The warning which our Lord gives us in this Gospel is certainly a most terrible one, my brethren, but it may not seem plain to whom it is addressed; who they are who, now and at all times, are in danger of having the devil come back to them in this way of which he speaks. For nowadays, thank God! it is not very often that we find people who are really possessed by the devil, in the proper sense of the word. But, in a more general sense of it, there are plenty of people who are possessed by the devil. They are those who are in a state of mortal sin. In them Satan has regained the possession from which he was driven out in holy baptism--that is, the soul which was his at least by original, if not by actual, sin. And he is in them as a dumb devil, like the one which the Gospel tells us that our Lord cast out; that is, he makes the people dumb whom he possesses, by keeping them from telling their sins and getting rid of them by confession. {176} But the dumb devil is often cast out, particularly at times of special grace and help from God, like this holy season of Lent through which we are now passing, or at the time of a mission or of a jubilee. At such times you will always find people, who have been away from the sacraments for years, coming back to them and making an effort to amend their lives and save their souls. Now, this is very unpleasant to the devil, who has counted on these people as his own. He has a special liking for the souls which have been his so long. So when he is driven out of them he does not simply go off on other business, as we might expect; but he always has an eye on his old home. He says to himself, when he finds that he does not get along so well elsewhere: "I will return into my house whence I came out. I will see if I cannot get in again." So he comes back to his old house, to the soul which has been his, and too often he finds it pretty easy to get in again. He finds it, in fact, "swept and garnished," as our Lord says, and all ready for his reception. So, of course, he goes in and takes his old place. The soul, which has escaped from sin by a good confession, relapses into it again. What a pity this is! And yet how common it is! How many, how very many, there are who a month or so after a mission, or some other occasion when you would think they would really be converted in good earnest, are back again in their old sins just the same as if they had never confessed them at all! It seems strange, perhaps. And yet it is not so strange when you come to think of it. The reason is not very hard to find. It is just the one that our Lord gives: it is that the house of the soul, from which the devil has been driven, is empty, "swept and garnished." Nothing has been put there in the place of the vices and bad habits that were there before. {177}