Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus drives out an unclean spirit from a man in the Capernaum synagogue. And he wants to perform the same cleansing operation in our lives.

What God intended from the beginning is that our hearts be temples of his presence. So Christ comes into our world. What does he find? He finds that the temple of our heart is filled up with all sorts of things that are not the divine power. Money, worldly success, the esteem of others, sex—whatever it is, it has now taken the place that rightfully belongs to God. Therefore, when Christ comes into your life, he will always have a cleansing role to play. 

Fulton J. Sheen once talked about the “expulsive power” of Christ. When you place him in the center of your soul, he will expel all those things that don’t belong in that center and make them find their proper place. 

And so Jesus the nonviolent warrior, Jesus the judge, God’s own mind, now comes into our hearts when we invite him through conversion. He will have this cleansing authority and cleansing power.