Our Venerable Father Moses the Black (c. 400); Our Holy Father Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (430); the Holy Martyr Gebre Michael, Illuminator of Ethiopia (1855)
Read
2 Corinthians 6:11-16; Mark 1:23-28
It is fascinating to notice that an evil spirit in today’s Gospel lesson tries to converse with Jesus. It attempts to engage with Him by proclaiming His name and identity as ‘the Holy One of God’ who is all-powerful—meaning that Jesus has the power to create, heal and take life. Jesus is correctly identified not just as one of the many holy people, but as the definitive source of Holiness. How does Jesus respond to the unclean spirit? Interestingly, Jesus silences the unclean spirit even though it is speaking about an important foundational truth, for He knows that it is deceptive and desires to destroy and corrupt.
Through this encounter, we are instructed by our Lord to not engage evil even when it presents itself wrapped in partial truth. Like Christ, we should silence evil when it tries to engage us starting at the level of thoughts in our hearts. Adam and Eve in the garden coupled in conversation with the evil one and were thus led astray. Often we fail just as they did for we do not take seriously spiritual discernment and instead of banishing tempting thoughts we are drawn into their evil designs. St. Paul instructs, “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:5). In other words, the only defence we have is to bring each thought to Christ for He is our protection, power and source of holiness.