Well in the sixth chapter of Mark's gospel. We find the account of Jesus sending his disciples out on mission
They're going to preach; they're going to heal, but the first thing he tells them is you have authority over unclean spirits?
When they return from mission the first thing they tell him is we cast out many demons in your name
now when I was coming of age
I mean, even in the seminary, that kind of language was seen as a kind of primitive superstition talking about devils, demons.
Or maybe we tried to put a sort of literary Spin on it. It was a symbol for
Evil it was a personification of Evil in the personal or institutional sense
Here's the thing, that approach just doesn't do justice to the Bible. The Bible knows all about personal sin
It's very clear about that it also knows about
institutional disorder dysfunction very clearly
But it knows about a third level a, third dimension, a type of Evil that is
Underneath if you want that undergirds the other two is more pervasive and dangerous.
This level of truly spiritual evil.
I'm talking about
fallen Angels now. You know, Catholics get up every single week and we confess our belief in God who made the
visible world and the invisible world it means a realm of
spirits
realities at a higher pitch of existence
What's a devil, but a fallen or morally compromised angel? They're good and bad human beings
They're good and bad angels, but see here's the thing think of a wicked person you know, who's also
very smart,
very talented and well-connected
that's a truly dangerous figure, right? When you combine wickedness with
lots of other powers
so
a devil, an angel of being at a very high pitch of intelligence, and so on who has gone bad is a
dangerous figure indeed
Now, do devils influence the world ,sometimes, in very direct and frightening ways?
Yeah, talk to anyone involved in exorcism
I've talked to a few over the years and some extraordinary stories ensue, but that's not the typical way that
the Dark
realm intervenes
usually it does so in a much more indirect way by
suggestion by
temptation
Something I featured in the catholicism series
I think the most frightening religious painting in the world at the orvieto Cathedral by the great
early renaissance Master, Luca Signorelli, much admired by Michelangelo by the way
But you see these frescoes there and the most striking one is a depiction of the antichrist
It shows this figure the antichrist and he's listening as the devil whispers in his ear
So kind of a classic symbol of this temptation
But what's really interesting is the devil puts his hand
Kind of in the vesture of the antichrist in such a way that it looks for all the world like the antichrist own arm
And it's a very clever way of suggesting how the dark powers
influence us
indirectly
Clandestinely by insinuation in such a way that heck it looks like our activity and in many ways it is
But yet, it's the dark powers having
invaded
Now what what are the signs of the demonic?
What are the ways the demonic appears well look at the names the bible gives?
The Devil is called in the Greek: διάβολος (diávolos).Our word devil
Diablo and in Spanish, diable in french all come from that--Teufel in German too--
Di Bao lain(?) means to cast apart
to throw apart; to scatter
The great sign of a Demonic is scattering
God is a great gathering force. Whenever things come together when a community forms
that's a sign of a holy spirit the scattering power. That's the sign of the darker power
when families get scattered when
Business organizations when communities when cultures get divided that's the dark power
The other great name in the Bible is aweso [taunus]
that's the greek that's based on the on the Hebrew word that means the accuser the
Accuser
Here's a little experiment try this today
Examine your conscience and find out how many times in the course the day you accuse someone of something I?
Bet you'd be kind of surprised. We do it a lot. It's one of our favorite indoor pastimes
point the finger
Blame a gossip destroy someone's character, you know the sign of the demonic is
accusation
the Holy Spirit lifts up and
Confirms, you know and and affirm someone in his or her personhood the demonic is the accusing power
Here's a related title I find fascinating the bible calls the devil the father of [lives]
God is truth. See in truthfulness
About [ourselves] about our relationships about our family about whatever it is truthfulness is always the path of light
It's the path that leads to smooth
functioning truthfulness
The sign of a Demonic is deceitfulness is
untruth
Think now of the way an untruth about you has perhaps wounded you in a very deep way
Someone said something about you that wasn't true. It was a lie, but yet it wounded you in such a way that one is still
festering after many decades
think of the times you've
Wounded somebody with an untruth you know and again the the wrecking of someone's reputation wrecking of someone's character
by means of a lie
That's a sign of the dark power
Here's the last one and it is the most frightening name. It's in the first letter of John
The author refers the devil as the murderer from the beginning
God is his life, right? God is life. Whatever enhances life is of the holy spirit
That's why John Paul talked about the culture of death.
You know the sign of a dark power is always an in crease in
Death it's a negation of life
You know look at the 20th century which is the bloodiest on record no question about that
The number of people killed you know for ideological purposes in warfare in the 20 century was the was the worst ever
Can you explain that?
entirely through psychological or political categories
I mean it just seems almost comically inadequate to the reality to say that you know Hitler Stalin mao, ETC are
simply explicable politically or psychologically I
don't know there's something about the the
pervasiveness of violence and and the destruction of life in the 20th century
That is all the marks of the murderer from the beginning you know
Okay now so far. That's the bad news if you want. Here's the good news
The good news is and it's central to Christianity is that Christ has conquered these powers
He's conquered individual sin true
He's conquered collective institutional sin
But the Bible clearly witnesses to the fact that Jesus has conquered these powers
As a great passage read it in the second chapter of Colossians
Paul uses an image borrow from his own time when a Roman general
won a victory
he bring the
Leaders of the Captive Nation back. He parade them in chains through the street to humiliate them
Right. Paul says Christ through his cross has done just that with the dark powers
He's chained them up, and has now made a public display of them, he says. You know we read that language now
We think what's he talking about that's exactly what song about is what he would have known as a roman citizen
Citizen of that world is oh yeah, they're humiliating these conquered people that's what Christ did to the power of the cross
Which means we don't have to be beholden to these powers. That's
near the Heart of the Christian thing
They've been defeated and we now can claim victory over them
What are the weapons that we have if you want to stay with that kind of military analogy?
the Mass
the eucharist
Confession, the sacraments, the saints in other words the whole
Stuff of the church you might construe as the weapons that we can use in the battle against the dark powers
Here's one of the sad things as Catholics now in droves stay away from all those
weapons
They shouldn't be too surprised that the dark powers can begin to have an influence over them
or switch the analogy now to the medical one especially with confession in mind
suppose you have a bad cut you know on your hand a deep cut which you never attend to
You don't treat it you don't bandage it anyway, no disinfectant applied
It's just as open wound but what's going to happen is is Bacteria germs
and so I will get in and the hand will become infected if you if you would ignore that in time your whole body will
Become infected, right?
Think of sin, I don't mean trivial sin here, but I mean like that
repeated habitual sin that we can all fall into as a kind of an open wound in your
Spirit
untreated what can happen is the
germs and Bacteria if you want in the spiritual order the dark powers can use that as a way of getting in a way of
Influencing you well see what the church give us the means to treat these wounds called confession
It's called the confession of our sins the reception of absolution which treats that wound you know?
We have the weapons we [have] the medical
Means if you have to deal with these powers which have been defeated by Christ
But we have to claim that victory
We have to claim that healing and I think that's right near the heart of the Christian thing to this day as jesus
Sent them out 2,000 years ago to do battle he still sends a church out for the same purpose today