GOSPEL

July 1, 2020 (Wednesday) 13th Week in Ordinary Time Psalter: Week 1/(Green/white) St. Junipero Serra, priest

Ps 50:7, 8-9, 10-11, 12-13, 16bc-17 To the upright I will show the saving power of God.

Gospel: Matthew 8:28-34

When Jesus reached Gadara, on the other side, he was met by two men, possessed by devils, who came out from the tombs. They were so fierce that no one dared to pass that way. They cried out, “Son of God, leave us alone! Have you come here to torment us before the time?”

Some distance away there was a large herd of pigs feeding. So the demons begged him, “If you drive us out, send us into that herd of pigs.”

Jesus ordered them, “Go!” So the demons left the men and went into the pigs. The whole herd rushed down the cliff into the lake and was drowned. The men in charge of the pigs ran off to the town, where they told the whole story; and also what had happened to the men possessed with the demons. The whole town went out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region.

Reflection:

There are two levels of demonic possession. At one level, the devil may enter into an individual person. Somebody who bothered about an individual being possessed would call an exorcist. In today’s Gospel, no one bothered.

As long as the community is at peace, nobody cared about evil destroying two people’s lives. This reveals a deeper form of demonic possession— the devil may possess a whole community. The community members in our Gospel have taken their neighbors’ affliction as tolerable. It even displeased them when Jesus engaged with the two men and freed them from their miserable condition. Many of our brothers and sisters around us are in misery—and we have become used to their condition. An indifferent evil-tolerant community does not need an exorcist. It needs a vigilant Church willing to fight communal possession, which operates in forms of collective quiet and indifference.