“These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages.” (Mark 16:17)
Saint Gregory the Great offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel:
“There is something to be said of these signs and powers of a more veiled nature. The holy church is even now doing spiritually, every day, what she then did through the apostles corporately. For when priests, by the grace of exorcism, lay hands on believers and forbid evil spirits to inhabit their minds, what are they doing but “casting out demons”? And any believers whatever who henceforth abandon the profanity of the old life, and utter holy mysteries, and rehearse, as best they can, the praise and power of their maker, what are they doing but “speaking in new tongues?” Moreover, when by their good exhortations they remove evil from the hearts of others, are they not “taking up serpents”? Aren’t these miracles the greater because they are spiritual, because they are the means not of raising up bodies but souls? These signs then, beloved, you do if you will.” (Homily 29)
O God, who taught the whole world
through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul,
draw us, we pray, nearer to You
through the example of him whose conversion we celebrate today,
and so make us witnesses to Your truth in the world.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul,
draw us, we pray, nearer to You
through the example of him whose conversion we celebrate today,
and so make us witnesses to Your truth in the world.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Glory to You Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen!
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen!
