June 29th Solemnity of SS Peter and Paul. Lectionary # 591 and June 30, Lectionary #379 (An unusual exorcism)

Scripture: June 29. Solemnity of SS Peter and Paul. Lectionary # 591. Acts
12:1-11, Psalm 34:2-3,4-5,6-7,8-9. II Timothy 4:6-8,17-18. Matthew
16:13-19:

"To you, Peter, I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Jesus
chooses Peter as the servant leader for the other apostles and disciples.
He is the first in the Gospel of Matthew to declare that Jesus is the
Messiah. He will learn how to lead by listening to Jesus during his active
ministry then after the Resurrection remembering what the Lord did and
taught. He will become the servant of the servants of God and his
followers in the years to come will take up that same responsibility. It
is Peter who binds and looses what is bound and binds what is loose. This
entails the moral standards of God's laws and commandments seen within the
perspective of a loving and kind God who wants to make covenants with all
of his people throughout the history of humankind.

St. Augustine gives a good positive look at the "binding and loosing"
referred to in the text of St. Matthew. He comments, "Therefore, Peter, do
not be disenheartened. Reply once, twice, three times. The triple
confession of your love is to regain what was lost three times by your
fear. You must loose three times what you bound three times; untie by love
that which you fear bound. Once and again, and a third time did the Lord
entrust his sheep to Peter."

On this day we remember the Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul. In our passage
from II Timothy he gives us his own testimony to his life as a follower and
apostle of Jesus. Paul compares his life to a runner who strives to
complete the marathon and does. Exhausted he is ready to collapse to the
earth, but his body is able to continue with renewed vigor till the sword
puts and end to the race. He like Peter is an apostle and a martyr. He
reaches the finish line and the gates of heaven open to him without the aid
of Peter's key!

In the Morning Praise there is a Latin hymn translated into English which
has the following stanza that helps us to celebrate this feast with its
focus on the two apostle-martyrs:
To sinners heavenward bound their burden lightening. One taught
mankind its creed. One guards the heavenly gate. Founders of Rome they
bind the world in loyalty. One by the sword achieved, one by the cross his
fate. With laurelled brows they hold eternal royalty." Amen

Scripture for June 30: Lectionary # 379. Amos 5:14-15,21-24. Psalm 50:7,
8-9.10-11, 12-13,16-17. Matthew 8:28-34:

Can you imagine a whole village begging Jesus to leave their land and to
leave them alone? Do we do that sometimes when we are frustrated or
confused? The journey of life is long in many respects especially in the
moral and spiritual pathways to life eternal. Sometimes we stray and leave
the road that Jesus took and pointed out to us. We beg Jesus to leave us
alone like the villagers from the Gadarene territory. They "begged him
leave their neighborhood."

Why this happened is probably in the fact they were content with their own
status quo and even put up with two men who were totally wild and out of
their mind; they were possessed as one today is possessed by the demons of
drugs, alcohol, and sexual addiction. The villagers were not ready for
Jesus, but he like the "hound of heaven" pursues them and us and does what
is necessary to release the men of their afflictions by the devil. Their
pigs (considered an unlawful unclean animal by their Jewish neighbors) are
to rush to the lake and perish because of the demons who enter them.

All of us have trouble leaving our pigs to perish-- our sins, bad
behaviors, rash judgments, impatience. Some of these belong to our comfort
zones and we are not willing to let Jesus drive them out so that they can
drown in God's sea of mercy and kindness and love. They are like an old
pair of shoes that are really worthless but we feel we are comfortable in
them though they smell and show our toes.

Surely we find this story very strange but it does contain a lesson within
it. It is a powerful exorcism that Jesus alone can perform for us and for
the villagers who do not want this to happen. St. Mark even goes in more
detail about this event. He has only one man in his narrative but his
talent for detail is alive and flourishing in his story of the possessed
man. Nothing could bind this man; no one except Jesus could not only
release him, he heals him, purges him, and sets him free. He even wants to
follow Jesus, but Jesus sends him back to teach the villagers a lesson and
us.

Exorcisms whether authenticated or fabricated are not to be played with.
We do better in avoiding the world of exorcisms and enter into the real
world of listening to the Master. We are to deny ourselves and our pigly
attachments to sin and pleasures. Only Jesus cast out this kind and deep
down we know it. Amen.