One word buried deep within today’s Gospel really struck me this morning.
Us.
An unclean devil trembles in the presence of Christ and screams, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”
How telling is it that this diabolical force speaks not in the singular but in the plural? That its identity is based not on unity but on dissonance?
In another episode, when Jesus heals the Gerasene demoniac, he asks the evil spirit, “What is your name?”
“My name is Legion,” the devil explains, “for we are many.”
Division is inherent to all evil. According to Archbishop Fulton Sheen, our word “diabolical” comes from two Greek words–“dia” and “ballein”. Together they can mean “to tear apart” or “to scatter”.
The man in today’s Gospel was clearly torn between a normal life of goodness and another of evil. And aren’t we all? Our passions tug and pull and lead us in many competing directions. I want to be temperate, but my appetite screams for food. I want to be chaste, but my eyes seem programmed to lust. I want to pray deeply, but my scattered mind fights against it.
This vicious, plural evil set against us—this Diablo—wants nothing more than chaos and division. But God wants the opposite. He want us to be saints. And a saint is nothing more than a person focused completely on the one thing necessary.
Which is a huge reason why I engage in apologetics. The Christian community is deeply divided, especially among Catholics and Protestants. And this divide undoubtedly pleases the Evil One. But Jesus, in his last prayer before death, pleaded God for unity. He doesn’t accept division as a natural, unavoidable reality, especially when it comes to his Church.
In today’s story, Jesus doesn’t accept the devil’s reality; he doesn’t speak to the devil as a group. He strips its disunity, transforming it into an individual. He “rebuked it, saying, ‘Be quiet! Come out of him!’”
And it did.
Jesus, the Great Unifier, casts out all that divides. He fights congruity and does battle with all that scatters.
As the Gatherer of the nations, the Shepherd of one flock, and the Head of one body, Jesus binds our disordered passions and heals our religious division.
Be free, he says, of all that separates. Then you will be whole, then you will be a saint.
(Fr. Barron has more on this in his Untold Blessings retreat, and Monsignor Charles Pope has a *great* article here.)
31 He went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath.
32 And his teaching made a deep impression on them because his word carried authority.
33 In the synagogue there was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean devil, and he shouted at the top of his voice,
34 ‘Ha! 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.’
35 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.
36 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.’
37 And the news of him travelled all through the surrounding countryside.