It’s our common experience that we struggle with our sins especially the sins committed repeatedly. We reach the sacrament of reconciliation seeking forgiveness while focusing on overcoming the temptations of the evil one. As we know well, we end up often frustrated and dejected as we fall again and again. We wonder why we fall victim to habitual sins. Our Lord addresses that question in the Gospel today. When the demon is gone (our sins are forgiven and we are made clean) there is the tendency of its return with many other demons more numerous and vicious than the earlier one. Evil returns with greater force because it wants to attack an inner soul clean and orderly. So, the situation becomes more pathetic than earlier.

With our repeated sins, we are to guard ourselves continuously, to fill the purified inner self with the Holy Spirit, with virtues, holiness and love. God helps us do it because He has not created us to fail. How deeply are you resolved to overcome evil?

Prayer: Abba Father, “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”.Amen.