By Orlando Hernández

The Gospel for Monday of the fourth week in Ordinary Time (Mk 5: 1-20) follows the story from the end of Chapter 4. The disciples, after the terrifying experience of the storm in the Sea of Galilee, “came to the other side of the sea to the territory of the Gerasenes”. They were about to undergo another scary experience. From the caves in the mountainside, a naked, wild-eyed, scarred, bleeding man, strong enough to break chains, crying out in a terrifying voice, runs right up to them! (I have often wondered if any of the disciples stepped up in front of Jesus to defend Him, or if they stayed behind Him!) To what must have been everyone’s relief, the man prostrates himself before Jesus. It turns out, a host of demons have possessed this man, and Jesus drives them out of him. At the end, the man is “sitting there, clothed and in his right mind.”

     This story has always had a special, if disturbing, meaning to me. I don’t think I have ever been possessed by demons, but I must confess that, even after all these years with Jesus, I still have all these fears, prejudices, resentments, and hatreds (of myself and others) in my mind and soul, which come out of nowhere and torture me in a way that makes me think of the Gerasene demoniac.

     On the Pilgrimage to Israel this was one of the places that I most wished to visit. There, I wanted to kneel by those cave-tombs on the mountainside and beg Jesus to finally rid me of these personal flaws. The site is neatly kept by the Israeli government as a national park, next to the highway that goes around the Lake. One can visit the ruins of an ancient Orthodox Church and Monastery that commemorates the miracle by Jesus. I was not interested in seeing this place, so I detached myself from the group and climbed up the trail to the steep hills that were dotted with caves. A winding steel staircase led up to the caves but I knew that I did not have enough time, so I stood there at the bottom. I was all alone, surrounded by this arid, lonely landscape. I could imagine the screams of the possessed man echoing all around, and within me. I felt the urgency. If not here and now, when? I threw myself upon the ground and started to beg Jesus, whose presence I felt so strongly, to deliver me from all these things that torment my soul. I moaned. I cried. I yelled. Then, a quiet attitude came within me, not peace, but acceptance. Somehow I felt that the calm, quiet message that my Lord was giving me was this:

     “I will not release you of these ‘demons’. They will be with you until the day you die. They are part of your cross. What I will do is be with you always, and help you to control them. I will never stop teaching you to love yourself and others. You can count on me.” I felt with certainty that this was Jesus’ message. 

     I stayed there for a while, until my wife came to tell me that the group was leaving. I did not say a word during the bus ride back to the hotel in Tiberias. That night I dined and laughed with my fellow Pilgrims. But that moment at the hillside was always in the back of my mind. That night my sleep was troubled, and I kept on dreaming that I was going in and out of those dark caves. To this day this memory haunts me.

     To this day I fight with these elements of negativity within me. Of course, I am not alone. Wonderful people of God surround me, helping me to be a better person. Occasionally , I meditate and pray in Ignatian fashion and visit those caves with my Lord at my side. The Holy Spirit of God fortifies me with the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The Eucharistic Christ comes within this old, crumbling temple of my soul, and boy, does He clean up! I realize that there is nothing I can do without Him. Without Him there is no meaning in life. 

     The healed Gerasene man wanted to stay with Jesus, but the Lord gave him the mission to stay and give His message to his people. The message, after all, is Love. Lord, You hold me up me with such an awesome Love! Thank You. Let me be an instrument of that Love.

Crucifix: St. Michael’s Monastery, Union City, New Jersey

St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

St. Paul of the Cross

St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother

Artist: Mother Mary of the Compassion, Dominican Chapel, Union City, NJ

Four saints face the great crucifix that was once above the altar in the monastery chapel of St. Michael’s Passionist Monastery, Union City, New Jersey. St. Paul of the Cross, St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bernard of Clairvaux.  Mother Mary of the Compassion, a renowned artist from the Dominican Convent in Union City, painted the saints. 

Thomas and Bernard represent the guides the Passionists follow in their search into the mystery of Christ. Bernard represents their search through devotional prayer and preaching. Aquinas represents those who guide them into the mystery of the Cross through theological study and the search for truth.

St. Michael’s Monastery in Union City was formerly the headquarters of the Passionists in the United States and a place for formation of their young religious.  The Passionists left Union City on June 1, 2012.

