“Why have You come before Your time…Send us into the herd of swine” (Matthew 8:29,31)
The episode of the Garasene demoniacs occurs twice in the Sunday gospel readings. In one version two demon-possessed men appear, in the other, only one. Orthodox preachers protest that there is only so much one can explain about an incident in the ministry of Christ so remote from our times and understanding of mental disturbance. It’s not just the pigs, but the demons that challenge modern people. Some would even say that Jesus didn’t really believe in demons, but He had to utilize the mindset of the society of the time.
Satan achieved an enormous victory during the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. He and his minions had been portrayed as perverted spiritual creatures with narrow, grotesque faces, pointed beards and noses, horns and tails—like the standard devil costumes kids wear at Halloween. Nobody fears them anymore than they do the Trick or Treat children knocking at doors that eve. So they disappeared from the category of things that frighten or possess our souls.
We may not fear demonic possession; however, we cannot escape the awareness of obsessions that cause so much anguish in our society. What shall we call that invisible power capable of taking over our mental processes? What is it that invades our reasoning and dominates the whole person?
Think about sexual obsessions, erotic passions whether “normal” heterosexual relations or all the perversions that our civilization has to deal with. Add to that rage, anger, craving for power, depression leading to suicide or the compulsion to become a human bomb, killing as many others as possible.
On the other hand, there are positive obsessions: Those who take seriously the encouragement offered to serious Christians to know, to love and to serve the Holy Trinity. Most of us and all male and female monastics do so by definition. They offer their whole persons, body, mind and soul, to achieving that task to their utmost ability. To serve one’s country in military or civil service is another honorable commitment.
The downside is when a person turns an obsession into a possession. It happens each time there is a loss of freedom—one’s own or another’s. When the devotion to a cause loses the element of commitment as being a conscious gift offering to a cause greater than the individual and there is no longer an inner satisfaction accompanying the sacrifice; in other words, when one loses perspective, reason and judgment, one may be involved in a cult. No longer is it a matter of faith in a divine being, but in the supposedly unique agent of the divine, the believer is enslaved to an idol.
In reading the gospels, notice the way our Lord Jesus Christ constantly asks the disciples if they are still with Him. He could have enchanted them by His gifts of persuasion and evidence of divine powers proven by the miracles, yet He never violated the dignity of their person freedom. “Who do you say that I am?” He asked them (Matthew 16:13). He calls on us to follow Him, not to surrender our human attributes of freedom and identity, but so that we will discover ever greater spiritual gifts dormant in our souls on the way.