Fr. Chris - Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Homily

“The Almighty Power Of God”
​It is not uncommon for us, and all who believe in God, a Creator, to pause at times and wonder at the magnitude, the height and breadth and extent of the Almighty’s unfathomable power. We ponder what the mind and abilities of God look like, but can only do so in terms of the limited human mind and powers we possess.  
 
But Mark’s gospel clearly illustrates for us what this great power of God does look like through the example of his Son’s exorcism and healing of the possessed man. Today, we witness three remarkable things about Jesus, three critical truths:

 1) Christ’s ability to heal with nothing more than a simple word or command.

2) Christ’s supreme power over evil: “Be silent, and come out of him!”

3) Christ’s reaching out to the weakest, often unpleasant, and most rejected in society, (those we are often not comfortable with or disposed to ourselves).  
   
Indeed, this was why God took on the form of a human being, to demonstrate his vast powers to heal and rebuke evil, so we would follow his ways to salvation.
 
 This should end all doubts and concerns about who is truly in control of our world, who has the ultimate power to intervene in our lives and global affairs. It should comfort us to know we can call upon Christ anytime to help us as he promised:   
“And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age,” (Matt 28.20).
 
Yet, how often do we question his presence with us, his ability to make things right, to heal us? Clearly, too often we doubt his power to intervene. Otherwise, we would not be debating and arguing with each other about one political matter and health issue after the other. We would be appealing to God to help us tackle the many things we, as humans, do not have the power to address as he does. But even the prophets of old certainly knew his power to heal the nations!
 
But perhaps we doubt because of our limited minds and powers, inability to grasp God’s ways which are not like ours. After all, we cannot know the mind of God?
 
Yet, this is why we need Faith! This is why we need prayer! Otherwise, we are going in circles, spinning our wheels in the workings of the world, trying to run the show ourselves, relying only on our tiny intellect, and not thinking with our hearts.
 
The great saints and thinkers have all said we must seek to find and know God via our hearts, where we truly unite with the One Great Intellect of All Time, who will lead us to true understanding of ourselves, of each other, and of the Almighty. One of the greatest ‘intellects’ of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, on his deathbed said, “The end of my labours has come. All which I have written appears to me as just so much straw after the things which have been revealed to me in the heart.”
 
Prayer is the perfect unification of intellect and heart, where the mind finds ultimate solace and peace, hearing Christ’s command to heal us. Beloved Dutch priest, Henri Nouwen, said, “Prayer heals. Not just the ‘answer’ to our prayers, but prayer itself heals us. When we give up our competition with God [to heal our own lives] and offer God every part of our heart, holding nothing back, we come to know God’s love for us and discover how safe we truly are in his embrace.”   
 
St. Paul tells us today: “Brothers and sisters, I want you to be free from anxieties.”
So, let the debates cease. Let the bickering end. Let the political and social disputes fade into the glorious sunsets we are privileged to savour here in Saugeen Shores!

Silence the negative thoughts running through our heads day after day, vain pursuits ending in a pointless circle of unending stress. Focus on Faith and Heal yourself!  

When an angry thought enters your mind, replace it with Christ’s powerful words: “Be silent, and come out of me!” When you feel words of rebuke and criticism rising up on your tongue, replace them with: “Be silent, and come out of me!”
 
We are less possessed by the devil than we are by our own ‘egos’, pride, and a self-defeating reliance only upon our own measures, often distorted beliefs and ideals.
But if we meet Christ in our hearts, not in our reason, and repeat the words he gave us to remember him by, we can be healed, and this healing grows with prayer.
 
As priests we see healing take place, mental and/or physical, when we celebrate the commands of the Sacrament of Anointing. We also see it in Confession. We see it at every healing service when we command illness to leave a sick person.    
 
Let prayer be our guide, and with faith in God’s grace, command the negativity in our lives and communities to fade into the sunset under the almighty power of God.            
 
– Rev Fr Christopher Tracey, Saint Joseph Parish, Saugeen Shores, Ontario  ​