Message of Abbot Paul - Tuesday 5th September 2023

Yesterday evening, the Holy Father returned to Rome after his Apostolic Journey to Mongolia. Personally, I have found it to be one of the most moving of all papal visits. Once he arrived at Ulaanbaatar and you managed to blot out the reporters, cameramen and ecclesiastical dignitaries, Pope Francis was like a local pastor visiting his small rural flock. There was a very special intimacy and simplicity about the visit. Then again, the President and government of Mongolia and the local Buddhist population, all received the Holy Father with such dignity, courtesy and respect. The tiny local Catholic community knew they were loved, appreciated and not forgotten. Whenever I see or hear Pope Francis, I call to mind my years in Peru. There were distant villages and hamlets that we knew nothing about until one day, out of the blue, an old man or a young girl would appear at the parish office asking for a visit, Mass, baptisms, confessions, weddings and so on. I remember going miles out into the desert, or high up into the Andes and discovering small, isolated communities, that hadn’t seen a priest for four or five hundred years and yet had kept the faith. Francis, of all popes, knows that these sons and daughters of God exist and he speaks to them with an open heart with mercy and love, and speaks for them to the Church that ignores their existence. Those who criticise him should remember that he sees and knows a far wider Church than most of us can imagine and, like Jesus, he speaks to those who have been abandoned by the scribes and Pharisees of yesterday and today.

 

​Today we continue our reading of Luke, (Lk 4: 31-37), with Jesus having left Nazareth for Capernaum. Here “his teaching made a deep impression on them because he spoke with authority.” How different from his own townsfolk at Nazareth. It is in the synagogue at Capernaum that Jesus performs the first miracle that we witness. “There was a man who was possessed by the spirit of an unclean devil, and it shouted at the top of its voice, ‘Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God.’” It is interesting to note that the unclean spirit recognises Jesus to be the Holy One of God, by which is meant the Messiah or Son of God. The crowds are not aware of this nor the disciples at this early stage of his ministry. Jesus confronts the evil spirit. “‘Be quiet! Come out of him!’ And the devil, throwing the man down in front of everyone, went out of him without hurting him at all.” So powerful is the word of Jesus that the spirit comes out of the man and leaves him unharmed. Good overcomes evil, this

is the important lesson of today’s Gospel.

 

​Unlike the people in the synagogue at Nazareth, those at Capernaum truly appreciate what Jesus has done. “Astonishment seized them and they were all saying to one another, ‘What teaching! He gives orders to unclean spirits with authority and power and they come out.’ And reports of him went all through the surrounding countryside.” They are struck by the lesson he has given them of how good can overcome evil when trust is placed in God and his Holy One. Jesus’ fame begins to spread and this can only lead to opposition from the scribes and Pharisees, who will soon appear on the scene. But where do we stand on Jesus? What do we make of him?