Thy Kingdom Come!

A Reflection on this Friday’s Gospel, Luke 11:15-26 – 11 October 2024

     Within almost every Catholic liturgical prayer, we pray the “Our Father.” It is the Lord’s prayer and in this alone, is great power. The prayer consists of seven petitions which should enliven our actions in every moment of every day. That is why we repeat it so often. God knows the prayer. It is we who must be constantly reminded. In the Gospel of Luke 11:15-26, Jesus focuses on two of the seven petitions.

     In the Lord’s Prayer, we beg for God’s Kingdom to happen perfectly, “on earth as it is in heaven,” and in this we request that God, “deliver us from evil.” These two petitions work together. For where evil is, God’s Kingdom cannot exist. Jesus tells us today that the Kingdom comes upon us whenever He has driven the demons out (Luke 11:20). Through our Lord’s passion, death, and resurrection, God’s Kingdom has come, is now, and is eternally possible. Yet only the “strong man” can keep that Kingdom safe from the assaults of evil, not a euphemism but a demonic reality. For the demons are out there, seeking to despoil and wreak havoc.

     We should seek the peace that the Kingdom of God brings, a circumstance of joy where love and harmony reign whenever Jesus is present among us. It is neither past, nor future, it is revealed the moment we gather with our Lord.

For example, it is in the moment that we, as the Body of Christ, conclude the Eucharistic Prayer with a singular, “Amen.” It is the moment when we surge forward to receive He who makes us one and holy in the Eucharist. The Kingdom is present the moment the Body and Blood of Christ passes through my lips such that Christ abides in me as I abide in Him and, in all who receive Him. It is present whenever I allow Christ to serve others through me. The Kingdom of God is less a place than it is the “now,” when division cease, when competition and contention with the other stops, and unity and peace prevail. It is the time of gathering instead of scattering. It is a moment-to-moment rejection of, and deliverance from, evil.

     When many think of the demonic, they often conjure up popular movie images of glowing eyes, spinning heads, hurled blasphemy, and green bile. These images both fascinate and repel us. So, we tend to relegate Satan and his minions to fantasy, a fabrication of a heated and medieval imagination. This dismissal is the “chink” in our armor. The Gospels constantly proclaim that the demonic is a creature which, with Christ, we must contend. To refuse the demonic reality denies biblical and ecclesiastic teachings. The demons, whether through possession, oppression, or obsession are at work seeking to break down the door of any strongman in his or her moment of weakness.

     The devil and his demons are cunning (Genesis 3:1). They are often more subtle than overt. They insidiously attack love and so destroy peace. Their greatest strength relies on humanity’s refusal to acknowledge that they exist. For with this refusal, we just accept the contentiously divided world as, “the way it is.” It is the way the demons would like it to be, vice the Kingdom that God intends.

     Jesus reminds us in the Gospel that it does not have to be this way, but we must stay strong in holiness, a soul “swept clean and put in order.” (Luke 11:25 NABRE) The “strong man” is one who recognizes sin as his or her greatest weakness and so guards against it through the willed practice of prayer and virtue. When prayer and virtue faulter, the “strong man” immediately sweeps his or her soul clean through the grace of Reconciliation and the Eucharist. The “strong man” is one who knows that his or her armor must be constantly polished, placed in order. St Paul put it perfectly in his letter to the Ephesians,

Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil … stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
(Ephesians 6:11,14–17 NABRE)

     God’s Kingdom is not something that just happens. It takes effort on our part. We must resist the demons that push and pound with ever increasing weight against the door of our peace in Christ and love for the other. To do this, we must set aside our natural inclination to scatter through selfish pride, ambition, greed, and lust. Instead, in and through love with Christ, gather. It takes moment to moment strengthening in grace and a singular courageous decision in time to act for the Kingdom; a Kingdom that is at once in one, and with many, united in Christ.