The Curing of the Man with an Unclean Spirit

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“He went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath. And his teaching made a deep impression on them because his word carried authority.

“In the synagogue, there was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean devil, and he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God!’ But Jesus rebuked it, saying, ‘Be quiet! Come out of him!’ And the devil, throwing the man into the middle, went out of him without hurting him at all.

“Astonishment seized them, and they were all saying to one another, ‘What is it in his words? He gives orders to unclean spirits with authority and power and they come out.’ And the news of him traveled all through the surrounding countryside” (Luke 4:31-37).

Our Lord teaches with authority. The evangelists repeatedly mention the surprised reactions that Our Lord's teachings and His miracles provoke in people, even in His own disciples. Sometimes they're even afraid to ask Him questions (cf. Mark 9:32).

That reluctance is a sign of the reverential awe which seized and captivated them, an awareness of His majesty reflected in His words and in His deeds.

St. Luke tells us how after Jesus had cured a possessed man, “They were all amazed and said to one another: ‘What is this word? For with authority and power, he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.’”

And on another occasion, St. Mark points out that people were astonished at His teaching: “He taught them as one who had authority, not as the scribes” (Mark 1:22).

The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity spoke through the medium of His Holy Humanity, and the people, aware of His extraordinary power, hastened to identify Him with the most exalted and famous figures of their history: was he John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets? (cf. Matt. 16:14). They all fell very far short of the truth.

The people who listened to Our Lord perceived very clearly the radical difference that there was between the way the scribes and the Pharisees taught and the certainty and vitality with which Christ pronounced His doctrine.

Our Lord didn't express just a mere opinion. Neither does He show any sign of uncertainty or of doubt.

We're told in St. Matthew that Jesus had now finished what He wanted to say and His teaching made a deep impression on the people “because he taught them with authority, unlike their own scribes” (Matt. 7:28-29).

He doesn't speak, like the prophets, in God's name, because He's not just another prophet. He speaks in his name: “But I say to you…”

He teaches people the divine mysteries and the nature of human relationships, and He backs up His teaching with miracles.

He explains his doctrine simply and vigorously because He speaks of what He has seen. “In all truth, I tell you,” we're told in St. John, “we speak only about what we know and witness only to what we have seen and yet you people reject our evidence” (John 3:11).

Our Lord doesn't give long-winded explanations. One spiritual writer says, “He demonstrates nothing. He doesn't try to justify himself. He doesn't argue. He teaches. His authority imposes itself because the wisdom that emanates from him is irresistible. When you come to value this wisdom, when your heart is pure enough to appreciate it, you know that there cannot be any other.

“You see that this is absolute; that before him everything is but dust; you see that He is Life. Just as when the sun rises the stars disappear, the same happens with all the wisdom and all the opinions of men. ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life’” (Jean Leclercq, Thirty Meditations on the Christian Life).

“Your words, Lord, are spirit and they are life” (John 6:63). Our Lord continues to speak to each one of us, personally, in the intimacy of our prayer, and also when we read the Gospel each day.

We have to try and listen to Him also in the thousand and one little events of the day, including those which men might call events of failure or sorrow. He's also there.

In The Forge, St. Josemaría says, “When you open the Holy Gospel, think that what is written there—the words and deeds of Christ—is something that you should not only know, but live. Everything, every point that is told there, has been gathered, detail by detail, for you to make it come alive in the individual circumstances of your life.

“God has called us Catholics to follow him closely. In that holy Writing, you will find the Life of Jesus, but you should also find your own life there. … Take up the Gospel every day, then, and read it and live it as a definite rule. This is what the saints have done” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 754).

We're told in St. Luke and St. John that Our Lord's teaching had such power and authority that some who listened exclaimed that never before had anything like it been heard in Israel (cf. Luke 19:48; John 7:46).

The Venerable Bede tells us that the scribes also taught the people what was written in Moses and the Prophets, but Jesus preached to the people as God and Lord of Moses Himself (St. Bede, Commentary on St. Mark’s Gospel).

Christ's words were full of life; they penetrated to the bottom of men's hearts.

And we all have that experience. We notice some words of the Gospel, maybe, jump about the page; hit us in the face. Or one day, one particular word or phrase means more to us. Or over time, with grace, we rediscover the unfathomable riches that are there in the Scriptures.

When John the Baptist pointed out Jesus as He passed by, two of his disciples followed Him and spent the day in His company. St. John, the one who gives us the great dialogues of Jesus, is silent on this occasion. He only tells us that they met Him “about the tenth hour” (John 1:39), about four in the afternoon.

When, many years later, he wrote his Gospel, he wanted to leave us forever the precise unforgettable moment of his first encounter with Our Lord.

What did Our Lord say to them? We only know the result from the words of Andrew, the other disciple who followed Jesus: “We have found the Messiah” (John 1:41). That afternoon God entered into the deepest recesses of their hearts.

We are told in the Book of Isaiah, “Yet just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to him who sows and bread to him who eats, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:10-11).

