Sunrise, Portsmouth Abbey
(image: Ab. Michael Brunner)

Abbot Michael Brunner offered this homily at the Mass of Sunday, September 29, the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time and the Sunday of the School’s Reunion Weekend.

“Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!" (Book of Numbers)

These are some powerful words from the prophet Moses, and they are especially prophetic words. Although Moses didn’t know about the sacraments. He didn’t know about the Church – Catholic Orthodox or Protestant. He didn’t know intellectually about the Trinity or the Holy Spirit. He did know a lot, he experienced a lot, of the real spirit of God. Those of us here who have been baptized, you received the Holy Spirit, and those us who have been confirmed, you received the Holy Spirit. So we are Spirit filled, or at least we were, or at least we should be.
School Mass 2024From that first reading, we may well ask: Where were Eldad and Medad? Why weren’t they at the meeting tent with Moses that day? And we should ask: who and where are Eldad and Medad among us, today? And more questions, from the Gospel: who was that man driving out demons in Jesus’ name, and why would he be doing that if he wasn’t following Jesus with the other disciples? Who and where are such other people driving out demons today ? There are those, some among us, responding to the Spirit’s call today, ordinary people like us doing the Holy Spirit’s work. But such people do not make a show of themselves. Driving out demons is not at all like in the movie The Exorcist. And the demons today do not make a show of themselves either, they certainly don’t want to be recognized as demons – and not only do they go around trying to possess individuals, but also seek to corrupt all of society. They are spiritual beings with natural power; we can’t see their being, but we can feel their influences. They are forces that can move us.

Where we find their work of evil corruption going on, that is where we can find those people filled with the spirit – other Christs, working to repair and build up. Many such people are our fellow Christians, but also there are Jews and Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists and even atheists and agnostics. People who only speak good about Jesus, who work for His kingdom and not against it, working to drive out demons, saving human bodies and souls from destruction, because whatever harms the body also harms the soul.

Demons, you say? What? Where? There are demons of ignorance and division, hard at work today in our politics. There are demons of unbelief, doubt and deceit. There are demons of drug addiction and alcoholism. There are demons of poverty and economic exploitation. There are demons of hate, violence and war. There are demons of sexual exploitation. There are demons of racism and nationalism. There are demons of mental illness and depression. There are demons of selfishness and greed, which Saint James speaks of in the second reading. There are demons of pride, power and lust, and sexual gratification. And the worst demons of all, there are demons of despair. Despair demons are the worst because they convince those they possess that there is no way out, that it is impossible to get free from demons. All these demons affect us too, we who are destined to be saints, because right now we all are sinners. And in different ways we tend to believe that we can do a little business with these demons, purchase a little of what they offer and not be tainted by the transactions. The Church, our Church, is there in the trenches fighting these demons. Of course through the sacraments, especially Eucharist and Reconciliation. But the Church is there in its many institutions, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, homeless shelters, food banks, charitable associations and such. And the Church that is there in the trenches is also us, people like us – filled with the Holy Spirit and responding to the promptings and call of the Holy Spirit to extend the mercy, the grace, the compassion and help of God to those who need it most, and those possessed by personal and social sin. That mercy, grace, compassion and help that we so extend, that is the good news, the Gospel.

So Eldad and Medad are figures foreshadowing us, who have been baptized. In baptism we in fact all become prophets like Jesus Christ, as well as kings and priests, yes even you ladies, kings and priests. We are empowered to act as Jesus did, living and preaching the Gospel, healing, saving bodies and souls. Eldad and Medad illustrate the empowerment of lay people as envisioned by the Second Vatican Council. They are examples of what all of us should be. There are ministries in the Church, ministries right here in this Community – the community service club for one – that could use your help, the help of your time, your talent, your person and your Spirit. Listen for the promptings the Holy Spirit is giving you. Eldad and Medad foreshadow all people of active, positive good will, those people who the Church says have experienced the baptism of desire, the desire for genuine truth, the desire for the highest good and for real beauty.

Now, in the Gospel, those driving away demons in Jesus’ name, they were acting as prophets, doing Jesus’ work. But the disciples obviously thought that Jesus belonged exclusively to them alone. Not so. God is bigger than any one of us or group of us and is at work prompting goodness and demon fighting in all people of good will. I have heard it said that today, there is no sense of sin. People don’t believe in it anymore. If so, that is a great victory for the demons. Certainly not many people believe in demons, because they can only conceive of them as cartoon-like beings with horns, a tail and wearing a red suit, or like something else they’ve seen in a movie.

Such people would not put much store in Jesus’ words today. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” So Jesus is warning his disciples and us that we might stumble and sin. He uses plain language to make his point: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” We don’t take that literally. Jesus is warning about causing scandal to the “little ones.” Jesus certainly meant children, but the “little ones” he is referring to are also those simple ones who believe in him. One translation puts it as, “those insignificant believers.” These “little ones” might be those who quietly follow Christ and do simple loving acts in his name. They may not be able to quote the doctrines of the faith, but their lives show that they are living them every day. That does as much to create God’s kingdom on earth as the bigger acts of those we notice and call “great” or holy. These little ones do what they do because they believe in Christ. So, by embracing, supporting and caring for these “little ones” we are embracing Christ himself.

There are consequences for sinning, negative consequences. Sin propagates evil in this world. But God is an ocean of Mercy that can more than absorb all the sin in the world, if only the world would come to that Ocean. That is our task as Christians, and as apostles of goodness of whatever faith we are. We must first bring ourselves to this ocean, and then bring others to it and carry its water to still others, by living and proclaiming the Gospel by our actions, not just by talking the talk but walking the walk. By getting the message across, the good news, that God is real and alive, that God is on our side, that He has defeated all the demons for us, even the demon of death, and that if we are on His side, we share in his victory completely. With this really Good News, we can drive out the demons of despair, and then all the other demons will follow.

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Abbot Michael Brunner, O.S.B. is the superior of the Portsmouth monastic community and serves as the School’s Director of Spiritual Life.