Month: January 2022

Our Gospel gives us an opportunity to address one of the more confusing passages in Scripture: “‘Amen, I say to you, all sins and blasphemies that people utter will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin.’ For they had said, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’” (Mark 3:28–30). We must keep in mind that Our Lord means what He says and He does not contradict Himself. We have to wrestle with the hard sayings, and every difficulty in Scripture can be solved, even if we do not yet have the tools to do so.

So, what is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? St. Thomas Aquinas, a Doctor of the Church, summarizes the issue neatly. In his Summa Theologiae (II-II, q. 14), he mentions the interpretations of Sts. Athanasius, Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, John Chrysostom, and Augustine, holy Fathers of the Church.

All but St. Augustine interpret blasphemy against the Spirit as literally speaking a blasphemy against the Third Person of the Trinity, namely by attributing His work to Satan. This is what the Jews did in our Gospel. Jesus had been performing miracles by His own power, glorifying God, but the Jews called Him possessed, saying that He was casting out demons by Satan’s power. In reality, Jesus performed miracles by the power of the Spirit. But the Jews said that the Spirit’s work was Satan’s work, gravely offending God.

St. Augustine interpreted blasphemy against the Spirit as final impenitence, which is the refusal to accept the mercy of God. According to Aquinas, this can happen through despair or presumption. In despair, we think ourselves unworthy of God’s mercy and resign ourselves to Hell, never daring to ask forgiveness for our shameful sins. In presumption, we think ourselves too good for God’s mercy, never stooping to ask forgiveness because we think we are perfect. Either way the result is the same: a direct offense against God’s mercy or justice, and death in the state of unrepented mortal sin.

These interpretations are not mutually exclusive, but St. John Paul II emphasizes Augustine’s interpretation in his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Dives in Misericordia (part II, section 6). There he describes the “unforgivable sin” as unforgivable by its very nature, since it rejects the salvation offered to us through the Holy Spirit.

Whether we side with either or both interpretations, this shouldn’t be an issue for most of us. Chances are that if we are reading this, we are in the habit of turning to God for His mercy and confessing our sins in the confessional. However, it is always good to be on our guard against despair, presumption, and calling God’s good work evil. It can be easy sometimes to think that we are either too far gone or too good for God’s forgiveness.

(On his feast day, I’d also like to recommend St. Francis de Sales, another Doctor of the Church. His Introduction to the Devout Life is incredibly practical, and his section on ordinary temptations (part 4) is especially helpful.)

Contact the author

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus went into the synagogue and read this passage from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

He then looked at all those who sat listening to Him and proclaimed: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Wow! We hear that and we feel excited. But the people listening then were astounded—so astounded that they became furious. They drove Him from the temple believing He had committed blasphemy. But we know that He did not. We know that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the promises in the Old Testament. 

As Christ said, He was sent to “proclaim liberty to captives.” We desperately need this liberty, for we are all ensnared and held captive by something of this world—our jobs, our friend groups, social media, the news, even our phones. We allow these things to take the place of Jesus in our hearts and minds. We allow these things to fill us, and often they fill us with anger, resentment, anxiety, sadness, or more. 

But Jesus is here—and has always been here—to free us from the chains that come with these things. He doesn’t just fill us, as these things do, He brings us joy, peace, love, and harmony.

Nothing of this world can do that. Sure, many can bring happiness, but happiness is fleeting. Happiness doesn’t last. But a joy in Christ lasts. 

So let us take time to reflect on how we spend our days. Where is our focus? Are we spending so much time watching the news, playing on our phones, or scrolling through social media that Christ becomes secondary in our lives? Are we letting the world fill us with an anger that threatens to destroy the joy we have? 

Because of sin, our world is broken. This should—and often does—bring us sadness, but it’s a sadness we must not dwell upon. Instead, we must turn this sadness into an awareness that only loving and God-centered actions can effect the change we need in this world.

So, as we begin this new year, let us allow God to liberate us from our captivity and truly make this a year acceptable to the Lord. 

Contact the author