4 March 2027 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you.” Luke 11:20
Jeremiah's words today are among the saddest in the prophets. God reminds his people of the one thing he asked when he brought them out of Egypt: “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people.” But “they did not obey or incline their ear”; they followed “the stubbornness of their evil will” and “looked backward rather than forward.” Day after day God sent his prophets, and day after day they stiffened their necks. Then comes a hard sentence for Jeremiah himself: “You shall call to them, but they will not answer you.” And the final verdict: “truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.” The Psalm turns this history into an invitation for today: “O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah.” The hardened heart is not one that has never heard; it is one that has heard many times and stopped listening.
In the Gospel Jesus heals a man who could not speak. The crowd is amazed; but some say he does it “by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons,” and others demand a sign from heaven. It is the same hardness Jeremiah lamented: they see the work of God and call it the work of the devil. Jesus answers with plain sense: a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. Then the decisive word: “if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you.” The “finger of God” recalls Exodus, where Pharaoh's magicians admitted that the plagues were “the finger of God,” though Pharaoh's heart stayed hard. Jesus is the “one stronger” who overpowers the strong man and frees his captives. There is no neutral ground: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” Today the Church remembers St Casimir (1458–1484), a prince of Poland and Lithuania who chose Christ over the glories of court: he prayed long hours, loved the poor, kept chastity, and was devoted to the Mother of God. He died of tuberculosis at twenty-five and is the patron of Lithuania. He listened to the voice of God in a palace full of other voices.
Theme: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”
A people that would not listen, the finger of God, and the stronger one who sets us free.
“But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.”” Jeremiah 7:23
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.” Matthew 7:24
Apply: Choose one word of God you have heard often and act on it today.
“For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,” Psalm 95:7–8
“As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”” Hebrews 3:15
Apply: Make a daily ten-minute silence with the Gospel of the day for the rest of Lent.
“And the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God!” But Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had said.” Exodus 8:19
“He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,” Colossians 1:13
Apply: Renounce aloud, as at Baptism, one specific work of the evil one in your life, and ask Christ to free you.
God speaks today; the danger is a heart that has stopped listening.
Christ, the stronger one, frees us, and calls us to gather with him.
Take-home resolution: Spend ten minutes daily in silence with the Gospel until Easter.
Dear friends, God says through Jeremiah: obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people (Jeremiah 7:23). But they did not listen. They looked backward rather than forward. And at the end: truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.
The Psalm turns this into a word for us: O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts (Psalm 95:7–8). A hard heart is not one that never heard God. It is one that heard him many times and stopped listening.
In the Gospel Jesus frees a man who could not speak, and some say: he does it by Beelzebul. Jesus answers: if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you (Luke 11:20). He is the stronger one who overpowers the strong man. And there is no neutral ground: whoever is not with me is against me.
Today we remember St Casimir, a young prince who lived among palace voices but listened to the voice of God. He prayed, he served the poor, he loved Our Lady. He died at twenty-five, faithful. Let us ask for his prayers, so that today, not tomorrow, we may hear the Lord's voice and gather with him. Amen.
Children, Jesus is stronger than anything bad. He healed a man who could not talk. Today we also remember St Casimir, a prince who loved Jesus more than his palace. Let us listen to Jesus today by saying a quiet prayer!
Lord God, you have spoken to us again and again through your prophets and in your Son. Soften our hearts so that today we may hear your voice; free us from every power of evil by the finger of your Spirit; and through the prayers of St Casimir keep us faithful to you amid the noise of the world. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today’s readings are about a refusal to listen. Jeremiah is told that the people will not hear him, and he is told to speak all the same. In the Gospel, people see a mute man speak and some of them explain it away. The Psalm gives the whole matter one word: “today”. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. The key words are obey, finger and stronger.
Setting.
Chapter 7 opens with Jeremiah’s great Temple sermon, also told in chapter 26, which dates it to the beginning of the reign of King Jehoiakim, about 609 BC. The people trust in the Temple as if it guaranteed their safety (7:4). A little more than twenty years later Jerusalem will fall.
These verses come from a section on what God really asked of his people (7:21–28). Jeremiah speaks as one of his own people, and he grieves over them (9:1). These hard words were preserved by Israel itself, as Scripture, and they must never be turned into a weapon against the Jewish people. The Church hears them as said to herself, and to each of us.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people;” (7:23)
This is the covenant in a sentence, and it is put in terms of a relationship: your God, my people.
“and looked backward rather than forward.” (7:24)
Sin here does not stand still. It takes us the wrong way along the road.
“So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you.” (7:27)
A hard call for a preacher. Success is not promised, and faithfulness is what is asked. Every priest, catechist and parent has known such a day.
“This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, and did not accept discipline;” (7:28)
“Discipline” (mûsār) means the training a parent gives. Even the verdict speaks of what God wanted to do for them.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that to obey in faith, from the Latin ob-audire, is to hear or listen, and to submit freely to the word that has been heard (CCC 144). The Psalm of this day, Psalm 95, is also the psalm with which the Church traditionally opens her daily prayer, and the Letter to the Hebrews applies its “today” to Christians (Hebrews 3:7–4:11). St Benedict’s Rule begins with the word “Listen”, and its Prologue quotes this same psalm. In Lent we are given the same call to listen, every morning.
Setting.
Jesus is on the long journey to Jerusalem that began in 9:51. Just before this he has taught about prayer, and he has promised that the Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask (11:13). Now he casts out a demon, and the crowd divides. Luke says only “some of them”. Mark names scribes from Jerusalem (3:22), and Matthew names Pharisees (12:24). In Luke the crowd is amazed, and the charge is made by a few among them.
No one here denies that something has happened. The man who could not speak now speaks. The only question is by what power it was done.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Now if I cast out the demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your exorcists cast them out?” (11:19)
The Greek says “your sons”, which the POC keeps; the NRSV makes the meaning clear. Jesus grants that God acts through others among his own people. He is arguing with them on common ground.
“But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you.” (11:20)
This is the center of the passage. The God who freed Israel from Egypt is at work again, and the verb says it has already arrived. What people are looking at is not one more wonder but the beginning of God’s reign.
“But when one stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his plunder.” (11:22)
Jesus does not bargain with the strong man. Those whom he frees are the plunder, and Christ’s victory will be won finally on the Cross.
“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (11:23)
The image is of a shepherd gathering a flock. To stand by and do nothing is itself a way of letting the sheep scatter.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism quotes the parallel saying in Matthew: the coming of God’s kingdom means the defeat of Satan’s (CCC 550). It connects “the finger of God” with the Holy Spirit and notes that the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus calls the Spirit the “finger of the Father’s right hand” (CCC 700). The Church also teaches that the power of Satan is not infinite (CCC 395). In the rite of baptism a prayer of exorcism is said over the candidate (CCC 1237). Lent’s purpose, for those preparing for baptism and for the rest of us, is to let the stronger one take back what the strong man has held.
Here Jesus says, “Whoever is not with me is against me”. But in Luke 9:50 he says, “Whoever is not against you is for you”. Which is it?
Both, because they are said about different questions. In Luke 9 the disciples want to stop a man who is casting out demons in Jesus’ name, and Jesus tells them not to be jealous of the good done by those outside their circle. Here the issue is one’s stance toward Jesus himself. So we should be generous in judging others and honest in judging ourselves. No one can be neutral toward Christ.