When we in turn open our hearts to Our Lord, His words pierce and transform us. This happened to the men who had been sent to arrest Him, and they returned empty-handed.

We are told in St. John, “Some wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. The guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees who said to them, ‘Why haven't you brought him?’ The guards replied, ‘No one has ever spoken like this man!’” (John 7:44-46).

We can look again at those words that Our Lord has left us, that can open new horizons for us. “If you remain faithful to my word,” we're told, “you will truly be my disciples. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).

In the Word, it is God Himself who comes to us and transforms us. “The word of God is living,” says St. Paul, efficacious and “sharper than any two-edged sword. It penetrates to the very division of the soul and spirit, the joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).

“The word will be for you,” says St. Peter, “as a lamp that shines in a dark place until the dawn comes and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pet. 1:19).

“Your word is a lamp for my steps, a light on my way,” the Psalms say. “Lord, give me life according to your word” (cf. Ps. 119:105, 125).

St. James says, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22).

Our Lord doesn’t show any sign of doubt or uncertainty. He's very clear in all the things He wants to say—sometimes very direct.

In His words, we find an infinite wisdom. He can be understood by philosophers and by the uneducated, by adolescents and by children, by men and women, by everybody.

He speaks about the most sublime things in the simplest of language. His doctrine has a depth unlike any other, and yet it is within reach of everybody.

His preaching is full of familiar ideas and images, which give His preaching an incomparable beauty and attractiveness.

The smallest details serve to express the most sublime features of a new doctrine of mysterious and unfathomable depth. “They gathered up all the pieces that were left over” after the multiplication of the loaves and the fish (Matt. 14:20).

Our Lord's whole life was an uninterrupted teaching process. Pope St. John Paul says, “His silences, his miracles, his gestures, his prayer, his love for people, his special affection for the lowly and the poor, his acceptance of the total sacrifice on the Cross for the redemption of the world, and his resurrection, all are the actualization of his word and the fulfillment of revelation. …

“These considerations…all strengthen our fervor with regard to Christ, the Teacher who reveals God to man and man to himself, the Teacher who saves, sanctifies, and guides, who lives, who speaks,…who muses, moves, redresses, judges, forgives, and goes with us day by day on the path of history, the Teacher who comes and will come in glory” (John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Catechesi tradendae, Point 9, October 16, 1979).

In our daily reading of the Gospel outside of Mass, we meet this same Christ who speaks to us, teaches us, and consoles us. In that short minute or two of our reading, we get to know Him better and better, to imitate His life, and to love Him.

If we ask the Holy Spirit, who is the principal author of Sacred Scripture, to come to our assistance, we'll be helped to be one more protagonist in the scenes that we read, or perhaps to draw some definite conclusion for the day.

“Your prayer,” says St. Augustine, “is like a conversation with God. When you read, God speaks to you; when you pray, you speak to him” (St. Augustine, Commentary on the Psalms).

God speaks to us in many different ways when we read the Gospel. He offers us the example of His life so that we can imitate Him in ours.

He washed the feet of the apostles. He shows us how to behave towards others, our brothers and sisters. He reminds us that we are children of God and that nothing ought to take our peace away.

The first words that Our Lord speaks to the apostles after His resurrection are words of peace: “Peace be to you” (John 20:19).

He invites us to forgive the little offenses that we may suffer. He gets us to prepare well for Confession, where our Heavenly Father awaits to give us an embrace.

He asks us to be merciful today with our neighbor's defects, just as He Himself was, to a supreme degree. He leads us to sanctify our work, doing it perfectly, because it's what He Himself spent so many years doing in Nazareth.

Each day we can get some little idea, some thought, some resolution to remember while we work.

It's a good idea to try and do those few minutes of Gospel reading early in the day, so as to put into practice the little resolutions which can help us so much to improve.

Some people read the Gospel standing up, as a reminder of the early Christian custom which has been preserved at Mass, whereby we stand for the Gospel in an attitude of prayerful vigilance.

It can do us a lot of good to use the Gospel frequently as the source of topics for our prayer. Sometimes we can try to enter the scene as someone joining a little group gathered around Our Lord, or stopping at a doorway to hear His teaching, or standing at the shore of the lake.

Perhaps we manage to hear only a part of the parable or snatches of the conversation, but it's enough for something to start stirring in the depths of our soul.

On other occasions we may find ourselves saying something to Him, just like those others who said or shouted to Him in their great need:

“Lord, that I may see” (Matt. 10:51), give light to my soul, set me on fire.

Or, the words of the publican who didn't consider himself worthy to stand before his God: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13).

Or the words of St. Peter: “Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you” (John 21:17).

All these words or phrases can take on new meaning for us, and we can confide to Our Lord the sentiments of love and purification that fill our heart.

At other times we can contemplate His Holy Humanity, and seeing Him, perfect Man, we can be moved to love Him more, to want to be more faithful to Him.

We can contemplate Him at work in Nazareth, helping St. Joseph, or later on looking after His Mother, or tired out, perhaps, from many hours of preaching or from the strain of a long journey.

