The Twelve

Mark records the entire list of the twelve apostles, starting with Simon Peter and including Judas Iscariot. We discussed the main objectives that Jesus gave them:

1. preach the message and
2. exert authority over demons to cast them out.

The Church has many monikers for this group, including a very nice one: The College of the Twelve.

It is also good to compare the Twelve to David's groups of mighty men from 2 Samuel 23:

The Three: Ishbaal son of Hachamoni, Eleazar son of Dodo the Ahohite, and Shammah son of Agee the Hararite

The Thirty, including Uriah the Hittite

It seems that these first three chapters are taken up by a lot of miracles and a lot of apostle-calling. Good.

We discussed the differences between main battle exorcism and minor exorcisms. Following Mark's gospel, the main battle exorcism is the operation of the bishop. The bishop is the ordinary one to operate the exorcism, plus the bishop can designate a priest of his diocese to the official work of exorcist. The main battle exorcism, or solemn exorcism, is a serious business which the bishop does not undertake lightly. The bishop will take care to determine if a person's troubles are from a psychological illness or not. In the case of a psychological infirmity, ordinary medical care is indicated, not solemn exorcism.

Simple exorcism is performed during the celebration of baptism, since the person to be baptized suffers the consequence of original sin. We recall this same thing during the Easter season, in our renewal of our baptismal vows, among which are rejection of the enemy and all his works.

Many adults in the RCIA also remember minor exorcisms in the form of prayers to God with the priest, deacon or catechist.

We will discuss a few more concepts under this topic next time.

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