Our soul must be a house that accommodates the Spirit of love
A Reflection on Luke 11:24-26
By Fr. Maximilian Buonocore, OSB
“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first.” (Luke 11:24-26)
Reading this, my reaction is, “Why bother trying to overcome evil in myself if every good and successful effort to become virtuous and overcome sinful tendencies in myself just results in the introduction of an even harder challenge, seven times harder to overcome than the last?” This can cause me to become disheartened in my pursuit of virtue and holiness. But I think that what Jesus is warning his hearers about in today’s Gospel passage is the same thing that St. Paul warns his hearers about often: the temptation to be presumptuous about the effectiveness of our own abilities and talents for achieving virtue and holiness.
Reading this, my reaction is, “Why bother trying to overcome evil in myself if every good and successful effort to become virtuous and overcome sinful tendencies in myself just results in the introduction of an even harder challenge, seven times harder to overcome than the last?” This can cause me to become disheartened in my pursuit of virtue and holiness. But I think that what Jesus is warning his hearers about in today’s Gospel passage is the same thing that St. Paul warns his hearers about often: the temptation to be presumptuous about the effectiveness of our own abilities and talents for achieving virtue and holiness.
In the Gospel parable spoken by Jesus, the clean house, swept and put in order, that the unclean spirit finds upon its return, is the house of the soul where order is imposed through ascetical practices and religious observances, not carried out in humble obedience, and that are effective in fostering virtue, but have no capacity to introduce love into the soul. The house of the soul becomes a clean but empty room. St. Paul describes the emptiness of such a soul (1 Corinthians 13:1-3): “. . .if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.” In this state, my soul is perfectly clean and ordered; but it is not tidied and ordered to accommodate the spirit of mercy and charity. Rather, it is better ordered to accommodate the spirits associated with pride and self-interest. In this state my soul is not prepared for the activation of the image and likeness of God in me, but, instead, is prepared for the activation of spiritual pride and human ambition. My soul is not a home where the Spirit of Christ feels comfortable and at home. My ascesis and religious observance do not serve as a preparation for the activation of the image and likeness of God in me by the indwelling and action of the Spirit of Christ in me. Through intense ascesis and religious practices, I may clean and order my soul, making my soul perfectly clean and ordered; but if it is not tidied and ordered through humility and obedience, I may be unwittingly cleaning and ordering my soul to better accommodate the spirit of pride and its associated self-interest spirits, rather than preparing my soul to better accommodate the spirit of mercy and charity. The unclean spirit of pride returns to my soul and is delighted to find a space so accommodating that it invites all of its seven fellow unclean spirits of anger, fear, envy, jealousy, hypocrisy, arrogance and lust. A soul that is not filled with love is a space just waiting to be filled with the unclean spirits associated with pride and self-interest.
A soul, on the other hand, that is emptied and made clean by openness and obedience to the Spirit of Christ becomes a house most accommodating to the Spirit of love, and quickly and readily becomes filled with, and occupied with - the clean and holy spirit of charity. The soul that is filled with the Spirit of charity leaves no space for the self-building ambition of pride and its associated unclean spirits of selfish interest. Let us daily endeavor to do the housecleaning of our soul with humble listening to the Word of God and receiving the Lord in humble obedience, so that our soul becomes ever increasingly a house that accommodates Christ’s Spirit of Love.
A soul, on the other hand, that is emptied and made clean by openness and obedience to the Spirit of Christ becomes a house most accommodating to the Spirit of love, and quickly and readily becomes filled with, and occupied with - the clean and holy spirit of charity. The soul that is filled with the Spirit of charity leaves no space for the self-building ambition of pride and its associated unclean spirits of selfish interest. Let us daily endeavor to do the housecleaning of our soul with humble listening to the Word of God and receiving the Lord in humble obedience, so that our soul becomes ever increasingly a house that accommodates Christ’s Spirit of Love.
All for Jesus,
Fr. Max
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