Letting Jesus expel lesser loves
Mark 1:21-28
Then they came to Capernaum, and on the sabbath Jesus
entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their
synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; 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!” Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!” The
unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. All were
amazed and asked one another “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He
commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” His fame spread
everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.
Do you
know what it the easiest thing in the world to do? It’s to love something. Do you know what is the hardest thing in the
world to do? It’s also to love
something, but to love it well, to love it the way we should. For instance, we love some things way too much. We say, “I love candy!” or “I love legos!” or
“I love Fr. John!” (You can’t love Fr. John too much). Or, if you’re Joan Jett and the Blackhearts,
you say, “I love rock and roll! Put another dime in the jukebox, baby!” On the other hand, some things we don’t love
at all, even though we should. We don’t
love our enemies, even though Jesus tells us to. We don’t love the vegetables on our plate
that we should eat for supper. And we
definitely don’t love long sermons on Sundays!
You see, in every human heart there rages a kind of lovers’ quarrel
between lesser, impure and selfish loves on the one hand, and higher, holier
and more altruistic loves on the other hand.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, “The only way to get rid of an old love is
with the expulsive power of a new love.”
You’ve heard the old saying, “Fight fire with fire.” Well, you also have to fight love with love;
you must fight lesser loves with higher loves, you fight diabolical loves with
divine loves, and you fight selfish loves with disinterested loves. Every human heart is the scene of a lovers’
quarrel.
In the gospel today we see what happens in the heart when
Jesus arrives on the scene. There is a
man in the synagogue with an unclean spirit, and Jesus rebukes him and
commands, “Come out of him!” Basically,
Jesus performs an exorcism. By the way,
someone recently sent me a “meme.” Do
you know what that is? It’s a picture
with a funny caption written on it. This
picture showed an old Catholic priest, apparently an exorcist, holding a large
crucifix. The caption read: “Everyone
makes fun of Catholics until they have a demon in their house!” That's when you finally appreciate
Catholicism. That’s when you’ll REALLY
love Fr. John! Anyway, in the gospel,
Jesus expels the unclean spirit. How did
he do it? Well, Mark says Jesus spoke
with authority, and I believe that was the authority of love; love is the only
authentic authority. In other words,
Jesus, the highest love, has the authority to expel all lesser, unclean loves,
symbolized by unclean spirits. Now,
don’t misunderstand me, there really are evil spirits, the fallen angels, but
they use these lesser loves to lead us away from the highest love, God. In every human heart there rages a lovers’
quarrel, and only Jesus, the highest love, can expel the lower loves.
You know,
it’s taken me a long time to see that this lovers’ quarrel is exactly what
happens in prayer, and unfortunately, the wrong side was winning in my
heart. A good friend of mine, Fr. Bill
Thomas, who died several years ago, liked to call me on the phone out of the
blue and ask, “Hey, John, have you made it to your Happy Hour today?” Fr. Bill wasn’t inviting me to have a drink
with him; a Happy Hour was his time of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. But I always replied with some lame
excuse. I’d say: “Yeah, sure, Bill, I’m
headed to the chapel right now!” But I
wasn’t. You see, I was running around
chasing so many lesser loves – even though they were good things – while I
ignored Jesus, the highest Love. Now,
thanks to Fr. Bill, I make my Happy Hour first thing in the morning, and I
invite Jesus into the lovers’ quarrel in my heart, to expel the lesser
loves. In other words, I have stopped
singing with Joan Jett, “I love rock and roll,” and I have learned to sing with
Steve Winwood, “Bring me a higher love.”
Do you remember that song? Here
are a few lines: “Think about it, there must be higher love; Down in the heart,
or hidden in the stars above. Without
it, life is wasted time; look inside your heart, I’ll look inside mine.” During my Happy Hour, I look inside my heart
and see the higher love of Jesus winning the lovers’ quarrel.
Ask
yourself today: do lesser loves keep me from the higher love of Christ? For example, do I worry too much about food
and drink – some of you are planning your dinner menu right now! Am I obsessive about fashion and my
appearance? Am I obsessive about other
people’s fashion and appearance?? Does
social media like Facebook and Twitter consume my time? Are watching sports and playing video games
so important that I put my family in second place? And stop sending me invitations to play Candy
Crush Saga!! Now, these are not bad
things, indeed they are good things. But
as Scott Hahn says, “The good can become the enemy of the best, if it keeps you
from the best.” Let me repeat that: “The
good can become the enemy of the best if it keeps you from the best.” Would you like to know who’s winning the
lovers’ quarrel in your heart? Here’s a
simple test: do you come to Mass every Sunday?
You see, missing Mass on Sunday is often a sign that some lesser love –
like camping, or hunting or sports – is more important to you than the love of
Jesus. Every Sunday at Mass, Jesus
speaks with the authority of love to expel these lesser loves out of our
hearts.
So, it’s
okay to love candy, and it’s okay to love legos and it’s definitely okay to
love Fr. John. But don’t love these
things more than you love Jesus. Don’t
let these good things become the enemy of the best thing. Don’t put another dime in the jukebox, baby;
put another dime in the collection plate, baby!
Praised be
Jesus
Christ!
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