Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C (2025) - Fr Anthony Walsh, OP

When Jesus sends out the seventy-two disciples in Luke 10, it might seem at first like a simple mission of peace: they are to heal the sick, announce the nearness of the Kingdom, and rely on the hospitality of strangers. Yet beneath the surface lies a cosmic struggle. Jesus’ words, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18), unveil the true horizon of this passage: not pastoral outreach, but spiritual warfare. This mission is an invasion of contested territory—the Kingdom of God breaking into a world held in bondage.

The disciples are sent out with no purse, no sandals, no security. They are instructed to proclaim peace to each house. But this peace is not a sentimental offering; it is the front edge of the Kingdom’s advance. St Ambrose notes that those who preach peace must themselves carry it interiorly, for their vulnerability is part of their strength. By going in weakness, they make room for divine power.

The proclamation of peace, then, is not a withdrawal from conflict—it is a confrontation with a world at war with God. Every healing, every acceptance of hospitality, is a sign that the dominion of Satan is crumbling.

When the seventy-two return, they rejoice that “even the demons are subject to us in your name!” (Luke 10:17). Jesus affirms this with a cosmic declaration: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” This is not so much a memory of a primeval event but a present-tense vision: the disciples’ mission is enacting Satan’s downfall in real time. The Kingdom is not advancing quietly—it is displacing the powers of darkness.

St Cyril of Alexandria emphasizes that the disciples carry not their own authority but the authority of the Word Incarnate. They are emissaries of divine power, agents of liberation in a world oppressed by the demonic.

Luke 10:13–16, conspicuously omitted from the Sunday lectionary for this week, reveals the spiritual battleground with piercing clarity. Jesus denounces Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum—not pagan cities, but places that had witnessed his works and remained unconverted. These verses reveal that spiritual resistance is not located in ignorance, but in prideful refusal to repent.

Jesus’ comparison is shocking: Tyre, Sidon, and even Sodom would have repented, but these privileged towns remain hardened. St Augustine sees in these cities the presumption of the soul that believes itself righteous without conversion. Origen interprets their rejection as symbolic of the unrepentant heart.

Verse 16 provides the key: “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.” Here is the real warfare: acceptance or rejection of the Gospel is acceptance or rejection of God Himself.

This mission is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers (Eph 6:12). The resistance is spiritual, and it plays out in homes, cities, and hearts. The disciples’ presence becomes a moment of divine visitation—and decision.

St Bede the Venerable reads the shaking of dust off the feet as a testimony that the territory remains spiritually unclean. The disciples are not just itinerant preachers—they are advance heralds of judgment and mercy.

The mission of the seventy-two unveils the fault line between the Kingdom of God and the dominion of darkness. It is in this very context—of resistance and rejection—that Jesus sees Satan fall. The war is not metaphorical; it is real, and it is being won through the weakness of the Gospel’s messengers.

The omission of Luke 10:13–16 from the lectionary may be pastorally understandable, but it comes at a cost. As one scholar notes, “The Gospel becomes therapeutic rather than revelatory—comforting, not confrontational.” To omit the prophetic woes is to obscure the stakes of the Gospel: that it demands a response, and that response has eternal consequences.

The Church today must recover the full force of the Gospel—not just its mercy, but its judgment; not just its healing, but its authority. The Gospel for this Sunday, with all verses intact, is a charter for mission in a contested world. To proclaim Christ is to confront evil. To accept the Gospel is to break free from bondage. And to see Satan fall is to glimpse the triumph of the Kingdom, even now.

Fr Anthony Walsh, OP is the Master of Novices, assigned to St Laurence's Priory, North Adelaide, South Australia.