Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Monday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
February 1, 2021
Heb 11:32-40, Ps 31, Mk 5:1-20
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following points were attempted in the homily:
- Yesterday we witnessed in the Capernaum synagogue the astonishing and amazing authority of Jesus not only as he taught unlike the scribes but also as he exorcised a man as the screaming demons identified Jesus as the Holy One of God and obeyed him in departing from the man. Today we see that amazing and astonishing authority on display again in another exorcism, but today’s Gospel is about more than one more dramatic expulsion of evil. It points to something that needs to be exorcised from all of us in every age. After Jesus frees this man from a legion of demons — and a legion in the Roman army was 600 troops — by casting them into a herd of 2,000 pigs who, now possessed, ran off a cliff and drowned in the Sea of Galilee, the people of that pagan region of the Gerasenes didn’t rejoice at the liberation of the man who used to gouge himself with stones, break chains that attempted to bind him, and terrorize the people of the region; they didn’t come to Jesus to ask him likewise to free the other possessed people in the region, or to cure their sick or to teach them; instead, they asked him to leave their region. Jesus was bad for business. They worried that if he stayed he might next endanger their sheep, too, or their grain, or other aspects of their livelihood. They essentially cared more for the swine they had lost than the brother they had gained.
- This is not a problem just for ancients. Still today, people can give possessions primacy over people, allowing people to be disturbed, even possessed, even killed as long as their possessions are left undisturbed. Pope Francis wrote about this in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: “How can it be that it is not a news item,” he asks, “when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?” For many people, the stock market is more important than people dying through neglect. We know that in the terrible choice of abortion, many other things are prioritized — career, personal autonomy, the money and sacrifices necessary to raise a child — over human life and how Planned Parenthood resists any initiatives that do anything to affect their profits. Materialism, or what St. John calls the concupiscence of the eyes, remains one of the greatest ways the devil seeks to possess multitudes. We remember the way he tempted Jesus in the desert to set his sights on material bread in order to thwart him from his mission and focus on bodily wants and needs more than on his mission. But Jesus refused, saying we live on more than bread, but by every word that comes from God’s mouth. In his first beatitude, we see that the kingdom of God belongs to those who are “poor in spirit,” those who treasure God’s kingdom more than they do things. Poverty in spirit is essential not only for us to love God but also to love our neighbor. In order to love our neighbor, we have to be willing to sacrifice our things, even our life, for their good. It would have been possible for Jesus, of course, to exorcise the legion of demons and not assent to their request to be sent into the swine and lead the swine to run into the Sea of Galilee and drown. Jesus permitted it not just as an illustration of the destruction the demons were already doing within the man but also what they were hoping to do to him and to every human being: to lead us off various cliffs — jumping from the parapet of the temple! — in order to lead us to death. In permitting the swine to be invaded and destroyed by the demons in this way, Jesus was displaying in a graphic way the power of evil that he was coming to silence and expunge.
- But Jesus would do that more than just by this miracle in the terrority of the Gerasenes. He would cast out the devil not just by his amazing and astonishing authoritative word and the destruction of swine. He would do so fundamentally by his passion, death and resurrection. He would, in some sense, permit the evil one to allow others to conspire to kill him, but in so doing, he would free us from the dominion of the devil and make true liberation possible. His amazing and astonishing authority is shown most in his humility on the Cross, what St. Paul described as the “power and wisdom” of Christ Crucified. Jesus was himself run out of Jerusalem by the possessed, he was crucified, he was drowned in death by a baptism of blood, but on the third day arose from the waters, precisely freeing us from the death and eternal destruction to which the devil seeks to lead us all. Jesus’ extraordinary courage and love in offering himself to free us from the evil is a model for faithful audacity throughout the centuries. We see that in today’s first reading as the letter to the Hebrews goes through a list of Old Testament heroes who out of love for God and those God loved were themselves willing to sacrifice their lives. The sacred authority describes Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David and Samuel and the prophets and how they “conquered kingdoms, did what was righteous, obtained the promises, closed the mouths of lions, put out raging fires, escaped the devouring sword, turned back foreign invaders, received back their dead through resurrection, were tortured and would not accept deliverance, endured mockery, scourging, even chains and imprisonment, were stoned, sawed in two, put to death at sword’s point, and — like the Gerasene demoniac — wandered about in deserts and on mountains. Their faith made them capable of this type of fidelity. Jesus has liberated us all so that we might imitate that faith.
