated people captive to Satan and delivered them to God (Mat. 12:28-29). In words of
the Apostle Peter, "Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were
oppressed by the devil, for God was with him" (Acts 10:38). Today, as Pope
Francis warns us, demonic possession is a reality and these unclean spirits
have to be driven out. But remember, Satan, the devil, the demon literally
means the deceiver. He doesn’t always show himself as frightening, but rather
pleasing in order to tempt us and fool us more easily. And many times we fall
into his deceit without realizing it. You
see, many times we get so obsessed by the exorcisms of these supernatural
demons that we forget that we need to be healed and exorcised of our own demons-
our emotional demon.
Dr. Holy Hunt puts this in a
metaphor in her book Emotional Exorcism.
The
Emotional Demon originates from our negative and traumatic emotional
experiences in childhood. As a Baby or a toddler, you wet yourself; you cry; no
one comes. And you think: no one cares for me.
As
we grow to childhood, some call us degrading names and use harsh words. “You are stupid. You are selfish. No one
will ever love you.”
Then
our emotional needs are ignored. They don’t spend time with us. They do not
praise our accomplishment but when we mistake we get embarrassing punishments.
They never came to see us acting or singing in a school play or struggling to
win in a game. These early negative experiences lead us to believe that we are
fundamentally defective.
Our
Emotional Demon is then created through directly experiencing other people’s
destructive words and actions (like whenever
we hear the F words and witness the violence around us). And so we learn to blame ourselves for
aversive events that occur in our lives that we did not even cause. We go
through life not knowing that our belief
of unworthiness is our Emotional Demon- it’s like an unclean computer
program – a virus – that has been installed without our awareness or approval. Thus
the emotional demon grows every time we blame ourselves for these stressful
events that occur in our lives which in reality we are not even at fault.
Since
it forms so early through childhood experiences, we go through life believing
that we are defective and unworthy of the forgiveness and mercy of God. And worse
of all, we don’t realize that it is
separate from us –because it is installed without our awareness or
approval. We are not our demons.
In
the gospel, the person possessed by the unclean spirit was not conscious of
what the demon was doing to him. It’s just that the man thought he was bad and
that there was no way out of his misery and the unclean spirits fed on that
thought that’s why they grew stronger possessing him. Jesus drove out the
unclean spirit from the man because He knew that basically that man has
goodness in him and that the unclean spirit installed itself unto the man
without his awareness or approval. So do you see the similarity now? So the
first step for us to be cleansed by Jesus of our emotional demons is to
recognize and to be aware that God made us good. And that we are not our
demons. And that we can choose to fight and to be cleansed of our emotional
demon with the help of Jesus. But why is it so hard to get rid of this
emotional demon?
Perhaps
Satan's best-kept secret to prevent a person's soul from healing, is to cause
them to feel like God is somehow disappointed in them, or even angry with them.
If the devil can cause a person to feel like God is not eager to forgive or be
merciful to them, this is a sure roadblock to anybody's healing process. This
causes a person to distance themselves from the very person (Jesus) who desires
to heal them. And so we cannot distance ourselves from God and receive healing
to our emotional demons at the same time. We
must draw near to Him regardless: that is a key to receiving healing.
In
the time of Jesus, there probably were many possessed by demons, but the only
ones he was able to heal where those who came near to Him. Many times in
confession people tell me, “Father, I
keep doing the same crazy stuff everytime. I think it’s hopeless to resist, so
I don’t pray anymore and go to Mass anymore since I could not receive
Communion.” And I answer: “All the
more you need to go to Mass more frequently and let Jesus heal you. It will
take time. You just have to persevere.” We have to come and stay near to
Jesus and believe that He can heal us even if it takes a long time.
However
we make sense of demons today, the message of the Gospel is that Jesus is Lord:
it is he who can release us from all kinds of bondage and he alone can empower
us to live a new life in service and in praise of God. Let us not be afraid to
call on him for healing. He will never abandon us if we but draw near Him.
References:
Hunt, H. (2009). Emotional Exorcism: Expelling the four psychological
demons that make us backslide. Greenwood Press, Westport, USA.
Emel, B. (ed.) (2013). "How to manage your emotional demons." Bounce.
Vatican Radio. (2014). “Pope Francis: Satan exists in the 21st century
and how we can fight him.”
Beliefnet. (2004). “Jesus Christ: Exorcist”
http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2004/04/Jesus-Christ-Exorcist.aspx?p=1