In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Saturday 2 February 2019

Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Word for today
The Gospel of Mark 5:1-20

To Possess

Satan has only one goal: to possess.
In order to possess a reality that reality needs to be separated from its own source or to find a way for it to disconnect itself from its original source, which is, for everyone and everything, the love of God.
To separate a reality from its source, it is necessary to work contemporaneously on two fronts. First of all Satan has to diguise himself; he has to make people believe that he does not exist. Second of all he has to do all that he can to make sure that God is not recognized or acknowledged; he has to make people believe that God does not exist. Disguising himself and making everyone believe that he does not exist lets Satan work freely and comfortably at separating men from themselves, from their brothers, and from all of creation. Causing people to believe that God does not exist, on the other hand, permits him to distance people from their source, creating in that way the condition for separating them from themselves and their divine source. In order to reach his goal Satan has to absolutely and always engage his energies on these two fronts simultaneously. Once that he has managed to separate men and women from themselves, from others, and from God they are ready to be possessed, caught, completely possessed.
Jesus arrives in a town and immediatly sets men free from Satan's possession, from this perverted process of devastation. Jesus would like to set the entire community free from the Evil one, but he can not, simply because the town does not want to be freed, it is afraid.
People are not afraid of Jesus per se, rather they are afraid of the fact that by welcoming Jesus they will be forced to  acknowledge that God exists and that Satan exists. They are afraid that this awareness will lead to an unprecedented interior change, they are afraid that they will forced to make choices, that they will be forced to snap out of their lethargy and to consider new perspectives for intelligence and life.