WHEN THEY LEFT THE HOUSE that evening, crowds again began gathering around Jesus. To escape them, He got into a boat on the shore and said to His disciples:
“Let us cross over to the other side of the lake.”
During the crossing a storm arose and great waves began breaking over the boat, so that it started to ship water. Alarmed, the disciples woke Jesus, who had fallen asleep on a cushion in the stern. “Lord, save us!” they cried, “We are perishing!”
Then He rose, commanded the wind, and said to the sea:
“Peace, be still!”
The wind fell and a calm ensued. And He said:
“Why are you fearful? Are you still without faith?”
But the disciples marveled, saying, “What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” Landing on the eastern shore, in the country of the Gerasenes, they encountered a possessed man who lived in the tombs on the hillside. Jesus commanded the demon to abandon the man:
“Go out of the man, thou unclean spirit.”
Then the spirit cried out in anguish, “What have I to do with thee, Jesus, Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, do not torment me.”
Jesus asked:
“What is thy name?”
“My name is Legion,” said the spirit, “for we are many.”
And the host of demons within the man began entreating Jesus to permit them to enter a herd of swine feeding on the hillside. He gave them leave, saying: “Go.”
And at once the demons entered into the swine, which rushed headlong down the cliff into the sea and were drowned. The people of the district were alarmed when the swineherds told them what had happened, and they begged Jesus to depart. When He was leaving, the former demoniac asked to accompany Him, but Jesus said:
“Go home to thy relatives, and tell them all that the Lord has done for thee, and how He had mercy on thee.”
Matthew 8:18; Matthew 8:23-34; Mark 4:35-5:20; Luke 8:22-39
Meditation: One of the demoniacs liberated by Christ from the control of the devil wanted immediately to go off and to follow Christ. But Our Lord told him rather to return to his relatives and to announce to them the miracle that had been worked. The cured man would have preferred to work elsewhere for Our Lord, but Christ sent him back home. We too can work for Christ, can be witnesses for Him, without leaving our present surroundings.
Information from The Life of Christ “Our Lord’s Life with Lesson in His Own Words for Our Life Today” The Catholic Press, Inc. 1959. 79-80. © 1954 edited by Reverend John P. O’Connell, MASTD and Jex Martin, following mainly A Chronological Harmony of the Gospels by Stephen J Hartdegen OFM NIHIL OBSTAT John A McMahon; IMPRIMATUR Samuel Cardinal Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago August 1, 1953. Print. Drawing by Albert H Winkler.
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