This homily was given by Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ, on the 1st Sunday of Lent 2013, at the Cenacle Retreat House.
Do you remember the movie, Devil’s Advocate? Keanu Reeves plays Kevin, a brilliant lawyer, but has difficulty making his way to the top. He knows his caliber, and he knows his place is the top, but it’s taking him too long. Al Pacino is Satan, disguised as a CEO of a prestigious law firm. He hires Kevin and he furnishes him with all that he needs to get to the top, including a very delicate case. If Kevin wins it, he’ll be on top. But it comes to a point where Kevin has to choose between winning the case…or giving it up to care for his fast-deteriorating pregnant wife, but not without making it sound saying, of course; he’s the devil, devils do that. Unfortunately, Keanu chooses the case over the wife. He promises his boss: “I’ll win this case, I promise, I know I can win it. And then I’ll devote myself fully to my wife.” So he wins it. And on the same day, his wife kills herself right before his very eyes. The final scene is a confrontation between him and Pacino who finally reveals himself as Satan. And Kevin screams at him, “What did you do to my wife?” And at one point, Satan says: “I’m no puppeteer, Kevin, I don’t make things happen; doesn’t work like that. Free will…I only set stage. You pull your own strings.”
I couldn’t agree more. Too easily often, we fault the devil for “possessing” us, making us do what we wouldn’t have freely done anyway. But if that’s the case, why is it that even if we know what ought to be done, and we have all the means to do it, we still freely decide to either postpone it, not do it at all? Does free will stop short of actually acting out evil, at which point the devil takes over? “I’m no puppeteer, Kevin. I don’t make things happen…I only set the stage.”
Deeper still, we all have this need to be nourished. We live in plenty, yes. We’re surrounded by the blessings of things, opportunities, people. Yet we have this longing to be nourished still, because in this desert we’re in, we seem to have everything, yet we have nothing. We constantly seek that specific nourishment which we can’t readily educe from our life’s abundance. We have food, gadgets, books. We have loving people who surround us—family, beloved, friends—some of who love us more than we even love them! Still, we need to be particularly poured into with something that would somehow follow the contours of our emptiness. Because unless that, then we feel only half-filled.
It’s not evil to try to seek nourishment for our existential hungers, our gaping yearnings. The problem is, as our deep hunger rises to the surface of our words, our actions, our behavior—as our deep yearning swims up to sea-level—sometimes it gets hijacked on its way up. So that by the time our hunger reaches our mouths, it’s blurted out as a hurting word. By the time our hunger reaches our eyes, it’s a glower. By the time it reaches our hands, it’s a fist or a pointed finger or a grab. By the time it reaches our feet, we stomp and walk out, and slam the door behind us. In other words, our innermost yearnings seek to be satisfied—as they should, as they should. But on their way up and out into the light of day, they’re often hijacked. It’s like pulling a full bucket of water from a very deep well. It’s such a long, arduous pull that halfway up, we feel impatient and aggravated. So what do we do? We hurry up and fidget and tug and grab at the rope. By the time the bucket’s out…much of the water has jumped back into the depths of the well. Our bucket is nearly as empty as it was when we threw it in.
Desperation. That’s one hijacked of our deepest yearnings. We want to be fulfilled, we want to be nourished…but we want it now, and in this particular way, in this form, and from this person, and that person, and him and her. No, not tomorrow, now. For we have waited for far too patiently for too long. Desperation. It’s not an accident that at the heart of the word “desperate” is the word “despair”. “Despair” is from de, “the lack or absence of”, and spes, “hope”. We become desperate when our deep hunger turns into hopelessness and breaks through the surface as a hurting word, a glower, a fist, a pointed finger, a grab for control, a walk-out. Just when we thought we could still come up with a full bucket. We actually feel so much emptier than before.
But see, we’re in very good company. The devil wouldn’t have badgered Jesus if he didn’t find anything he could work on. But he did, Because like us, Jesus must have nursed unfathomable yearnings deep in his tender heart, yearnings anticipating satisfaction, hungers seeking providence, loneliness awaiting embrace. And Satan wanted to hijack them all, to set the stage so that Jesus might grow weary of waiting and demand fulfillment now, no matter what the cost. But Jesus did not despair…well, not until he was almost lifeless, when he said, “Itay ko, itay ko, bakit n’yo po ako pinabayaan?” Yet, with one last ounce of strength, his final word was a commendation of his spirit. He tossed his bucket back into the depths of his Father’s loving yet inscrutable will.
That’s why early on, the devil failed in his mission. Jesus wouldn’t despair. In spite of all his unfulfilled yearnings, he hoped a lot; he hoped too much. Someone who hopes in God too much is a hopeless case as far as the devil is concerned.
Ad majorem + Dei gloriam!