How do you react to the word “demoniac”; what is your emotional response? In today’s Gospel speaks of two people who were so labeled. They were unable to live with their families and lived around the burial grounds of that territory. They were so “savage” that people avoided them. Many of us react to this kind of Gospel story by thinking that these men would be considered “mentally ill” if they were living among us today.
However, rather than try to determine what was wrong with these two people, I would like to concentrate on the fact that they knew who Jesus was. “They cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time?’” (Matthew 8:29) In both the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Matthew, I find it significant that only demoniacs and Gentiles refer to Jesus as the Son of God. In the much later written Gospel of St. John, we are told that Jesus came among his own but his own did not accept him. St. Matthew and St. Mark illustrate that fact for us.
We also know that these demons were possessing Gentiles. The presence of a herd of swine points us to that fact. Pig flesh was not permitted in the Jewish dietary laws.
In fact, such stories are really more about recognizing who Jesus is rather than the healings that take place. While his own people refused to accept him, Jesus is accepted by those who are excluded from Jewish society.
What does this have to say to us today? Being disciples of Jesus means that we have to let go of the things and attitudes, the ideas and biases that stand in the way of complete acceptance of Jesus. I have been considering how the Holy Father’s latest encyclical about preserving the environment has been met by resistance by people who profess to be Christians, some of them even Catholic Christians. All the Holy Father is asking in this encyclical is for a conversation about how we can best preserve that which God has created and given to us. However, there are some who simply cannot let go of their own ideas about how climate change impacts our world. These ideas have “possessed” them so thoroughly that they cannot move beyond their own views. Are we similarly possessed? Are there certain ideas and attitudes that keep us from recognizing Jesus in the poor, in the dispossessed, in the refugees of this world? Are we so wedded to our own way of thinking that our minds are closed to new ideas? These are all good questions for us to ask ourselves in prayerful moments today.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator