Friday Gospel Recharge: A Reflection on the Gospel of Luke 16: 1-8

 

Friday Gospel Recharge Series

Friday Gospel Recharge

A Reflection on Luke 16: 1-8 

(31st Friday in Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calendar, 2023)

Approaching Times of Crises with Intelligence and Truth

In this parable, Jesus conveys a message that has long puzzled not only me, but many in the congregation and numerous commentators throughout history. Frankly, when I first encountered this passage, I deliberated again and again the decision to reflect on it. The narrative portrays a dishonest manager who, confronting the threat of unemployment, reduces the debts owed to his master. His motive is clear: to ensure that these debtors would support him post-employment. Fascinatingly, at the parable’s conclusion, the master commends the steward for his shrewdness in navigating this critical juncture.

 

This passage presents a perplexing scenario: a master incurs a loss through his steward's actions, yet he commends the steward for reducing debts owed to him. To grasp its meaning, one must see the master as representing Jesus. Therefore, I propose the crux of the message lies in the dishonest manager's response to crisis. Jesus highlights that the manager doesn't dwell on his impending unemployment or wallow in self-pity for his mistakes. Rather, he evaluates his predicament and devises a strategy to regain control over his life.

 

Crisis is an inevitable part of life, sparing no one. For the single person, it often takes the shape of loneliness, possibly due to a lack of confidantes. This solitude can lead to coping mechanisms like binge eating, alcohol consumption, or pornography, culminating in depression. Financial burdens, too, weigh heavily, as single incomes struggle to provide security. In marriage, crises evolve differently. The demands of love, partnership, and parenting can be overwhelming, leading some to seek comfort outside their marriage, tragically breaching their vows and impacting children, in-laws, and the wider family network. For priests and consecrated people, crises might manifest as doubts in their vocation or the burden of false accusations, which they must endure. Diocesan priests face the additional challenge of financial stewardship for their parish and themselves. Meanwhile for consecrated religious, community life can be strained by personality clashes or projection issues among members.

 

Every crisis requires an intelligent response. Indeed, while emotions are a natural part of our response, it's essential to tame them. This control ensures that we are not entirely swayed or blinded by our feelings, as they aren’t concerned with rational decision-making. In any crisis you face, it's important to take a step back and read the situation intelligently. I’m no clinical psychologist but every crisis provides an opportunity for sin, and this makes us vulnerable to the devil even more.

 

Our human nature, flawed as it is, often leads us to make self-centred decisions in times of crisis, much like the dishonest manager in the parable. His shrewdness was acknowledged, but it's worth considering whether he was commended more for his initiative than for the moral judgment of his actions, given that his choices ultimately disadvantaged his master. To navigate a crisis responsibly, it’s important to have a game plan ready. The most effective plan we could adopt is to immediately seek God’s counsel. In our efforts, it's God who orchestrates order from chaos, being the mastermind of all things and who knows the best route for rescuing. However, turning to God in these trying times can be a challenge.

 

As mentioned earlier, emotions heavily influence our decisions during a crisis, often leading us to act out of pride or folly rather than from a place of truth. This is where humility becomes essential — acknowledging our limitations and seeking help from God. Our faith teaches us to turn to God, who is holy, faultless, and whose love is everlasting. This truth is affirmed by His ultimate sacrifice for us on the Cross, even while we were still sinners.

 

Crisis often involves others, as seen in the parable of the dishonest manager whose actions financially and emotionally harmed his master, leading to severe repercussions. The steward's introspective approach to problem-solving disregarded his master's needs. As Christians, we're called to a life of service to others, which demands creative thinking that is outward-looking, in both good and challenging times. This principle especially resonates with married people, who take vows to honour each other regardless of circumstances. Therefore, when a crisis knocks on our door, we should, with God's assistance, remain composed and discern a wise path out of the troubles that may invade our lives. Rather than wallowing in our problems, we're encouraged to seek ways to serve others. It's through this service, even in hard times, that we find peace.

