On this Friday of the twenty-seventh week of Ordinary Time, the Church remembers Saint Denis, the bishop of Paris, who was martyred with his companions. Our hearts are rarely whole, since we confess one thing and fear another, and we explain the good we see by the worst motive we can find. The readings lead us through three places: a promise older than the Law, a psalm of redemption, and a strong man's house.
But some of them said, "It is by Beelzebub, the leader of demons, that he casts out demons." And others, testing him, required a sign from heaven of him. But when he perceived their thoughts, he said to them: "Every kingdom divided against itself will become desolate, and house will fall upon house. So then, if Satan is also divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that it is by Beelzebub that I cast out demons. But if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your own sons cast them out? Therefore, they shall be your judges. Moreover, if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then certainly the kingdom of God has overtaken you. When a strong armed man guards his entrance, the things that he possesses are at peace. But if a stronger one, overwhelming him, has defeated him, he will take away all his weapons, in which he trusted, and he will distribute his spoils. Whoever is not with me, is against me. And whoever does not gather with me, scatters. When an unclean spirit has departed from a man, he walks through waterless places, seeking rest. And not finding any, he says: 'I will return to my house, from which I departed.' And when he has arrived, he finds it swept clean and decorated. Then he goes, and he takes in seven other spirits with him, more wicked than himself, and they enter and live there. And so, the end of that man is made worse than the beginning." (Lk 11:15-26)
The first reading comes from the letter to the Galatians, where Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, tries to mend a garment that other preachers were tearing in two. Some set the promise on one side, and others set the Law on the other. He goes back to the beginning: "Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice" (Ga 3:6). Abraham, the father of believers, was counted righteous long before any commandment was written, so his true sons are those who trust, not those who merely comply.
But Paul knows how heavy the other side of the scale can be. Whoever leans on the works of the Law owes the whole of it, and nobody can pay that debt. That is why he writes that "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, since he became a curse for us." The Son of God, hanged upon a tree, took the division upon his own body rather than explaining it away, so that the blessing of Abraham might reach the nations.
The psalm answers in the voice of a people who have been given back their freedom. The psalmist gives thanks "with my whole heart" (Ps 110:1), and the word whole matters more than any other in that verse. A heart offered in pieces praises nobody, since it keeps the best part back for its own defence. But a heart offered entirely is already a place where redemption has arrived.
In the Gospel, Luke, the physician and evangelist of mercy, shows Jesus setting free a man whom a demon had silenced, and the crowd splits at once. Some say, "It is by Beelzebub, the leader of demons, that he casts out demons," and others, testing him, demand a sign from heaven. The same deed receives two opposite readings, and neither side lets the man who now speaks stand as the evidence. The suspicion is older than the miracle.
Jesus answers with a plain argument: "Every kingdom divided against itself will become desolate" (Lk 11:17), and a power that fought its own works would already have fallen. If he casts out demons by the finger of God, then "the kingdom of God has overtaken you." The strong man keeps his goods in peace only until one stronger comes upon him, and the exorcism shows that the stronger one has come. It is not a bargain with evil but the arrival of a king.
The last picture is the most sobering. A spirit that has been driven out wanders through dry places and returns to find its old house swept clean and adorned. It brings seven others worse than itself and moves in. The house was never at fault for being tidy; it was at fault for being empty, because a garment that has only been washed and hung upon a nail clothes nobody. Whoever does not gather with Jesus scatters.
At Calvary the soldiers would not tear the tunic of Jesus, woven from the top in a single piece, but cast lots for it. The Bethlehem tradition has kept that garment as its image for simplicity, a life lived with a completely undivided heart. Bethlehem and Calvary, in that reading, belong together as one whole. A crowd split over one miracle, a promise set against a law, a clean house with nobody in it: each is a cloth torn at the seam, and each waits for the one who weaves it entirely.
Today the Word of God invites us to stop reading our own days in two opposite ways, as sacred when they please us and suspect when they cost us. The one who is stronger than our fears has not come to guard a clean house for us, but to live in it and to weave our faith, our trust and our deeds into a single cloth.
So let us remain whole where we are most tempted to divide: in our families, in our parishes and in the quiet room of our own prayer. Denis, the bishop of Paris, would not cut his one confession into a safe half and a dangerous half, but kept it whole. The garment is not torn, and we are asked only to be found inside it.
Scripture text: Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV), public domain.
Prayer of the Day
Lord Jesus, stronger than every power that divides us, you came to Bethlehem without armor and you went to Calvary in a tunic that no hand could tear. Come into the house of our heart and stay there. Gather what we scatter, fill what we have only swept, and keep us whole in you, with Saint Denis and his companions, and with all who believe. Amen.
For Meditation
- Where have we been reading one and the same deed in two opposite ways, depending on who did it?
- Which rooms of our heart are swept clean and adorned, yet empty of the one who could live there?
- What would it cost us today to offer him our whole heart, and not only the part that we consider safe?