For more on St. Michael’s, Union City: https://vhoagland.com/2012/05/18/st-michaels-union-city/  

Earlier in the day, Jesus taught the crowds and his disciples gathered at the lakeshore, Mark’s Gospel says. His words were wise and reassuring, words to set the course of your life on. Then, as evening drew on, he said to them ‘Let us cross to the other side.’”  (Mark 4:35-41) He and his disciples sail onto the Sea of Galilee and “ a violent squall came up, waves breaking over the boat so that it was already filling up. “Jesus was in the stern asleep on a cushion.” They were afraid they were going to drown, and Jesus in the stern of the boat seemed asleep, unaware of their fears. It’s hard to make him out in Rembrandt’s dramatic picture of the storm.

A good image of how life can turn out, isn’t it? Words of faith bring such strength and assurance. “Peace be with you.” “I am the vine, you are the branches.” “I’m with you all days.” “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

Then, the storms come; unexpectedly, powerfully, with frightening suddenness sometimes, turning our lives upside down. Overwhelmed by life’s quick tragedies and doubts, we forget God’s assurances. Like Jesus in the boat, God seems asleep, unaware of our experience.

Mark’s gospel is good to reflect on today, isn’t it? Wars, political and economic storms, the planet endangered by wild seas and changing weather. “The winds and the sea obey him,” our gospel today reminds us. God is for stormy times as well as fair. He doesn’t want us to perish. “Have faith,” he says, “I’m with you.” God’s with us in storms. 

Still, like the disciples we say “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” ( Mark 4:37)

Today’s reading from the Letter to the Hebrews offers another dimension to our story. Abraham and his wife Sarah are past child-bearing age. Where are the promises of God, they wonder? Like so many older people they can’t see a promise in the future. Their dreams of children or what they have given their life to, unfulfilled.

“Have faith, I am with you,” God says. God fulfills his promises.

Jesus said to the crowds:
“This is how it is with the Kingdom of God;
it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land
and would sleep and rise night and day
and the seed would sprout and grow,
he knows not how.
Of its own accord the land yields fruit,
first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once,
for the harvest has come.”

He said,
“To what shall we compare the Kingdom of God,
or what parable can we use for it?
It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground,
is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth.
But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants
and puts forth large branches,
so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.”
With many such parables
he spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it.
Without parables he did not speak to them,
but to his own disciples he explained everything in private. (Mark 4: 26-34)

“Without parables, he did not speak to them.” The parables Jesus spoke were mostly from the natural world, if we read Mark right. Is that how we should speak to the crowds today, from the world of nature?

In its first chapters Mark’s gospel highlights the remarkable actions of Jesus in the towns near the Sea of Galilee as he confronts demons and heals many. Only in chapter 4 does Mark give examples of his teaching.

For Mark, what Jesus did was more important than what he said. When he taught, he taught in parables– “without parables he did not speak to them.”  

“A parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” (C.H. Dodd)

Jesus drew his parables from the natural, religious and political worlds around him. Galilee was a land of farms and vineyards, farmers and fishermen, so when Jesus spoke of the ways of seed and soil, of nets cast into the sea, he spoke of a world his hearers knew well. When he spoke of David feeding his followers on the Sabbath or Elijah the prophet, or scribes and Pharisees, his hearers knew those figures as well.

What about his political world? Galilee then was ruled by Herod Antipas, an ambitious descendant of Herod the Great and a member of a family fighting fiercely for positions of power under Rome’s thumb. He ambitiously expanded Galilee’s economy. Large cities like Tiberias, Sephorris, Caesarea Philippi, Caesarea Maritima were being built, roads to ship Galilee’s produce were laid out. Funding for its development came from the collection of taxes. Some grew rich; many did not. The burden fell on the poor.

The scribes and pharisees were not the only ones who saw themselves targets of the parables Jesus spoke. The “Herodians”, followers of Herod Antipas, also saw the political world they represented attacked. (Mark 3: 6)

The parables of Jesus, in C. H. Dodd’s words, are meant  “to tease the mind into active thought.” They call us to think and question, to wonder and then act. In his parables Jesus asks “What do you think and what will you do about it ?”

We don’t live in the time of Jesus, but his parables still call us. His parables drawn from nature may be especially important today as our world faces climate change. We need to re-engage more deeply with nature and it seasons and its care

But we also need to engage in our religious and political worlds as he did. We’re not spectators looking on, accepting what we see on a screen. HIs parables are meant to tease our minds into active thought. What do you think and what will you do about it ?”

“What do you think of your church and what will you do about it?”

“What do you think of your country and what will you do about it?”

“What do you think of your world and what will you do about it?”