 

Let us love God wholeheartedly, in good times and in times of crises.

Friday Gospel Recharge: A Reflection on the Gospel of Luke 14: 1-6

Friday Gospel Recharge Series

Friday Gospel Recharge

A Reflection on Luke 14: 1-6 

(30th Friday in Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calendar, 2023)

Approaching the Sabbath with common sense

In today’s Gospel, Jesus introduced us to the dilemma revolved around observing the sabbath. His contemporary Pharisees and Scribes contended a harsh observation of the law, which often neglected the concerns for a fellow human being in the time of his need. We get an insight to the rigidity of the sabbath by the attention that is paid on Christ by the Pharisees: “and they watched him closely.”

Jesus, however, knowing their inward thoughts, puts the dilemma of the sabbath on those leaders in the room with him: “is it against the law… to cure a man on the sabbath or not?” and again: “which of you here, if his son falls into a well, or his ox, will not pull him out on the sabbath without hesitation?” So, it is very hard to oversee this problem which was so real in and the years leading up to Jesus’s time.

The sabbath is extremely important for human flourishing. We simulate this since the call to rest on the sabbath is the third divine commandment of the Decalogue. It should be noted that the Commandments have a different numbering system for the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments for Catholics and Protestant Christians. Whatever is issued here has been primarily for our good and upbuilding, and nothing less. However, keeping the sabbath is not approached with stiffness as the leaders in Jesus’s time would have us observe. Instead, Jesus reminds us that the bases of the sabbath is found on love. Our business on this day is not merely static or an isolated action; other people who rest and who are meant to and don’t but should rest are also drawn into this weekly solemn divine calling. Since others participate in the sabbath then our response to this commandment is governed by love.

When we rest on this holy day, we do so along with other people, since all are called to honour God with their life. We are also social beings which means we relate with one another, and more importantly: can learn how to love each other. A sign of our love for one another is seen in our response to the immediate needs of those God puts before us. Keep in mind that on the sabbath, it’s a time of worship, rest and leisure. When a fellow neighbour is in a state of physical, emotional or spiritual discombobulation in anyway, it normally causes distress and unrest in our very existence. Think about the unrest in Ukraine 🇺🇦 or the struggle between Israel and Hamas in more recent times, we often respond with sadness when war and conflict affects those there. The news on these conflicts are reported every day, we don’t become indifferent on the sabbath to these events, so we often wonder in helplessness when peace will be establish in those places. So, whenever a fellow human being is in need on a sabbath and is left unattended, our rest is disturbed, and we fail to love truly.

The sick man in today’s passage suffered from dropsy, a disease caused by heart, lung and kidney failure. Its symptoms cause general swelling in the extremities, leaving one stiff in the joints, limiting movement. In the time of Jesus, dropsy was fatal, whereas nowadays there are some medications that can be helpful. However, the real disease ascertained from this passage isn’t so much the dropsy of the man, but the stiffness of the thinking of the leaders. They would, in their hypocrisy, rescue their own animal over a human being, would allow him to be dead yet pull out their own ox from the well instead. In other words, they put their own interests over the interest of others. Jesus finds this attitude of thinking problematic because in the divine scheme of things, love looks outwardly and not selfish interiorly. The interest of the other should always precede that of our own every day.

As a take home, we should have a healthy attitude toward the sabbath and be flexible in our thinking and actions when responding to the concerns of human beings on this sacred day. Let’s ask God therefore to equip us with the right thinking so not to be so stiff like the religious leaders of Jesus’s day and those of our own with respect to our religious duties on the Sabbath.

