Once again, I didn't have a text for my homily, so here are some bullet points as best as I can recapitulate them:
> In the Gospel we see our Lord sending the Apostles to cast out demons. Curiously, although you see miracles of feeding, healing and even folks being raised from the dead in the Old Testament, you don't see any prophets or leaders of the Old Testament casting out demons.
> In the Old Testament, when they performed these miracles, the prophets had to turn to God to bring them about; when Jesus does them, he just does them--it serves to show just who he is: God. And when he casts out evil, it emphasizes it.
> This makes the Apostles pretty impressive--having the power to cast out demons. But we might wonder, where did this power go? It passed into the Church.
> You may not realize it, but we have all received an exorcism! No, not the Hollywood version; but just before our baptism, the deacon or priest prayed a prayer (I read a part of it); then we are baptized; it helps make clear what happens in baptism, that we receive the Holy Spirit.
> We don't talk much about spiritual evil, but demons do exist and we want to take them seriously. We might want to be mindful about movies and video games and things that can be too dark.
> How do we strengthen our "spiritual sight"? What we're doing now: taking part in Mass, putting Christ at the center. Also the sacrament of penance really helps. And trying to give ourselves even a few minutes' recollection and prayer each day.
> Above all, we unite ourselves to the Eucharist. The more we do that, the more we will come to see the world as Jesus does from the cross: seeing people who need salvation--seeing things from the point of view of eternity--and we will act for their eternal well being.
I said more than this, especially on the latter two points, but just how I did it I cannot now recall.
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