comment
I planned to spend one particular Sunday away, relaxing on a beach after Mass. However, not knowing where such a beach was, I sat in my parked car looking at a map. Thunk! Someone leaving Mass had backed into my vehicle. “No problem,” I thought, “I’m at church, this process will be painless.”
My expectations of ease and that adversity would not reach into the church parking lot were false—our fallen humanity follows us everywhere. Thankfully, our faith ought not depend on anyone or anything apart from Jesus. No wickedness can snatch us from either his gaze or his hand.
In today’s gospel we hear how there was “in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit” who was crying out. Evil manifested itself in the holy place of God. And Jesus handled it. When we experience disappointing behavior amongst the faithful, or are even faced with larger scandals involving those in leadership, we need not lose our faith in Jesus. Instead, we turn to the One who silences the voice of evil and casts it out.