Friday Gospel Recharge: A reflection on the Gospel of Luke 12: 54-59

Friday Gospel Recharge Series

Friday Gospel Recharge

A Reflection on Luke 12: 54-59 

(29th Friday in Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calendar, 2023)

Mercy: one of the many wonders of God

In this Gospel, Jesus wants to teach us about the blindness of the crowd: they know how to recognize natural phenomenon around them such as changing weather patterns yet they could not fathom the phenomenon of God’s works in the person of Christ before them. God’s action is not found in revenge, as the audience of Jesus time would welcome, to overthrow their Roman occupants; it’s not found in an arduous adherence to the written law, as the Jewish authority would expect from their Jewish population. Instead, God’s business is one of mercy. This is what Jesus teaches us here in this Gospel.

Now mercy is not easy business; it conjures muscle to say sorry or to accept one’s apology. If we are hurt our emotions are involved, and when we allow them to guide our will and not our intellect, the chances of exercising forgiveness becomes more arduous - and I’m convinced this is why Jesus implores us not to judge others unless we be judged. However, Jesus extolls us to repent, to not let our emotions run havoc preventing every chance of reconciliation. It’s important for many reasons, one thing reconciliation does is bring peace and healing into peoples lives, perhaps even the restoration of a broken relationship, two noble reasons to settle any dispute we have with our neighbour.

While repentance can be difficult, Jesus nevertheless encourages us to try giving activity to forgiveness, to exploit the opportunity while time is on our side. His exhortation comes with a grave warning: anyone who does not try and instead holds grudges by continuing to live unrepentant lives, the day of reckoning will devastate them. The measure they have shown will be the measure they will receive; God will not let us get away with the pain and misery we cause others. So, when Jesus tells us that we will have paid the very last penny, he reminds us that God keeps a tab on our lives, and on the last day will issue a non-negotiable infringement and have us pay the debt of sin back, in full. God’s mercy shouldn’t be presumed. God is just and will always do what is right by us, and sometimes that means allowing us to undergo a just punishment.

 The church in our modern world has lost a sense of sin, and forgotten the beauty of and the need for the sacrament of confession. Confession is a wonderful sacrament. Its effects restore our relationship with God. If you read scripture, you will discover that throughout human history it is wrought with sin and God’s efforts to restoring people’s relationship with him. Today, the story remains the same: people continue to abuse their freedom choosing sin instead of good choices, upsetting their relationship with the Lord. When we break relationship with God the only right choice, we can do is settle the matter with him, just as Jesus tells us in this Gospel.

If you haven’t been to confession in a while, consider yourself lucky, for the opportunity to receive God’s forgiveness is still on offer. The offer remains so long we are alive. Take a moment therefore to reflect on your lives, noting down your faults and taking them to confession, before it’s too late and the Lord your judge, hands you over to the bailiff who in turn throws you into that place devoid of the presence of our loving God.

 

 

Friday Gospel Recharge: A reflection on the Gospel of Luke 11: 15-26

 

Friday Gospel Recharge Series

Friday Gospel Recharge

A Reflection on Luke 11: 15-26 

(27th Friday in Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calander, 2023)

Keeping the Devil out: Live the Good Life

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is caught casting out demons and is accused of performing such wonders in the name of the Devil. In their ignorance, Jesus rebukes the people drawing to their attention that no kingdom goes to war with itself - otherwise it heads for ruin. As a result, Jesus casts out demons not in the name of the devil but by his own authority as God.

 

If we follow this passage systematically, we can postulate a hierarchy of power. On the bottom of the scale are the power of human beings. Although we are very capable of many things, from innovation to security, we are pestered by the influence of the devil, whose power is out of our control. Pest is a suitable description for this foe of ours, he never leaves us alone, perpetually seeking a way to offer us distortions of the truth which makes for misery when accepted and pursued as an end itself; the devil is also referred to as the Lord of the Flies, and we are all to familiar with this creature who is often met with the swatter, the ordinary fly itself. The devil is, therefore, an irritant creature like the fly we find buzzing in our homes, only that his temptation, which are his lies, tantamount to dung, is more powerful than the microscopic dirt we find on our bench tops, left by brother insect fly.

