St. Junipero Serra, priest 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊

Amos 5:14-15, 21-24

Seek good and shun evil,

that you may live. Then Yahweh, the God of hosts, as you have claimed, will be with you. Hate wickedness and love virtue, and let justice prevail in the courts; perhaps Yahweh, the God of hosts, will take pity on the remnant of Joseph.

“I ,hate, I reject your feasts, I take no pleasure when you assemble to offer me your burnt offerings. Your cereal offerings, I will not accept! Your offerings of fattened beasts, I will not look upon!

Away with the noise of your chanting, away with your strumming on harps. But let justice run its course like water, and righteousness be like an ever-flowing river.

 

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 demoniacs who came out from the tombs. They were so fierce that no one dared to pass that way. Suddenly they shouted, “What do you want with us, you, Son of God? Have you come to torture us before the time?”

At 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 they left and went into the pigs.

The whole herd rushed down the cliff into the lake and 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.

 

Gospel 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 neighbor’s 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.