Every day, as we read the Gospel, Jesus passes beside us. Let us never fail to see and to hear Him, like those disciples who met Him on the road to Emmaus.

In the Furrow, St. Josemaría says, “‘Stay with us, it is towards evening. …’ The prayer of Cleophas and his companion was effective. —How sad it would be if you and I were not able to ‘detain’ Jesus who is passing by! What a shame not to ask him to stay!” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 671).

In a document of the Second Vatican Council called Dei verbum, it says, “It is common knowledge that among all the Scriptures, even those of the New Testament, the Gospels have a special preeminence, and rightly so, for they are the principal witness for the life and teaching of the incarnate Word, our Savior.”

We find beautiful things there. [St. Augustine] once remarked, “In the pages of Aristotle and Socrates, Plato and Cicero, I have read many wonderful things. But nowhere have I read: ‘Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened.’”

The fact is that Our Lord's words have a height and depth that other words lack, whether they be of philosophers, politicians, or poets.

Our Lord's words are “words of life,” as they are defined in the New Testament (John 6:68). They contain, they express, they communicate eternal life, the fullness of life.

And the Gospel often exerts its fascination even on those who are strangers to the Christian world. I heard of a fellow in Hong Kong who grew up in, I think, a Catholic school. About 5 percent of the population are Catholic. Many people go to Catholic schools. Generally, they are, all over Asia, the best schools and hospitals, the Catholic schools and hospitals.

Many people there don't convert while they're young, but often they convert much later in life. This fellow went to study in Canada and then he decided to read the New Testament, just to get to know something about Christianity, for cultural reasons more than anything else.

But as he read the Gospels, he began to be fascinated by this man, Jesus, and fascinated by the answers of Our Lord to the questions that He was asked. He began to see, ‘Wow, this guy Jesus was very clever! Those are very clever answers!’

As he read through the Gospel, when he saw a question, he would cover the page to see, ‘How would I answer that question?’

Then he would think of an answer, and then he would take away his hand and see the answer of Jesus, and say, ‘Oh, the answer of Jesus is so brilliant!’ He was really attracted by this.

One time he came across the question Our Lord was asked: “To whom should we give tribute? To God or Caesar?” And he covered the page, and he thought long and hard about an answer.

He came up with a big, long answer. But then he took his hand away and he found just sixteen words: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's” (Mark 12:17).

Soon after, he converted to Catholicism and eventually he was ordained a priest. He's now a Chinese priest living in Hong Kong.

The words of Jesus are powerful, and the Gospels are the main witnesses of His life.

[Dei verbum continues], “The Sacred Synod also earnestly and especially urges all the Christian faithful…to learn by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures, the ‘excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ’ (Phil 3:8). St. Jerome says, ‘For ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ’” (St. Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah).

“And let them remember that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that God and man may talk together, as St. Ambrose says, ‘we speak to him when we pray; we hear him when we read the divine sayings’” (St. Ambrose, On the Duties of Ministers, as quoted in Dei verbum, Point 25).

“Without the Scriptures, the events of the mission of Jesus and of his Church in this world would remain incomprehensible. St. Jerome was rightly able to proclaim that ‘ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.’ … The risen Lord opens up for us the treasury of his word and enables us to proclaim the unfathomable riches before the world” (Pope Francis, Apostolic Letter, Aperuit illis, September 30, 2019).

St. Ephraim says, “Who is able to understand, Lord, all the richness of even one of your words? There is more that eludes us than what we can understand. We are like the thirsty drinking from a fountain.

“Your word has as many aspects as the perspectives of those who study it. The Lord has colored his word with diverse beauties, so that those who study it can contemplate what he stirs in them. He has hidden in his word all treasures, so that each of us may find a richness in what he or she contemplates” (St. Ephraim, Commentary on the Diatessaron).

I heard a British Lord at a conference once saying that only Christianity is capable of changing the hearts of men. Governments can't do so. NGOs can't do so. It's the power of Christianity that's written the Gospels to change hearts.

In Our Lady, we have the Virgin of Listening. Mary is an icon of fruitful listening to the Word. She teaches us to welcome it, to care for it, to meditate on it without ceasing.

Mary, for her part, we're told, “treasured all these things, meditating on them in her heart” (cf. Luke 2:19).

St. John Paul says she's the perfect image of the Church (John Paul II, General Audience, September 6, 1995).

Mary allows herself to be formed by the word of God: “Let it be done unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

In listening, she makes a gift of love. The Virgin of the Annunciation goes to Elizabeth to help her in her need. Mary presents herself in the Visitation as the mother of love. “How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Her voice is the bearer of messianic joy: “When the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy.”

Her blessedness is to have heard and believed the word of the Eternal: “Blessed is she who believed that the Lord would fulfill his words to her” (Luke 1:43-45).

St. John Paul says, “I ask Mary, Creature of the Word, who intercedes for us in the glory of God, to help us to live as she did in listening to the Word, to welcome the Word of life and bring him to others, in transparency and the concerns of our everyday life.”

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MVF