 

The devil sits in second place on that hierarchy of power. We can deduce this from today’s Gospel passage as it reads that this creature can wield a force strong enough to influence us and allow him to enter through the gates of our temples, our hearts. The devil can’t be seen, but this does not rule out his own existence. Just as the motives of our hearts has an interior disposition belonging to the unseen and intangible principle of life, the soul, the devil is intangible and unseen too, tempting the soul to motion in the direction of evil, rather than the good. After all, Jesus who is truth itself makes reference to the Devil and does so not in the abstract, but as a matter of reality. In fact, according to today’s Gospel Jesus is seen casting that prick out of people’s lives in whom he has made a home. 

 

Lastly and at the top on that hierarchy of power, we find God there. God, through the power of his finger, and as we read it, with very little effort, puts the devil in his place, for the psychic evil he causes on man.

 

So, as we read it, we are no match for the devil, a very strong power whom Jesus does not underestimate: “So long as a strong man fully armed guards his own palace, his goods are undisturbed;” the devil is no match for God, a stronger power, and God can’t be matched by any of his creatures in power and influence, the source in which all powers flow from.

 

This Gospel passage is frightening and enlightening at the same time. Since Jesus is seen at work casting out devils from people, it is worrisome to think that we are vulnerable to an external power such as the devil who can trouble our own existence. However, because God is good, we remain hopeful that he has the strength to relieve us from this force who can plague us.

 

The devil doesn’t have some free travel pass which he can then use to either infest, oppress, obsess, or possess us - and remember these four ways are the four degrees of diabolical possessions in which the devil can trouble our existence. If he gets a stronghold on us in one of these four ways, it’s because we permit him that access. The degree in which he possesses us will be subject to the degree of vice we live by. The darker our motives, the greater access we give Satan to enter and dwell in our hearts, making us feel dispirited, discombobulated, empty and miserable, devoid of happiness and peace.

 

If you don’t want to be pestered by the devil, Jesus reminds us that we should live good lives by filling it with good things. When it’s filled with goodness, the “unclean spirit leaves a clean man” otherwise if your life is empty and sinful you invite the devil, a strong power who has enough force and influence to pest and perhaps possess you. Sin is preceded by temptation and we only sin because we give in to the temptations the devil offers us in our times of vulnerability. The key here is to master temptations so that we don’t allow the devil to gain influence in our lives.

 

Temptation will never leave you even if you live good and holy lives. If you are someone who finds temptation hard to combat, often falling to sin, I think it’s time to offer some practical suggestions for you to live and master the good life. When temptations hits you, make the sign of the cross each time but do it with an act of faith, because it is in faith that Jesus responds to our requests; consider even saying the sign of the cross aloud, invoking the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, because when you say it aloud you remind yourself who you are aligned with: a child of God; at this the devil will jump - but again saying it in faith in Jesus Christ and not from a position of fear will cause the devil to shudder and flee, it’s in response to faith that Jesus will minister to us - this is no magic. Secondly, call on your guardian angel who is given responsibility to watch over you, he will open his wings and descend next to you; he will bless you and the devil will have no choice except to flee.

Friday Gospel Recharge: A reflection on the Gospel of Luke 10: 13-16

 

Friday Gospel Recharge Series

Friday Gospel Recharge

A Reflection on Luke 10: 13-16 

(26th Friday of Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calendar, 2023)

Upholding the Fatherhood of God

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells us something about himself: like many of us, he knows what it means to be rejected. In fact, in this passage he forewarns of the rejection he will face in those who continue his work as disciples. The word rejection appears three(?) times in his discourse. In another Gospel we learn that Jesus is in fact rejected by his own kinsman for being a man of wonder while of a low social class; obviously his death cross culminates the rejection he faced by his own people. 😢

As disciples of Jesus, rejection is an integral part of the ministry. Part of our work requires to uphold Jesus’s message by word and the way we live. The crux of the message we share with others is that Jesus is truly God, the Son of the Father, he died for us out of love, he wants us to have a change of heart and repent of former ways.

When we are rejected for Jesus’s message, we are not rejected personally though the experience itself is a personal one. Where is Jesus to be spat on when we are yelled at, have the doors shut in our face, or experience physical and emotional abuse for what we stand for? Since we suffer the experience, we associate the rejection we face as a personal one. On top of whatever else we are rejected for, that might be that people find us too ugly, we’re not smart enough, we lack material wealth, nor are gifted in areas that makes for popularity etc., we are rejected also for believing in Jesus. 😯

While we are rejected for Jesus’s sake, Jesus tells us that it’s not us who are rejected: it’s God whom we represent. People reject God when they reject us because God our creator and redeemer and sanctifier has a particular vision for man. Sometimes his vision does not align with our own intentions. When God’s vision doesn’t match with our own ambitions, we say thanks but no thanks to God, and show him the finger. 🖕As his representatives, we are a reminder to people in the flesh that God has another plan for them, a plan bigger than theirs, one that is opposite and questions the nature of their motives. Each time we stand up to the world for the Lord, offering the Good News, we the middle men of God take those blows each time hostility faces us.

Notice also in this Gospel, Jesus criticises Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. The significance of these three places is that they are Judaean towns where Jesus had ministered, preaching the Good News. Here, Jesus is frustrated with the townsmen of these three places and criticises them not exactly for their ungodly ways, but for rejecting him instead. He had performed all kinds of wonders there, such as curing the blind, the deaf and the lame, raised the dead, healed even lepers. He also fed the hungry and people possessed by demons he exercised.

The people, through the works of Jesus, personally witnessed the power of God, and yet they still rejected him, wanting to stone him, even mocked him. What on earth is wrong with them?  No doubt this is a question asked by Jesus too, hence the frustration.

God who is all powerful exercise his power for the good of others. This is seen in Jesus’s own ministry. God who exercises this power through Jesus tells us that he is a caring and loving God. His care and love isn’t lacking personality either: he loves us with a father’s love.

While we are not townsmen of Capernaum, nor of Chorazin, nor Bethsaida, we are capable of rejecting the fatherhood of God too. Indeed, we can reject God by the way we live; we might intoxicate ourselves in alcohol, take drugs such as cannabis which impedes us from thinking rationally, gossip, fornicate or even avariciously accur wealth at the expense of others; however, we can reject God by saying to hell with the Father’s love for me, I’ll do what I want.

This is the essence of today’s Gospel. God’s fatherhood is questioned and sidelined by the people. As Christians, it’s our first duty to recognise that God is more than some intangible force that puts into motion the material world, and distance himself from us watching all that takes place from afar. Instead, he is a God who not only causes things to exists but who is also close to us and is loveable. 🥰 God should be loved not because he gives us gifts but for his own sake, the fact he loves us and desires our flourishment and as a result always gives recklessly.

There are fringes in society that deny the reality of God’s fatherhood. Sceptics have their doubts: if he is a God who loves us, why all the evil in the world? Wouldn’t a loving Father figure God do something about the injustices in the world? On the surface of it all it may look as though God is indifferent to the evil that exists however if we look deeply, we find God is working to bring about peace in the world: he uses us as his hands, to do all he can, to limit the hurt we witness in the world today. Then there are our Muslim friends who militantly deny Jesus’s divinity and Sonship in the Father. Since they deny the Sonship of Jesus, they deny also the Father who sent him too.

As disciples our duty is to witness to the Sonship of Jesus in the Father. As history has shown, this will come at a cost and if we’re not too familiar with history, Jesus warns of rejection for us who love him. On that note, why don’t we spend some time in prayer examining our lives and reflect on our relationship with God the Father? If we’ve prioritised and idolised material goods, and experiences as our first love instead of God, now is the time to ask for the grace to repent and change our ways and dedicate our entire lives to his cause which is to make us as adopted sons and daughters of the kingdom.

