Power to Tread Upon Serpents and Scorpions
Saturday, October 5th Readings Reflection: Saturday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time
“Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall hurt you” (Lk 10:19 DRB). This promise, which Our Lord gave His disciples in today’s Gospel reading, contains a beautiful meaning that is applicable to our spiritual lives. The Fathers of the Church said that this passage can be understood in both a literal sense and a spiritual sense. One example of a literal fulfillment of this prophecy is found in the Acts of the Apostles, when St. Paul shook off a viper unharmed (see Act 28:3-5).
However, there is a deeper spiritual reality present in Our Lord’s promise. St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote that “pleasure is called in Scripture a serpent[.]… [P]leasure assaults the heart, and perverts it to the indulgence of immoderate ornament” (Catena Aurea). In other words, the scorpions and serpents alluded to in today’s Gospel are the sins of the heart that, by their poison, draw the soul away from God and destroy the life of grace within.
The Apostles in today’s Gospel rejoiced that even “the devils…are subject to us in [Christ’s] name” (Lk 10:17). Our Lord gave His Apostles and their successors in the priesthood authority over unclean spirits and the power to bind and loose (cf. Mt 10:1; Mt 18:18). By virtue of the authority that each priest receives in his ordination, he is able to “tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy” (Lk 10:19).
Jesus warned His disciples to not rejoice in their authority but to instead recognize the divine Source of their authority. In the words of St. Bede, “[T]o cast out spirits and to exercise other powers is sometimes not on account of his merits who works, but is wrought through the invocation of Christ’s name to the condemnation of those who mock it, or to the advantage of those who see and hear” (Catena Aurea). The spiritual gifts that Christ gave to His Apostles and their successors in the priesthood are free gifts, extensions of divine love. Each priest has received them at his ordination; the extent to which he uses them in accordance with God’s holy Will depends on his wisdom and prudence, as Our Lord said in today’s Gospel (see Lk 10:21).
May we the laity always pray for our priests, that God may fill them with wisdom and prudence so that they may always exercise their priestly authority in accordance with the Will of God.