A Homily for Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Genesis 3:9-15 2 Corinthians 4:13 – 5: 1 Mark 3:20-35
It opened in the winter of 1973 on only 30 screens, primarily in cities. Warner Bros. Studio did not have high expectations for a supernatural thriller, lacking big star actors. But audiences began to stand in line for tickets. Some viewers ran screaming from theaters. Others required medical attention. Ambulances were kept on call and showings were immediately expanded.
At the time, Pauline Kael, the noted film critic of The New Yorker, described “The Exorcist” as “the biggest recruiting poster the Catholic Church has had since the sunnier days of “Going My Way” and “The Bells of St. Mary’s.” Why? Because the film presents the Catholic Church as “the true faith, feared by the Devil, and that its rituals can exorcise demons,” as Kael wrote. That is also how some Protestants received the film, picketing it as “pro-Catholic pornography.”
The reception among Catholics was mixed. Many felt the film showed little understanding of the church’s view on sin, evil and redemption. But everyone talked about “The Exorcist,” and now, more than 50 years, five sequels and many knockoffs later, they still are. Satan is a solid investment for Hollywood.
[Supernatural or superstitious? Looking back at ‘The Exorcist’]
During Ordinary Time, the first reading and the Gospel are intended to dialogue with each other. Typically, their thematic unity is readily apparent. This week, Satan seems to be that link, though I did not think that we ever gave him the top billing. In Genesis, “the serpent” is identified as the deceiver, and in the Gospel, the adversaries of Jesus say that “he is possessed by Beelzebul” and that “by the prince of demons he drives out demons” (Mk 3:22).
Many believers view angels and demons as a mythological overlay of sacred Scripture, not God’s revelation, even though the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 affirmed their existence. Still others, who do not seem to believe in God at all, are fascinated by angels and fear demons. What both groups probably picture is something far removed from Scripture.
The cultures that birthed Christianity believed in angelic intelligences who exercised influence over nations, planets and other natural phenomena. We hear them cited in the prophets, in St. Paul and the prayers of the Eucharist: the cherubim and seraphim, dominions and powers, the heavenly host of angels.
These are not beings who look like us, save with wings. Yet like us, they are intelligences—souls would be the more familiar word—fundamentally related to the material world, though on a considerably larger scale. And this is where they differ from us. We directly engage the world only through our bodies.
Are there reasons, beyond personal prejudice, to reject or to affirm angelic existence? You would sound quite modern to dismiss angels and demons even as you affirm the possibility of extraterrestrial aliens, but neither is per se unreasonable. Both suppositions suggest an endlessly fruitful God, who creates other, non-human intelligences, either in another dimension or in outer space.
If aliens exist, they stand beyond our current capacity to prove their presence. Fallen or not, angels, like God, are not subject to being proven to exist. As transcendent beings, they stand beyond the chains of cause and effect, the chains that make up what we call the world.
But acceptance of angels and demons might be coming into its own as evolutionary theory develops. We have presumed that what we call instinct is not a personal agent, but evolutionary theory seems to be moving toward previously unrecognized intelligences, which relate to material realities on a scale larger than the human mind does to its own body. To cite one example, we now know that clusters of trees exhibit an intelligence greater than trees that stand alone.
An affirmation of St. Thomas Aquinas is apropos here, as valid today in science as it was then in theology. Non enim plura secundum se uniuntur. Pluralities do not become unities by themselves. Humans are hardwired to detect the personal in the impersonal. But that raises the question, which came first: our detection programming or the actual friends and foes?
If you ask any group of priests about paranormal phenomena, you will hear of them witnessing experiences that defy easy explanations. In pastoral ministry, we have been drawn into strange events that appear to lack commonly accepted causes.
I once asked a self-styled expert in demonic possession: Why would demonic intelligence oppress, even possess, some individuals? It would seem to have an unwanted effect. Would not everyone who encountered such a thing in real life turn all the more readily to God? If “The Exorcist” is not fiction, does it not promote faith? I was not swept away by his response: Who said demons were intelligent?
But perhaps smarter, higher demons do limit their direct interactions with us lest they detract from, even negate, their primary actions upon us, which are the self-deceptions that fill our lives. Their primary realms are the base desires that lead us to act against our own best interests and that of others.
Contemporary news constantly seems to suggest that, all things being equal, we are not the masters of our decisions. They appear to control us, leading us where we would not wish to go. Non enim plura secundum se uniuntur. Pluralities do not become unities by themselves. Are we drawn toward evil, just as we are called by the Good?
Likewise, good angels seldom directly engage the world because it is the privileged arena where our faith and resolve are tested. Like God, they refuse to rob of us our freedom to create ourselves with every choice we make.
Maybe we are not alone. Maybe other intelligences stand among us, between us and God. Yet the core of God’s self-revelation is that we are free. We were created to choose the love that is our origin and our destiny. And whatever other beings there may be, whatever choices they may have made for themselves and whatever influence they might wield upon us, they are so much less than the love that created us, sustains us and calls us to itself in Jesus the Christ, he of whom Hebrews says,
You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you crowned him with glory and honor,
subjecting all things under his feet (2:7-8).
