In the gospel of this 4th Sunday in Ordinary Times, Year B (Mark 1:2125), we read about Jesus casting out an evil spirit from a man. It is not uncommon for us to dismiss accounts of demonic possession as a primitive way of describing mental illness. While mental illness has often been wrongly diagnosed as demonic possession, we cannot deny the fact that outside hostile forces do interact with human beings.
From the time Lucifer was cast down from heaven, Satan and his legions invaded the earth, drawing humanity into captivity and subjecting them to their evil reign. Scripture makes references to forces, powers, principalities, and authorities of darkness, to refer to a vast array of evil and malicious spirits who make war against the people of God; beings that wield power in the unseen realms to oppose everything and everyone that is of God. The good news is that, while these forces of darkness continue to exact power against us, we are more than conquerors over them in Christ Jesus, as Scripture says, “and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:15).
The letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians describes the warfare in which we are engaged “against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” and tells us how to prepare for this battle, “Therefore stand firm with the belt of truth buckled around your waist and the breastplate of righteousness in place, … and take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and [wear] the helmet of salvation and [hold unto] the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests….Be alert and always keep on praying” (Ephesians 6:12-18).
So, while we will continue to face the assault of these principalities and powers of darkness in our daily lives, let us remember that they have been disarmed of real power and that we have been promised victory over them. Now, it is our job to demonstrate and depend upon our faith in Christ Jesus and the power of God to defeat them in our lives, always remembering and living in the hope of what Scripture has promised us that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, not even trouble, nor hardship, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor danger, nor the sword, nor angels, nor demons, nor present and future things, nor any powers, height, depth, nor anything else in all creation. The assurance of Scripture is that "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us— Christ Jesus. So, let’s hold strongly to our faith, cling unto the word of God, and constantly pray for the power of God over our lives. Here is a prayer you can say whenever you feel threatened by evil forces, making the sign of the cross each time as you repeat it three times: “Behold the Cross of the Lord, fly away all powers of darkness, for the lion of Judah, the root of David has warn, Alleluia.” It is not a magical formula; it is a pronouncement of faith against any power of darkness.
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