Friday Gospel Recharge: A reflection on the Gospel of John 1: 47-51

 

Friday Gospel Recharge Series

Friday Gospel Recharge

A Reflection on John 1: 47-51 

(25th Friday of Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calendar, 2023)

Hiding your heart from God? Don't even tryyy!

In today’s Gospel, Nathanael asks the question, with great amazement,

“how do you know me?”

He is surprised because without a word spoken from his mouth, Jesus knew who he was - not just by name but also his true character. What does this say about Jesus’s own abilities? As God, Jesus is all powerful, capable of creating all things from nothing. However, also in his ability to create all things, he is capable of knowing the hearts of men. As this is the case, then no matter how hard we try to hide or deny how we feel or what we think of ourselves from others, the lesson from this passage teaches that we are unable to hide those thoughts from God, because he knows our hearts even if we choose not to reveal it to him.

Jesus’s power to read a man’s heart is insightful. We might be able to hide our hearts desires, and sometimes our feelings from others, but with God this is impossible. He can tell from a mile away what we are thinking. Again, in this passage, Jesus saw Nathanael from a distance sitting under a fig tree, and when he saw him he knew him. Jesus only needs to gaze at us, even from a distance, to know who we really are. God isn’t limited to an encounter in order to judge the interior of our hearts.

It doesn’t take a textbook or one skilled in rocket science to realise we have a desire to know God, but maybe for some we are not sure if God can really know what occupies our hearts and thoughts, and so sometimes we feel so abandoned and alone because we have no one to whom we can open up.

Here, this Gospel reveals to us that God, although we can think of him as being the big ol’ guy up somewhere in the sky looking down at us, actually looks into us. He looks and makes an assessment: “there is an Israelite who deserves the name, incapable of deceit, “ as this Gospel tells it. Jesus is able to assess and know who we truly are. There is no hiding from God even if we try.

If you have something on your heart, and have no one to turn to, seek God and share those things with him, for he genuinely concerned about our wellbeing. 1 Samuel 16: 7 says God does not judge by appearances as people do, but looks at the heart.

As Christians, we are called to pray often to God, somethings and always through the intercession of the saints. When we pray, we should pray with more than just words but with all our heart. In other words, be frank with the Lord. This kind of prayer is sincere and properly desired by the Lord. God already knows what is in there, however he wants us to give to him from the heart in prayer. When we pray with a heartfelt prayer, we to go to God as we are.

The whole point of prayer is to put us into contact with God and give him the opportunity to mould our thinking and bend our hearts to his will. A person who is occupied in head and heart in the concerns of God is a person devoted to Godly things, to an honest living in the truth. Any man who lives this way is promised those treasures which God has promised to give them. This treasure is much more than just heaven, it includes God and knowledge of himself, a knowledge that can’t be excavated from the pits but freely given to us from the one who reigns in heaven: “you will see heaven laid open and, above the Son of Man, the angels ascending and defending.”

Despite where we are on the spectrum of holiness, pray and live honestly. Let’s be like the apostle Nathanael and be people who are incapable of deceit. While it is nice to know that an honest life is rewarded with the best gift of heaven: God. It’s also a nice term of endearment to die with. An honest person is always worth remembering. 

Friday Gospel Recharge: A reflection on the Gospel of Luke 8: 1-3

 

Friday Gospel Recharge Series

Friday Gospel Recharge

A Reflection on Luke 8: 1-3 

(24th Friday of Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calendar, 2023)

In serving one finds freedom and happiness

When I was in the seminary, I remember trying to make sense of the world from within a clerical point of view. A seminarian is no cleric but since so much of his life is consumed with liturgical and pastoral matters, aspects of one’s life resembled that of cleric, albeit set apart from the world, at least for the seven years in formation.

