{"id":1087,"date":"2009-01-31T11:19:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-31T11:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html"},"modified":"2009-01-31T11:19:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-31T11:19:00","slug":"homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html","title":{"rendered":"Homily for February 1, 2009: 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>When I was 14 years old, the one movie that I really wanted to see was one that I couldn\u2019t: \u201cThe Exorcist.\u201d I was too young. If you want to know the truth, when I finally saw it a few years later, when I was in college, I was still<\/i> too young to see it. It was truly terrifying. Nobody will ever confuse this movie with great art. But it\u2019s a great way to give yourself nightmares. <\/p>\n

And it\u2019s what most of us imagine when we think of someone being possessed by an \u201cunclean spirit,\u201d like the man in today\u2019s gospel. Spinning heads, levitation, strange voices. I won\u2019t even go into the pea soup. <\/p>\n

But in reality, the banality of evil is more subtle. It is more seductive. And that makes it infinitely more terrifying \u2013 and dangerous \u2013 than anything Hollywood can create. <\/p>\n

Not long ago, I received in the mail an advance copy of a book that is going to be published this spring. It\u2019s called \u201cIn Due Season,\u201d and the author is a noted spiritual writer and journalist, Paul Wilkes. This is his autobiography. And it\u2019s an astonishing story. <\/p>\n

Paul Wilkes grew up a devout Catholic in working class Cleveland. He went to Marquette, studied journalism, served in the military, and eventually married. After several years, his marriage fell apart, and he found himself adrift. He became involved in social service work, co-founding in Brooklyn the organization CHIPS \u2013 Christian Help in Park Slope. For a time, he lived among the poorest people in New York, caring for them in their rundown tenements. But he continued writing, and won acclaim for some of his books. He worked for a time in television, and rubbed elbows with the rich and famous in the Hamptons. His life became consumed by sex and drugs, at a time when the mantra was, \u201cIf it feels good, do it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Needless to say, by the late 1970s, the devout Catholic boy from Cleveland wasn\u2019t much of anything. <\/p>\n

But it all came crashing down on him. He suffered a breakdown, and then began a long, slow climb back. Something in his heart and soul told him there had to be another way. He traveled the world. He spent some time with Trappist monks in Massachusetts before finally arriving at a place of peace, and joy, and fulfillment\u2014becoming what God always intended him to be. You\u2019ll have to read the book to find out how that happened. He\u2019s now happily married, a devoted and committed Catholic who has written several popular books about religion and spirituality. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve exchanged a couple e-mails with him, and we\u2019re planning to do a profile of him this spring on my TV show. When I told him how much I liked the book, he wrote back, \u201cGreg, it\u2019s one man\u2019s effort to show that even a ragged Catholic life can still have its moments of grace.\u201d <\/p>\n

That says it perfectly. I don\u2019t think Paul would disagree if I described his book as a story of death and resurrection. <\/p>\n

But I think it is also about possession — and exorcism. <\/p>\n

More realistically than \u201cThe Exorcist,\u201d Paul Wilkes\u2019 story shows a familiar, attractive kind of evil. It comes dressed in Ralph Lauren, and lives in an apartment in Greenwich Village, and wins attention and awards and adulation. It becomes a one-night stand with a name you can\u2019t remember, and it offers you a drug whose name you can\u2019t pronounce. It eats your money, and breaks your heart. <\/p>\n

That was the world that Paul Wilkes knew. But in the midst of it all, amid all the noise and confusion of his life, he heard a strong and steady voice. <\/p>\n

\u201cQuiet,\u201d it said. \u201cCome out.\u201d <\/p>\n

This week\u2019s gospel tells us about Christ\u2019s power over unclean spirits. They come in many shapes and forms \u2013 including, I think, the kind that took hold of Paul Wilkes. <\/p>\n

They can overwhelm any of us, if we aren\u2019t careful. They can come as jealousy, or self-indulgence, or arrogance, or neediness. They can make us spiritually bankrupt. <\/p>\n

They are part of our broken, imperfect, wounded humanity. <\/p>\n

And, as he did in the temple, Christ calls out to them \u2013 firmly, persistently, patiently.<\/p>\n

Quiet, he says.<\/p>\n

Come out. <\/p>\n

How can we not listen to that voice, that stirring in our hearts?<\/p>\n

That voice that asks us to be the best<\/span> we can be\u2026not the worst. <\/p>\n

That voice that calms our fears, silences our cries. <\/p>\n

Quiet, it says. <\/p>\n

Come out.<\/span> <\/p>\n

St. Augustine famously wrote that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. <\/p>\n

I think the anonymous man in the gospel discovered that. And, his life became a living miracle<\/p>\n

Paul Wilkes would probably say the same thing about himself. <\/p>\n

It is so easy for us to be possessed by our fears and anxieties, our insecurities and our hungers. Especially now, when every day the headlines offer us new reasons to feel anxious, or insecure, angry or overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

But in the middle of it all, Jesus calls out. He quiets our demons. He exorcises them. He calms the storms in our hearts, if only we listen for his voice. <\/p>\n

It is a voice, the gospel tells us, that speaks with authority. <\/p>\n

It speaks with power, yes, but it also speaks with great love. The love of a Father for His children, the love of a God who doesn\u2019t want anyone to be lost. <\/p>\n

It is a voice that the psalmist celebrated. \u201cIf today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let us pray that we keep our hearts, and our ears, open \u2013 to hear Him when He calls, and to follow where He wants us to go. <\/p>\n

As Paul Wilkes found, it may take us where we never expected, but to where we were always meant to be: possessed not by something unclean, but by something that we might even call\u2026grace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was 14 years old, the one movie that I really wanted to see was one that I couldn\u2019t: \u201cThe Exorcist.\u201d I was too young. If you want to know the truth, when I finally saw it a few years later, when I was in college, I was still too young to see it.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homilies"],"yoast_head":"\nHomily for February 1, 2009: 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Homily for February 1, 2009: 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I was 14 years old, the one movie that I really wanted to see was one that I couldn\u2019t: \u201cThe Exorcist.\u201d I was too young. If you want to know the truth, when I finally saw it a few years later, when I was in college, I was still too young to see it.…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-31T11:19:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SYR6L6eVw8I\/AAAAAAAAFB8\/JeVog5wqukw\/s320\/exorcistR_468x355.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Homily for February 1, 2009: 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Homily for February 1, 2009: 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"When I was 14 years old, the one movie that I really wanted to see was one that I couldn\u2019t: \u201cThe Exorcist.\u201d I was too young. If you want to know the truth, when I finally saw it a few years later, when I was in college, I was still too young to see it.…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2009-01-31T11:19:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SYR6L6eVw8I\/AAAAAAAAFB8\/JeVog5wqukw\/s320\/exorcistR_468x355.jpg"}],"author":"deacon greg kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html","name":"Homily for February 1, 2009: 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SYR6L6eVw8I\/AAAAAAAAFB8\/JeVog5wqukw\/s320\/exorcistR_468x355.jpg","datePublished":"2009-01-31T11:19:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-01-31T11:19:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SYR6L6eVw8I\/AAAAAAAAFB8\/JeVog5wqukw\/s320\/exorcistR_468x355.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SYR6L6eVw8I\/AAAAAAAAFB8\/JeVog5wqukw\/s320\/exorcistR_468x355.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/homily-for-february-1-2009-4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Homily for February 1, 2009: 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10","name":"deacon greg kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","caption":"deacon greg kandra"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}