March 2009

I’ve been having a discussion with a group on friends on the question of exorcism (the topic seems to come up once every so often), so I thought I’d write a bit about it, and in particular, why exorcisms are so rare. I am referring, of course, to what is called a “major” exorcism. Minor exorcisms are done all the time as part of the Church’s liturgical life, and prayers of deliverance are also known as part of spiritual direction and discernment.

Yesterday I had a most interesting experience: I was refused entry into the United States at the Champlain border crossing. Or, to be more accurate, my passenger was refused entry, so we had to be processed inside the border services post and then sent back to Canada.

Some time ago Eric, a faithful reader, posted this comment:

I used your beatitude homily in class (with proper citation, hopefully traffic picks up! But I have to say…all my greek students said ‘makarios’ translates as ‘death’ or something close to it. They asked all their relatives from the ‘old country’ as well…unanimous on the ‘death’ translation.

I’ve been spending my morning getting ready for week 7 of my course on the Christian Understanding of God. One thing I wondered before going to the Holy Land was how the trip might affect my teaching of this course, or indeed how it might affect my own personal vision of the Christian understanding of God. I’ve come to realise it has.

I’ve been confronted, in a powerful way, by the Christian teaching of the Incarnation. I’ve been confronted, in effect, by kenosis.

I got home Monday evening just exhausted. We had to leave our hotel at 1:30 am to get to Tel Aviv in time for our flight. Wow, is security ever tight! It is easier to enter Israel than to leave it. First, an armed guard entered our bus as we were pulling up to the airport, and the luggage compartments were checked. Then, at the airport itself, I was asked questions for a good 15 minutes about our group by one young woman…followed by another who asked more questions! Then, the X-ray machine (for the bags) followed by a manual check.