Homily for Ordinary Time 15
July 14, 2024
Spiritual Authority
Jesus’
mission is to save our eternal souls. We are in danger of being lost for
eternity due to our sins, but because of the mercy of Christ, He has taken the
penalty for our sins upon the Cross and opened for us a way to Heaven. But He
is not the only one who has a stake in our eternity – the Evil One, who really
exists, is also “prowling like a roaring lion,” looking to drag our souls down
to Hell for eternity.
But Christ
did not leave us powerless! We see in the Gospel that when He sent out His
twelve Apostles, it wasn’t simply to preach – He also gave them the spiritual
power and authority, over bodily ailments like sicknesses as well as spiritual
ailments like the Evil One.
This spiritual
authority remains with Christians today. Consider the authority of the
Sacraments – priests have the authority to tell bread and wine to become the
Body of Jesus Christ! It is almost as if a priest has authority to command God
to perform this miracle and to order Him to come and dwell in the Eucharist.
What power God has given to men! Equally as amazing is the authority to forgive
sins in His name – to take a soul dead and rotting in mortal sin, and raise it
to life again!
But
priests are not the only ones with spiritual authority. Every baptized and
confirmed Christian has spiritual authority as well. I want to mention two
areas where we have spiritual authority.
First,
those of you who are parents, grandparents, or godparents have a very powerful
spiritual authority over your families and those entrusted to your care! Did
you know, for example, that parents can bless their kids? I recommend doing
that before they go to bed or leave the house – make the sign of the cross on
their foreheads and ask God to bless and guide their ways. You have the
spiritual authority – and duty – to teach them about the Lord Jesus. In fact,
the Church says that “parents are the primary educators of their children in
the ways of faith” – parents, not schools or CCD teachers or priests.
You have the authority to guard them from the Evil One – as parents, you have
the right to ensure they choose only good friends, and to make sure that evil
does not enter your home through the internet, TV, or phones. You have the
authority to pray a “hedge of protection” from temptations and evil (to borrow
a Protestant term) around them by praying fiercely, sacrificing intensely, and
loving them unconditionally.
Too many
parents abdicate that authority and say, “Well, I don’t want to force my kids to
be religious” or “I don’t want to be that weird parent, I’ll just do what
everyone else is doing.” No, my friends! You are entrusted with the duty to
lead your young souls to Heaven – and God has given you the authority to do it
well! Do not be afraid to exercise the spiritual leadership of your family! I
attribute my vocation to the priesthood to my father – who prayed the Rosary
for me every day, who taught me about Christ and corrected me when I needed it.
You can do the same!
Apart
from parents, though, all baptized Christians in the state of grace have an
immense spiritual authority. We have the authority to intercede for others – our
prayers have the power to penetrate the heavens all the way to the Throne of
God!
Protestant
writer John Eldredge tells about how one day his wife mentioned that she was
dizzy. He asked her how long it had been going on, and she replied, “Seventeen
years.” Seventeen years! She had never mentioned it before; she had assumed it
was normal. They began to seek medical help, but all the doctors were stymied –
they could find nothing wrong. So John began to suspect that it possibly had a
spiritual origin from an evil spirit (which can, indeed, cause physical harm).
So he began to pray – really pray. Not a few Our Father’s and Hail Mary’s…no,
it was a fierce, raw type of prayer: “Lord Jesus, by Your Name and covered in
Your Precious Blood, we ask You to free Your daughter from any evil spirit that
is afflicting her.” With intensity and perseverance, she was cured. This type of
intense prayer can be used to overcome temptation, beg God for spiritual or
physical healing, or cast out Evil Spirits (some types of addictions, or
depression/anxiety, or deeply-rooted personal wounds are caused by evil spirits
in our lives – but we have the authority, given by Christ, to invoke the
Trinity to free us!
If we
really lived out of the spiritual authority we have been given, we’d never fear
anything! St. John Vianney, a holy priest from France in the 1800s, was
well-known for bringing souls to Christ. About 80,000 people used to go to
Confession to him each year – so many that he would spend up to 16 hours each
day hearing Confessions! With so much good spiritual fruit and sins forgiven,
it is only natural that the devil would try to put a stop to his ministry.
At
times, there would be such loud noises from inside his rectory that he couldn’t
sleep. Once, when he was in the church late at night, townspeople saw his
rectory on-fire – so they quickly hastened to try to put it out, only to find
out that there was no fire – it was an attempt from the Evil One to scare the
holy priest. Many people, concerned about his safety, and having heard the loud
noises and seen frightening beasts around his home, decided to take turns
staying overnight with him in the rectory. But the first night there was such a
loud noise that the walls shook, and these brave men rushed in to Fr. Vianney
in fear and exclaimed, “The house is going to fall down!” Fr. Vianney
peacefully replied, “Oh, no, that’s just the devil – don’t be afraid, go back
to bed.” And the noise subsided.
He was
never troubled by such things; rather, he used to say, “When the devil is
particularly bothersome, that is a good sign! It means that there will be a big
sinner coming to Confession tomorrow!”
How
could someone remain at peace when the Evil One wanted his downfall? Because he
knew that he possessed the same spiritual authority that Jesus gave His
apostles, to cast out demons, heal the sick, reconcile sinners, and preach the
Gospel. Much of that same authority is given to priests, parents, and individual
Christians – and now it’s up to us to use it!
No comments:
Post a Comment