Joke: One Sunday morning, a mother was getting ready for Church when she noticed her son wasn’t up yet. She finally went in to wake him up. “Come on, get up. You’ll be late for Mass!” she said. “I don’t want to go!” said her son as he buried his head under the pillow. “You have to go,” the mother insisted. “No, I’m not going,” he insisted. “And I’ll give you two reasons. Nobody there likes me and I don’t like them.” Indignantly, his mother replied, “You are too going to church, and I’ll give you two reasons: You’re 45 years old and you’re the pastor!”

In today's Gospel, Saint Mark gives us a glimpse of the work day of Jesus. It’s on the Sabbath, that he came to the temple to preach, and then he commanded the evil spirit to get out of a man who was possessed. Mark reported a very interesting conversation not between Jesus and the man who was possessed by an evil spirit, but it was a conversation between Jesus and the evil spirit in the man. The unclean spirit recognized the presence of the Lord Jesus, and he knew exactly there was no common ground between the Lord Jesus and himself. As soon as he saw Jesus, he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” The man was possessed by the evil spirit and couldn’t recognize the Lord Jesus, the Holy One of God, but the evil spirit possessed this man knew exactly who Jesus was.

Have we ever been possessed by evil spirits? How do we recognize that we are possessed by the evil spirit? Perhaps, we are not physically possessed by evil spirits such as paralyzed or mute or blind just like in some cases reported in the Bible, but you and I have ever been possessed by evil spirits which numbed ourselves to do good deeds and to love one another? The evil spirit might numb our minds, hearts, and souls in front of the temptations. How does it numb our minds? The evil spirit numbs our minds by telling lies, gossiping, criticizing, and judging wrongly of others. How does it numb our hearts? When we harbor evil thoughts and actions against others is when we allow evil spirit dominates our life? It numbs our hearts that we don’t feel hurt or regret when we hurt someone somehow. How does the evil spirit numb our soul? The moment that we don’t want to go to confession; we look at sin as if it’s not sin; and we allow evil spirit to play tricks in us saying, “Oh, you will be fine to commit that sin; or just sin one more time, you are going to be fine.” Many times I was asked to pray for an individual who believed that he or she was possessed by an evil spirit and that he or she could even speak the language of Jesus; he or she even conversed with the evil spirit; he or she even experienced some strange activities moving in the house, etc. Whenever I was asked to go to someone’s house to bless the house, the first thing I asked the individual was, “Do you go to Church?” The response that I often got was, “I don’t go to church, but I pray and I read the Bible every day.” “It is nothing wrong to pray to God at home and to read the Bible,” I said, “however, it would be better to come to Church to worship the Lord and to thank the Lord for the gift of this life.” Mass is the highest form of all the prayers, and Mass is the thanksgiving itself each time to come to Mass is each time we give thanks to God for the gift of our lives. The Church is a sacred place where Christ resides, especially in the Tabernacle in any Catholic Church. During Mass, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that Christ presents in four different places. Christ presents at the Word of God and is proclaimed at the Ambo. He is also present at the Altar where the sacrificial offering of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, is celebrated. He is also present in the celebrant, the priest himself, since he is the persona Christi, he acts in the person of Jesus Christ at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Christ is also present in the congregation because the Lord Jesus Christ himself said that where there are two or three people gathered together, he is in their midst. Watching pornography, gossiping, judging, criticizing, lying, cheating, harming others, stealing, and many other crooked ways of life somehow we fall into these temptations, but we feel fine and are not ashamed nor guilty of it. We might not even see the need for confession. Someone pointed out that what’s the point of going to confession, then we sin again? Others said, “I don’t see watching pornography and masturbation as a sin,” etc. A man possessed by an evil spirit cannot control himself, the evil spirit possessed him speaking for him, reported in today’s Gospel, saying to Jesus, “Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” Perhaps, when we don’t see the need to go to Mass; we don’t see the need to receive the Body and the Blood of Jesus at the Eucharist; and when we don’t see the need to go to confession, we might be possessed by the evil spirit with all the distractions of this world that St. Paul encouraged us and the Corinthian community reported in today’s second reading to fix our eyes on the Lord, “without distraction,” the distraction of material goods, of self-center, greedy, ignorance, self-pleasure, and the dependency on our own will, not God’s will.

The demon thinks that he can control Jesus by the use of his name and by claiming to have a hold of his identity, wrong. Jesus, the Holy One of God, the Son of God, and God himself that at his presence, he expels the darkness of sins so that no evil survives at his presence. Through our baptism, each one of us is invited to such self-possession, liberated from the demons that inhabit the darkness within us to put a new clean white garment which is the Lord Himself, have we tried to keep that white garment continuously new and cleaned? The only detergent and water that can wash our baptismal garment clean again and again is the confession. Have we come to confession often to wash our baptismal garments clean? Have we had that willingness to follow the Lord even in our tough times, in our struggles, in our sufferings, and even in our discomfort in living conditions? Have we allowed Jesus to come to us to expel the darkness within us? As Moses challenged the Israelites to listen to God’s voice, described in today’s first reading, we are also called to hear the voice of Jesus and live out his teachings in what we say and do according to God’s will and not our own will. In the presence of the Lord Jesus, the evil spirit recognized and came out of the man, have we allowed Jesus to reside in us every time we received Communion to expel demons from us? It is not only about receiving Christ at Mass but how should we live our Christian life to have Jesus, the Holy One of God and God himself resided in us always? The decision is yours.