Daily Reflections

In today’s gospel we learn of Mary Magdalene who had been cured of evil spirits. The notion of evil spirits or demons is not something we hear much of in contemporary western societies. It’s not something our scientific world is comfortable with, in part because science lacks the tools to be able to measure the spiritual world. C.S. Lewis, in the preface of his famous work, The Screwtape Letters, wrote: “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”

Indeed, angels and demons are a thing. There are many references to demons being cast out, particularly in the gospels, and the Catechism states that behind the “disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called “Satan” or the “devil”. The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: “The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing” (CCC 391).

In the rite of baptism a “prayer of exorcism” for the child, and the parents and Godparents can also be asked, “Do you reject Satan, father of sin and prince of darkness?”

What does all this mean for us? The key is in today’s gospel: Mary had been cured by Jesus. That is to say, the devil is not Jesus’ equal. Though we live in a spiritual world where angels and demons exist and impact our world, often in the subtlest of ways, we need not fear, Jesus has overcome the world. For those that are baptised, “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

By Peter Pellicaan