When Jesus had driven out a demon, some of the crowd said:“By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons.” Others, to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven. But he knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house. And if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that it is by Beelzebul that I drive out demons. If I, then, drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own people drive them out? Therefore they will be your judges.But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man fully armed guards his palace, his possessions are safe. But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him, he takes away the armor on which he relied and distributes the spoils. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
“When an unclean spirit goes out of someone, it roams through arid regions searching for rest but, finding none, it says, ‘I shall return to my home from which I came.’ But upon returning, it finds it swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and brings back seven other spirits more wicked than itself who move in and dwell there, and the last condition of that man is worse than the first.”
REFLECTION
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
Before becoming a priest, John Leonardi trained as a pharmacist. Later, as a priest, he understood that the deepest illness of the human person is not physical but spiritual--sin, discouragement and eternal separation from God.
St John Leonardi lived in the late 1500s and early 1600s during a period when the Catholic Church was undergoing major reform after the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent. Not only were there problems outside the Church but there were serious spiritual and moral weaknesses within Christians, including clergy and laity. In his letter to Pope Paul V, he said that anyone who wanted to reform Christian souls first needed to make a careful diagnosis of the illnesses troubling the Church, like a physician examining a patient. He believed that reform had to begin with those in leadership and then spread throughout the whole Church.
One had to seek the glory of God before all else because He is the source of all good.
The Church must then present themselves to those they seek to reform as mirrors of every virtue and as lamps on a lamp-stand. Their upright lives and noble conduct must shine before all who are in the house of God. In this way they will gently entice the members of the Church to reform instead of forcing them.
They should be like skilled physicians who take great pains to dispose of all the diseases that afflict the Church and require a cure. The inner reformation was to be the whole Church, with superiors and inferiors. The goal was to teach morals to children at a young age, pious instructions in Christian doctrine, and entrusting children to good and God fearing teachers.
He was most concerned about weak Christian formation, moral laxity and lives that were no longer centered on Christ. He emphasized better formation of priests, serious catechesis of ordinary people. Most important he believed that people needed not merely rules but an encounter with Christ that would actually change the way they lived. Not only does one have to remove what is wrong but the heart must then be filled with Christ, otherwise the old weaknesses would return. With Jesus with us, we must clean our houses, and invite Jesus to live in us.
PAPA prays for priests, that Jesus Christ be truly at the center of their hearts and lives and therefore the Church. Please keep them in Prayer.
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