From other clerics and seminarians, often I heard that society is self-centred and materialistically driven. Pope Francis often referred to the modern world as the throw away culture. We buy one thing and quickly replace it, absorbed in getting the latest gadget or trying new experiences with impulse. Although I didn’t see much of this since my time was spent mainly reading theological and philosophical literature, as a seminarian’s life is consumed with study, I caught a glimpse of this plaguing my family when I took annual leave. My siblings were absorbed with material and dull leisurely experiences such as wanting to constantly travel and have different food experiences at different venues. I don’t think they gave much attention or their resources to the poor, like most un-practicing Catholics. I do however acknowledge that there are many people who are not practicing Catholics who do good work with their resources.

Even today, now that I live outside the walls of the seminary and no longer in formation for the priesthood, the narrative is the same: travel, food, and material dominates their thinking; it’s about me, not them. Even I can get caught being consumed by the me culture despite my past seminary formation for a clerical career. Sometimes, I intentionally have my heart and intellect fixated on my next pay cheque, consider how I can make use of it all personally, saving what I can, doubting I can give two percent to charity.

The heart of the Gospel message is not self-centred but other centred. Jesus in his earthly ministry preached a message that God is love and his love is unconditional, to the point of death. In other words, love does not count the cost, it gives selflessly until it can’t give anymore.

In today’s Gospel reading, Luke invites us to reflect on the preaching ministry of Jesus. At the heart of this message, Jesus is out preaching and proclaiming the Kingdom of God, accompanied by the 12 apostles and ministered by some of the women he had healed. The imagery surrounding this passage show the people of God, who are clerics and lay in the Church, gathered around their teacher, Jesus, sharing their lives and possessions. In actual fact, this is the vocation of the Christian community. While we share our gifts, talents, and time with friends and family, the reality is that a large portion of the people of God is poor, and to pick them up from the pits they find themselves, requires conscious giving that is done selflessly from whatever resources we have.

The morale behind sharing resources has psychological and emotional ramifications on the giver too. Indeed, sharing whatever we have especially to those in most need is good and can make us feel purposeful, but in actual fact to share generously our resources makes us happier people. I don’t have the scientific data before me that correlates giving with happiness, although I am told that it is scientifically proven that people with four children or more are happier families. A family with more children is able to give more I suppose and as a result receive more love in return. However, looking at this Gospel, we get a sense that giving or focusing our resources on others indeed works towards benefiting a happier self. This is realised in the women who ministered to Jesus.

Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’s women disciples, was cured of evil spirits. There isn’t much information on the other two women who feature in this passage, but we could presume they may have led similar lives to Mary. According to tradition, Mary of Magdalene was a prostitute. A prostitute is someone who has sex with another person for money; it’s not a one off nor a mistake, but a coordinated act that is ongoing. Sometimes women and men turn to prostitution not for the thrill of it, but because they have no other means to earn a living. Mary in this regard was a habitual sinner fornicating with other men and as a result was plagued by the devil.

Whether you believe in the existence of the devil or not, the Church recognises this creature to be more than an abstract idea. The devil is a real being who pursues us until our death, hoping we reject God and die in our sins. Whenever we sin, we invite the devil into our lives, and depending on the severity of our sins will depend on the degrees of possession we are afflicted with: oppression, obsession or possession. Turning back to Mary, who was possessed by the devil, was cured by Jesus. It is obvious too that Mary’s life took a turn. She left her self-centred life, portrayed by tradition as her being a prostitute, which made her also sad and a sick individual, now centres her life on others, primary the work of Jesus.

The message for us is that sin, which hurts our relationship God and invites unwanted spiritual guests such as the devil and his foul and festering demon comrades, can be overcome when we stop looking inwardly and instead focus our attention, effort and resources on those who needs it most in the community. Who are those in need most? The poor, the downtrodden. However, clerics too. Our priests need our support to help them in their ministry so that they can proclaim the kingdom of God. Remember, Mary Magdalene and Susanna and Joanna from this passage ministered to Jesus, the high priest, so that he may fulfil his ministry given to him by the Father.