The Anchoress

Had a funny email from a regular correspondent (non-Catholic) who worries that if the Vatican is in fact training more exorcists, does it mean anything worrisome (or suspicious) either for the church or the world, and isn’t all this “fighting the devil head-on talk” kind of misplaced in the 21st Century?

Well. I’m certainly no expert, and who knows what Rome is really doing and not doing - people love to wonder about these “spooky” and rather dramatic ideas; we never quite get over our love of ghost stories and spine-tingling urban myths (my favorite is the one where the guy runs out of gas, tells the g/f to stay locked in the car and she hears thumping, but obediently stays in the car, until the police come and capture the maniac on the roof who has been thumping the car with her date’s head) and it is always very easy to equate superstition with what is truly supernatural, blurring all sorts of lines.

So now, it’s “ooooohhhhh, scary Benedict is training lots of exorcists - what does it all mean?”

In truth, it might not mean anything at all. My understanding is that each bishop always has the discretion to - if he so chooses - appoint a priest - one priest - that the bishop believes is holy, psychologically strong and faithful, to become the “Diocesan Exorcist” - the go-to guy when things go weird and closer examination - or more - is needed. The identity of the exorcist is usually kept rather close to the bishop’s vest, and the exorcist is supposed to be discreet, also. Perhaps this “big story” coming out of Rome is nothing more than Benedict saying, “hey, we’ve rather let the exorcist numbers dwindle, let’s encourage the bishops to make sure they have a trained guy on their team.”

If you accept that the supernatural exists, and you accept that there are things seen and unseen, then your common sense tells you that within that realm there will be that which is profoundly holy, and that which is quite the opposite. There is nothing unusual in any of that.

These things are true; there are exorcists in the church. Why that should be cause for alarm, I am not sure. Always, where there is great holiness, there is evil in close proximity. Recall the Lord hung between thieves, and was betrayed by his own. Always, within the church the human element can both serve and distress the Holy Spirit. That’s just the way it is, and hand-wringing or adopting a polite fiction about perfect holiness doesn’t really help anything. Nor does whispering together in the corners, wondering what “it all means,” so, stop it.

A church is like any other institution - it needs administering to; reserves that have dwindled must be built up, all must be kept in readiness for any eventuality, and that is the job of a good administrator who is also a good pastor. As Christian’s our job is simply to keep our eyes on Jesus only, and to live in a way that is pleasing to Him - which, by the way, no matter how well we think we do…we don’t do well enough.

Of the rest of it - both worldy and other-worldly - Christ has said “it’s being seen to…” that would be yer Sermon on the Mount. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. I’m content to leave it in His hands, and in the hands of his apostolic servants - as lacking and imperfect as every one of them may be - and I pray that you and I will ever need to know more about it than we already do.

Nothing is static, everything is always in flux. Global temperatures go up and they go down. Famines, droughts and epidemics come and they go. Health and illness come and go. Humanity opens and closes itself to things of the spirit. Time is a construct, and a great deal of what you see is illusion, anyway.

Psalm 90(89) (Domine, refugium)

O Lord, you have been our refuge
from one generation to the next.
Before the mountains were born
or the earth or the world brought forth,
you are God, without beginning or end.

You turn men back to dust
and say: “Go back, sons of men.”
To your eyes a thousand years
are like yesterday, come and gone,
no more than a watch in the night.

You sweep men away like a dream,
like the grass which springs up in the morning.
In the morning it springs up and flowers:
by evening it withers and fades.

So we are destroyed in your anger,
struck with terror in your fury.
Our guilt lies open before you;
our secrets in the light of your face.

All our days pass away in your anger.
Our life is over like a sigh.
Our span is seventy years,
or eighty for those who are strong.

And most of these are emptiness and pain.
They pass swiftly and we are gone.
[...]
Make us know the shortness of our life
that we may gain wisdom of heart.

Don’t worry about this stuff. Sufficient unto the day…

Meanwhile, here’s something you don’t see every day.