Tuesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading: 1 Corinthians 2:10b-16

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 145:8-9, 10-11, 12-13ab, 13cd-14

Gospel: Luke 4:31-37

Daily readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090126.cfm

Yesterday Jesus went to Nazareth and was nearly thrown off a cliff by the people who knew him best. Today he goes to Capernaum, a town with no history with him, and the reception is entirely different. He teaches on the sabbath and they are astonished because he speaks with authority. Then a man with an unclean spirit cries out: what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are — the Holy One of God. Jesus says: be quiet, come out of him. The demon leaves without harming the man, and the crowd turns to each other and says: what is there about his word? With authority and power he commands unclean spirits, and they come out. News of him spreads everywhere.

There is something worth sitting with in who recognizes Jesus in this story. The people of Nazareth — who watched him grow up, who knew his family — could not see him. The unclean spirit in Capernaum sees him immediately. It does not take a theology degree or a lifetime of practice. It takes openness. The demon was not open, but it was not blind. The people of Nazareth were not exactly closed, but familiarity had quietly filled the space where wonder might have been. The crowd in Capernaum had none of that history, and so when he spoke, they heard something new — authority unlike anything they had encountered before.

Paul writes that the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God. We have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God, so that we may understand the things freely given us. The natural person cannot accept what pertains to the Spirit — not because it is hidden, but because it can only be understood from the inside, spiritually. We have the mind of Christ. That is not a credential to boast about. It is a gift that keeps being given, every time we sit still and let the word land rather than filing it away under what we already know.

A few questions to sit with tonight:

1. The crowd in Capernaum heard something in Jesus’s word that left them astonished. Is there a place in my prayer or scripture reading lately where I have felt that kind of astonishment — or has it been a while? What would it take to be that open again?

2. Paul says we have the mind of Christ — not our own wisdom, but his. Is there a decision or a situation I am facing right now where I have been relying mostly on my own understanding instead of asking for his?

3. Jesus said to the unclean spirit: be quiet, come out. Is there a voice in my interior life — anxiety, resentment, a habit of thought — that needs to hear those same words? What would it look like to let Jesus say that to it?

4. The Lord lifts up all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. Where am I bowed down right now — in a relationship, at work, in my faith — and have I brought that place to God?

One small thing for tomorrow:

Before you open anything tomorrow — email, news, social media — spend sixty seconds asking the Spirit to give you fresh eyes for the day. Not a long prayer. Just: come, Holy Spirit, help me see what you see today.

Lord Jesus, you spoke with authority and unclean spirits obeyed you. You speak the same word into my life and sometimes I am not sure I hear it over everything else. Quiet what needs to be quieted in me. Help me to receive your word the way the crowd in Capernaum did — with astonishment, with open hands, without the weight of too much familiarity. Give me what I cannot give myself: the mind of Christ, the eyes of the Spirit, the grace to be raised up when I am bowing under the weight of the week. Amen.

If you would like to share: is there a moment when a word from scripture or prayer landed in a way that surprised you — that felt like it had real authority?