THE WORD FREES US FROM SLAVERY


THURSDAY, THIRD WEEK OF LENT

Jer 7:23-28; Ps 95:1-2,6-9; Lk 11:14-23

Overcoming Evil with the Word of God

Our inclusion of the slavery and afflictions the children of Israel went through in Egypt in God’s plan for their purification and foundation as the people of God gives us a deeper insight into passive purification. We emphasise this aspect of their incorporation into God’s covenantal plan to help us understand the importance of the passive purifications God sends our way in our spiritual journey. The undesired trials, sufferings, and afflictions are divine means of uprooting our pride, self-importance, and sufficiency that keep us aloof or neglectful of God’s words and calls. Many of us follow the dictates of our hearts. We do not care to know what the Lord wants of us, yet we glory in being called Christians. God addresses us through the prophet Jeremiah in the following words. “These were my orders: Listen to my voice, then I will be your God and you shall be my people. Follow right to the end the way that I mark out for you, and you will prosper. But they did not listen, they did not pay attention; they followed the dictates of their own evil hearts, refused to face me, and turned their backs on me.” Many of us are not even aware of the fact that we are living away from God’s will for us, just as the children of Israel flourished in Egypt and were forgetful of their being in a foreign land. God directed the slavery and afflictions to awaken their desire for a country of their own.

Even the slavery and afflictions could not awaken the desire in some of them, for they still desired to remain in their slavery. The story of their slavery and wilderness experience are lessons for us as we struggle to be free from our slavery to sin and love for the sinful lifestyle of this passing world. Passive purgation and purifications are our afflictions in slavery and wilderness experience planned by God to free us from the stranglehold of the world and its strongman. But without paying persistent attention to the word of God, it will be impossible to break us free from the prison of this world and the grip of its strongman. “But they have not listened to me, have not paid attention; they have grown stubborn and behaved worse than their ancestors. You may say all these words to them: they will not listen to you; you may call them: they will not answer.” To make a habit of listening to the word of God, we must stop listening and spending time with the world. Persistency and consistency bring about the hardening of our hearts, as happened to the Israelites who left Egypt physically but remained there in their minds and hearts.

If the Word of God is not allowed into our awareness and affections, he will not destroy the stranglehold of the strongman in our minds and hearts. An illustration is in the gospel, where our Lord cast out a dumb demon, and the possessed man spoke afterward. It is a deaf and dumb demon, for the stranglehold of evil on us is usually in our minds, preventing us from hearing and giving a thought to God’s will, and in our hearts, preventing us from loving and embracing God’s will for us. Some of the people responded to Jesus’s miraculous work by cynical remarks. “But some of them said, ‘It is through Beelzebul, the prince of devils, that he casts out devils.’ Others asked him, as a test, for a sign from heaven.” God, in his infinite mercy and love for us sinners, sends the sufferings and afflictions to wake us from our dead state so that we may come to our senses as did the prodigal son and reach out with faith to the word of God that delivers us from every evil. When we suffer spiritual and temporal afflictions willingly and with trust in the Lord, they produce graces of conversion in us and others by a spiritual convolution process, by which we mediate the spiritual release of other souls by our sacrificial suffering in union with Christ. “So long as a strong man fully armed guards his own palace, his goods are undisturbed; but when someone stronger than he is attacks and defeats him, the stronger man takes away all the weapons he relied on and shares out his spoil.” The word of God can destroy every stronghold and take every evil thought and affection captive in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let us pray: We implore your majesty most humbly, O Lord, that, as the feast of our salvation draws ever closer, so we may press forward all the more eagerly towards the worthy celebration of the Paschal Mystery. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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