Daily Archives: October 9, 2026

The Heart as Dwelling

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In today’s gospel we witness an encounter between Jesus and the people after Jesus had driven a demon out of an afflicted person. At the end of the dialogue, Jesus offers a parable: “When an unclean spirit goes out of someone, it roams through arid regions searching for rest but, finding none, it says, ‘I shall return to my home from which I came.’ But upon returning, it finds it swept clean and put in order.”

This sounds like a good thing, yes? The house has been cleaned up. Everything is orderly.  What’s wrong with the house? Nothing, apparently. It’s clean, swept and orderly, but it’s also empty.

In the context of the gospel story, Jesus uses the man from whom the demon has been cast out as the source for the house in the parable. We might say that the person has reformed and cast out the bad things, the unholy things. But will that be enough?

As David Henry Thoreau commented: “Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.”

Apparently have been spiritually careless, the house/the person has not filled up with good, holy and true things. There exists a spiritual vacuum and when noticed by the demon, it “…brings back seven other spirits more wicked than itself who move in and dwell there, and the last condition of that man is worse than the first.” It seems that getting rid of what was there was not enough. Something needed to take its place. Nature abhors a vacuum. Apparently, according to Jesus, so does the human heart.

Moral reform is not the same as Christian conversion. Christianity cannot simply consist of removing things: I stopped doing this. I gave up that habit. I don’t hang out with those people anymore. “I’ve cleaned up life and set it in order.” All of that may be necessary. But Jesus seems to be saying that an emptied life, even a beautifully cleaned and orderly life, is still vulnerable. The Gospel isn’t simply about what leaves us when Christ enters our lives. It is about what fills us afterward.

Jesus isn’t offering generic advice about self-improvement. The context of the gospel message is the arrival of God’s Kingdom in Jesus: something stronger has arrived. The arrival of God’s Kingdom is far more than getting rid of the evil spirit. It extends to letting the Strong One in.

Yes, you’ve been baptized, confirmed, reared in the Faith, and have continued into your adult years. Those can be profound beginnings. But the house has to become a home. And that takes a lifetime to fill our lives with Christ. The Word of God is one essential means. The Eucharist another. Prayer, charity, sacramental life, Christian community: all are ways in which our lives become increasingly inhabited by Christ. Elsewhere, St. Paul gives us wonderful language for this: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” (Col 3:16) Not visit, or drop by, but dwell.

So… hopefully you have taken care of what should not be in your life, but should be there and up to now is missing? Maybe I’ve removed anger but have I cultivated mercy? I’ve stopped gossiping but have I learned to speak words that build others up? I’ve stopped spending time with those who would lead me astray but have I developed friendships with people who draw me toward God?  I have cleared out lots of things, but what have I put in their place?

Every day something is forming us, filling our minds, and shaping our desires. Something is teaching us what to love. The question isn’t whether we will be filled. The question is what we are allowing to fill us.

Jesus didn’t come merely to clean up the house. 

He came to make it His home in which He dwells.

Image credit: WordPress AI based on the text of the posts | downloaded 10-9-2026 | AI-described as: A vintage Greek folk-art illustration shows a pale stone house with an open wooden doorway, pottery, and a dark figure reaching from an arched window. A group of shadowy spirits gathers among olive trees and rocks to the right, creating an eerie contrast with the warmly lit house. The image is framed by an ornate blue, gold, and rust-colored border, with radiating lines behind the Greek title Η ΟΙΚΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΤΑ ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΑ, meaning “The House and the Spirits.”

Dressed for the Occasion

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This coming Sunday is the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time. This parable further clarifies not only the failure of the leaders and its consequence, but also the nature of the new “nation.” The king now extends his invitation: Then he said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come.  9 Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’

The “new nation” is symbolized now by an indiscriminate collection of people from the streets, people of no special standing, just as in Mt 21:31 it is the lowest social group who will get first into the kingdom of God. This feature of the story speaks of the universal proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of heaven.

The concept of a mixed community, within which not all will make it through to ultimate salvation, has been a recurrent feature of this gospel. Consider Matthew 7:13–27, especially the “impostors” of 7:21–23 who apparently thought they were all right, and later in Matthew’s gospel (25:1–13) where both wise and foolish bridesmaids are invited but only the wise get into the feast. Remember also Mt 13:36–43, where weeds and wheat are allowed to grow together and are separated only at the final judgment; also 13:47–50, in which good and worthless fish are gathered in the same net.

Scholars are of mixed opinion about the urgency of the “feast is ready” in v.8 as it applied to those invited when the servants scour the main road. One line of thought offers that these royal wedding feasts were several days in the making and even more in the execution. Not all guests came at the beginning nor stayed until the end. There was a great deal of coming-and-going during it all. There is no reason to suppose that, once invited, these people have no time to go home, to change their clothes, and to borrow clothes from their neighbors, if necessary.

For any such occasion guests would be expected to wear clothes that were both longer than those worn by ordinary people on working days and also newly washed. Those who could afford it would wear white, but it was sufficient for ordinary people to wear as near to white as washing their poorer quality clothes could achieve. Poor people, who might own only one patched tunic and cloak each, would often borrow clothes for occasions such as weddings or religious festivals.

How could those unexpectedly herded into the wedding hall from the main roads wear the expected clothing, which all but one of them seem to do? Again, realism is sacrificed to meaning.  However, the issue has troubled some readers, and is normally addressed by the traditional speculation (deriving from Augustine) that the host was himself responsible for providing a wedding robe, so that this man’s fault was in his refusal to accept what was freely offered. While it is a nice thought, it lacks any convincing evidence in terms of contemporary wedding customs (see the Note on 22:11). The clothing expected at a wedding was not a special garment but simply decent, clean white clothes such as anyone should have had available. In that case the man’s fault is that, even though invited to a royal wedding, he had not gone home to change into his best; to turn up in ordinary, dirty clothes was an insult to the host. The symbolism is of someone who presumes on the free offer of salvation by assuming that therefore there are no obligations attached.

In early Christianity, the new identity of conversion was often pictured as donning a new set of clothes; the language of changing clothes was utilized to express the giving up of the old way of life and putting on the new Christian identity (see Rom 13:12–14; Gal 3:27; Eph 6:11; Col 3:12; cf. Luke 15:22; Rev 3:4; 6:11; 19:8). At the allegorical level, the man was expected to have the faith and deeds of an authentic Christian life, corresponding to the “fruits” in the imagery of the preceding parable. When confronted with his lack, the man has no response, for he is without excuse.

Image Credit: Parable of the Great Banquet by Brunswick Monogrammist (circa 1525) National Museum, Warsaw | Public Domain