Personal Union With God!

Tuesday, September 3, 2024

1 Cor 2:10-16; Lk 4:31-37

Today’s Gospel highlights Jesus’ holiness as the source of his authority over the unclean spirit. 

The power of Jesus’ word helps the crowd understand Jesus’ authority. 

There are three important details that deserve our attention: Jesus, the Sabbath, and the unclean spirit.

Putting the three together, we may ask, ‘Why does Jesus choose the Sabbath to drive out the unclean spirit?’

The reason is this: ‘Jesus cleanses a man of an unclean spirit on the day that separates ordinary from holy because Jesus stands in intimate relationship to God, holiness itself.’

The holiness of Jesus was manifested in his great power over the evil spirit and in words that revealed authority that the crowd had never witnessed before.  

While the unclean spirit could not further harm the man after Jesus’ command, the power of his word restores him to wholeness. The same healing power is experienced by those who are fractured by evil. 

Jesus’ intimacy with his Father is the source of his holiness. 

It is from his holiness that Jesus radiated God in everything he did. 

If Jesus needed to reunite with God to carry out his mission, we need God all the more. 

This is why Pope Francis said, ‘Praise is the ‘breath’ which gives us life, because it is intimacy with God, an intimacy that grows through daily praise.’

Our union with God not only helps us to live in holiness, but also supplies us with the strength to navigate the world of suffering, despair, fear, pain, and anxiety. 

Hence, knowing God and knowing peace are not two different things. 

Let us pray that we may grow in our personal union with God to live in peace, joy, and holiness! 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar