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March 7, 2024Language is powerful as the Gospels preach to us: listen, voice, heed, speak, hear, call, answer, sing, acclaim; worship, speech: today’s epistle beautifully contrasts voice with the muteness of the victim in the Gospel. The accompanying psalm encourages us to keep an open heart so that our cries will be heard by our heavenly father who has saved us.
Jesus’ compassion exorcises the dark prince from the mute victim. Miraculous healings were uncommon even in this era of Jesus. Actions like this unexplained healing sometimes caused unease to witnesses. St. Rose of Lima and her family hid the miracles of honey and bread because they feared the attention of the Inquisition.
Jesus knew the crowd’s thoughts and their angst just as he knows ours. A Kingdom divided is laid waste. If Christ is divided, his work will not bear fruit. If Beelzebul is divided, he too will not have power over us. People of God can divide and conquer evil. As a Catholic community, in conjunction with devoted Christians throughout the world, we can overcome evil, steal its strong shield, and send graces (spoils) throughout God’s people. We have a sense of good and evil by nature through our conscience; our supernatural wisdom fills us with devotion to our Lord. With this devotion, we can overcome worldly evil to go beyond what is unreasonable and progressive.
Whoever does not gather with Christ scatters. As Dominicans, we have been called to Preach; to remind the infirm that God’s love for them is limitless. For those who are incarcerated, God’s mercy is unfathomable; for indigent sufferers, the Kingdom of Heaven; for souls who are dying, rejoice and be glad for their reward in heaven is great; for mourners, comfort; for the sinner, conversion. I can say with St. Paul, “Nothing will divide us from the love of Jesus Christ, not death, nor life, nor hunger, nor thirst, nor anything that is in this world.”
Let our voice rise to the heights and let us remember always that the Holy Spirit guides our words to speak only with God and of God as professed by St. Dominic.
[click here for the readings of the day]