15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, 2024

Published: July 14, 2024

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor preached the following homily at Holy Redeemer Church in El Dorado on Saturday, July 13, 2024, and Sacred Heart Church in Foreman, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Ashdown and St. Luke Church in Warren on Sunday, July 14, 2024.

Bishop Taylor

The devil cannot take possession of us against our will. Evil from the outside gets inside us only when invited in by a kindred spirit within; whatever vices we’ve let take root in our soul.

For instance: Envy comes from within. It starts out as a little twinge of resentment that we can easily get rid of by simply remembering those less fortunate than us.

But if instead we nurse our grudge, this feeling of envy will grow and we soon find more things to resent. Left unchecked, this unclean spirit can become an obsession and ruin our relationship not only with others, but also with God, whom we now blame for life’s inequalities.

The unhappiness of envy is caused not — as we imagine — by other peoples’ good fortune (in which we would rejoice if we were pure of heart) but rather by our envy of that good fortune, the unclean spirit that we have allowed to take hold of our soul.

And the same is true for other selfish vices as well: greed, lust, gluttony, pride, deceit, ambition and so on. Evil from the outside gets inside us only when invited in by a kindred spirit that we have allowed to take root within.

In today’s Gospel Jesus gives his disciples authority to root out unclean spirits. To do so they will need to 1.) Travel light; no extra food or money, no extra possessions; and 2.) Think positive: When people reject them, they are to shake off the dust of their disappointment in testimony against them. They are to maintain a positive outlook — and so avoid the danger that resentment about this rejection might get to them, and create in them an opening for the very same unclean spirits that they’re trying to drive out of others.

You and I are like the first hearers of these words of Jesus 2,000 years ago. Besides committing specific sins, we too allow habits of sin, unclean spirits, to take root in our souls, from which Jesus wants to set us free. And so even today he continues to send out apostles to root out these unclean spirits that ruin our relationship with others and with God, and leave us so unhappy.

But we do have to respond, and one thing that will make this easier is if we learn — like those apostles — to travel light and think positive. By stripping ourselves of unnecessary things, we learn to trust in God’s providence and thus eliminate all resentment of other peoples’ good fortune.

And by shaking off the dust of our disappointments, we learn to maintain a positive perspective — like Jesus did when he turned his horrific crucifixion into the most positive instrument of salvation in all of human history. He prayed for his executioners and shook off the dust of humiliation and despair, which if not overcome could have sabotaged the freedom he came to win for us.

And this freedom will be ours if we too learn to travel light and think positive. Evil from the outside gets inside us only when invited in by a kindred spirit that we have let take root within, which we have to get rid of if we want ever truly to be free.