On Being Supernaturally Normal

Last updated on: December 27, 2014 at 1:21 pm by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

On Being Supernaturally Normal 2014-12-27T13:21:58-05:00 Fr. Dwight Longenecker

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I had a terrific compliment last week. This person didn’t praise me for being extraordinary. She didn’t thank me for being intellectual or handsome or holy or amazing.

She thanked me for being normal.

We are so often attracted to what is weird. We follow the details of the lives of the stars of athletics and the arts. We revel in the eccentricities of celebrities and relish the extraordinary, the unusual and the odd. We long for a dash of entertainment through the remarkable and strange. Even in our religion we snoop around the supernatural, get excited about the eccentric and love to investigate the miraculous and marvelous.

This appetite rarely leads to a higher level of holiness and often leads us into difficult and dangerous byways.

I’m for avoiding the paranormal in favor of the normal.

I’m for extraordinary ordinariness and being supernaturally natural.

Think about a tree. That’s normal. Think about a child. That’s normal. Think about a dog. That’s normal. Think about the weather. That’s normal.

What does the devil hate? Supernatural normalcy. When considering conflict with Satan some people think it is all about crucifixes and holy water and exorcisms and putting on the spiritual armor of God and wading into battle like mortal versions of St Michael the Archangel. No. We best trample down the head of Satan through supernatural normalcy.

What do I mean by ‘supernatural normalcy’? First you have to start by understanding Satan and all his works. Satan has nothing original in his toolkit. He can’t create sin because sin is the absence of grace or the distortion of something good. God made everything and everything he made is good. Evil is therefore nothing positive in itself, but the perversion, destruction and distortion of all that is good.

It follows therefore that Satan loves everything that is perverted, twisted, destroyed and diseased. He can’t do anything good or create anything good. All he can do is twist or attempt to destroy that which is good.

Therefore what does Satan hate? Continue Reading

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