Dear friends in Christ

There are some occasions in the Gospels that are rather shocking and which may often be outside of our direct experience. One of these might be when Jesus saves a person from demonic possession. A possessed and tormented man from Capharnaum encounters Jesus and cries-out in desperation. He is in need of deliverance from control of the devil. Pathological signs often accompany diabolical possession which is why the man is brought to Jesus for exorcism and healing. This type of sickness is rare, even if the Church recognises the need for exorcism in certain extreme cases. In this specific historic case which St Mark relates, we are supposed to see in that possessed man, every sinner who wants to be converted to God; every person, who wants to be free from sin and control of the Evil One. St Augustine writes: Jesus has not come to free us from dominating nations, but from the devil; not from the captivity of the body, but from the malice of the soul (Sermon 48). Each and every one of us needs this liberation, often on a daily basis, so that we are not controlled by evil. We are all addicts of sin and dysfunction in one way or another. Jesus has come to show us how to live unenslaved by external forces, so as to live in the glorious freedom of the children of God. One of the helps in this is the prayer—as we say at the end of weekday Mass—to St Michael the Archangel. At the end of a weekly Audience (13.viii.’86) Pope St John Paul II offered this invocation: Deliver us, Lord, from evil, from the Evil One; lead us not into temptation. Grant in your infinite mercy that we should not give in to the infidelity to which the one who has been unfaithful from the beginning endeavours to seduce us.

I encourage you to persevere in prayer during these hard weeks and follow the pattern of prayer that continues in the Parish as appropriately as you can. Encourage one another to faith, optimism and good humour as we, hopefully, go into the final furlong of the pandemic.

God bless you!

Msgr Kevin Hale