- At the end of the dramatic scene in the Gospel, the liberated man pleaded with Jesus to be allowed to join him in the boat and remain with him. Jesus instead told him, “Go home to your family and announce to them all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.” Then St. Mark tells us the man went off and began to proclaim in the Decapolis what Jesus had done for him; and all were amazed. Jesus’ astonishing and amazing authority to move others to conversion was now being exercised by the exorcised man. By Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection, we too have been freed from the evil one. The Lord wants us to tell our family members, our friends, those we meet of the One who with authority set us free. The same Jesus who cast the demons out of the swine comes to cast himself into us. When we ask, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?,” he replies that he hasn’t come here to destroy us but rather to sanctify us. He has come not to torment us but to teach and spiritually toughen us like the heroes listed in Hebrews. He will not tell us to be quiet but to tell us to proclaim from the rooftops his Gospel. As he casts himself into us, he wants us all to rush out and not drown in the Sea of Galilee but bring others to bathe themselves in baptism and in the Living Water coming from his pierced side. We beg him not to depart from us but to remain with us. And we ask him to give us the grace to announce not just to our family but to all those he wants to be members of his family what the Lord in his mercy has done for us and wants to do for them.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Brothers and sisters:
What more shall I say?
I have not time to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah,
of David and Samuel and the prophets,
who by faith conquered kingdoms,
did what was righteous, obtained the promises;
they closed the mouths of lions, put out raging fires,
escaped the devouring sword;
out of weakness they were made powerful, became strong in battle,
and turned back foreign invaders.
Women received back their dead through resurrection.
Some were tortured and would not accept deliverance,
in order to obtain a better resurrection.
Others endured mockery, scourging, even chains and imprisonment.
They were stoned, sawed in two, put to death at sword’s point;
they went about in skins of sheep or goats,
needy, afflicted, tormented.
The world was not worthy of them.
They wandered about in deserts and on mountains,
in caves and in crevices in the earth.
Yet all these, though approved because of their faith,
did not receive what had been promised.
God had foreseen something better for us,
so that without us they should not be made perfect.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (25) Let your hearts take comfort, all who hope in the Lord.
How great is the goodness, O LORD,
which you have in store for those who fear you,
And which, toward those who take refuge in you,
you show in the sight of the children of men.
R. Let your hearts take comfort, all who hope in the Lord.
You hide them in the shelter of your presence
from the plottings of men;
You screen them within your abode
from the strife of tongues.
R. Let your hearts take comfort, all who hope in the Lord.
Blessed be the LORD whose wondrous mercy
he has shown me in a fortified city.
R. Let your hearts take comfort, all who hope in the Lord.
Once I said in my anguish,
“I am cut off from your sight”;
Yet you heard the sound of my pleading
when I cried out to you.
R. Let your hearts take comfort, all who hope in the Lord.
Love the LORD, all you his faithful ones!
The LORD keeps those who are constant,
but more than requites those who act proudly.
R. Let your hearts take comfort, all who hope in the Lord.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
A great prophet has arisen in our midst
and God has visited his people.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus and his disciples came to the other side of the sea,
to the territory of the Gerasenes.
When he got out of the boat,
at once a man from the tombs who had an unclean spirit met him.
The man had been dwelling among the tombs,
and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain.
In fact, he had frequently been bound with shackles and chains,
but the chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles smashed,
and no one was strong enough to subdue him.
Night and day among the tombs and on the hillsides
he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones.
Catching sight of Jesus from a distance,
he ran up and prostrated himself before him,
crying out in a loud voice,
“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?
I adjure you by God, do not torment me!”
(He had been saying to him, “Unclean spirit, come out of the man!”)
He asked him, “What is your name?”
He replied, “Legion is my name. There are many of us.”
And he pleaded earnestly with him
not to drive them away from that territory.
Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside.
And they pleaded with him,
“Send us into the swine. Let us enter them.”
And he let them, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine.
The herd of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank into the sea,
where they were drowned.
The swineherds ran away and reported the incident in the town
and throughout the countryside.
And people came out to see what had happened.
As they approached Jesus,
they caught sight of the man who had been possessed by Legion,
sitting there clothed and in his right mind.
And they were seized with fear.
Those who witnessed the incident explained to them what had happened
to the possessed man and to the swine.
Then they began to beg him to leave their district.
As he was getting into the boat,
the man who had been possessed pleaded to remain with him.
But Jesus would not permit him but told him instead,
“Go home to your family and announce to them
all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.”
Then the man went off and began to proclaim in the Decapolis
what Jesus had done for him; and all were amazed.
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