The Devil Is Real

          Tuesday’s Gospel continues the repentance theme begun with Monday’s launch of Ordinary Time.  The Gospel teaches us a vital lesson: we are in the middle of a vast spiritual war (Ephesians 6:10-18).

          There is evil in the world and much of it is of human production.  We cannot deny human responsibility for evil and its consequences.  Let me emphasize and its consequences because all too often God gets blamed when bad things happen to good people.  God did not bring evil into the world, although He allows it.  He allows it because He values our freedom: freedom not to redefine what is good and evil but freedom to choose good or evil.  But our choices entail consequences, not just for ourselves but others.  Action, after all, just doesn’t affect me: it changes the world and it can change it for good or bad. 

          But while human beings bear responsibility for no small part of evil in the world, they are not alone in its spread.  Today’s Gospel – where Jesus exorcises a demon from a man in the synagogue of Capernaum – reminds us there is such a person as the devil.  The devil is not a myth, not a “symbol.”  He is a person.  Evil does not do itself: evil is done by persons, human or angelic.  We know our responsibility for evil.  But we are not alone in the doing of evil: the devils were the first and, in a real sense, the “better” doers of evil.  And, from Satan’s fall until the Last Day, they will be futile antagonists in the effort to stymie the coming of the “Kingdom of God” whom Jesus proclaimed to be at hand – and which will come, diabolical resistance notwithstanding.

          It may seem a bit gauche, perhaps sentimental or old-fashioned, to talk about the devil.  That’s not being “up to date.” It is succumbing to one of Satan’s greatest lies – downplaying his reality.  Why would you deny that a God who creates human persons of body and soul could not also create angelic persons of pure spirit?  The only person who would like to deny that is envious Satan, because it’s said one reason for his fall was his repugnance at the idea God would create embodied persons and even become incarnate as one Himself.

          Jesus’s mission is one of healing.  But man’s fundamental ailment is not cancer or heart disease.  It is sin.  It is the spiritual sickness that separates man from God.  That’s why, even though today’s Gospel is found in that part of Mark where Jesus also heals various persons physically, the first focus of Jesus’s healing mission is showcased in its proper perspective: spiritual.  (Tomorrow's Gospel will add, in its proper, subsidiarity place, discussion of Jesus's physical healings).  Jesus drives the demon out of the possessed man in Capernaum.  Jesus did not come to provide Judaean affordable care or to improve Israel’s public health.  His physical healings point to a deeper truth: man needs to be healed spiritually.  But, like our physical ailments, the process starts with recognizing something’s wrong – repentance and belief – and then getting ourselves to the Divine Physician, Jesus.