Monday in the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time, February 20, 2023

Mark 9:14-29

As Jesus came down from the mountain with Peter, James, John and approached the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and scribes arguing with them. Immediately on seeing him, the whole crowd was utterly amazed. They ran up to him and greeted him. He asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” Someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I have brought to you my son possessed by a mute spirit. Wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they were unable to do so.” He said to them in reply, “O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring him to me.” They brought the boy to him. And when he saw him, the spirit immediately threw the boy into convulsions. As he fell to the ground, he began to roll around and foam at the mouth. Then he questioned his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” He replied, “Since childhood. It has often thrown him into fire and into water to kill him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Jesus said to him, “‘If you can!’ Everything is possible to one who has faith.” Then the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe, help my unbelief!” Jesus, on seeing a crowd rapidly gathering, rebuked the unclean spirit and said to it, “Mute and deaf spirit, I command you: come out of him and never enter him again!” Shouting and throwing the boy into convulsions, it came out. He became like a corpse, which caused many to say, “He is dead!” But Jesus took him by the hand, raised him, and he stood up. When he entered the house, his disciples asked him in private, “Why could we not drive the spirit out?” He said to them, “This kind can only come out through prayer.”

This exorcism story contains elements we do not find in the others in the Gospels, and it affords us a glimpse into the war between heaven and hell, a war which we see in the open only rarely though it is always raging.

First, St. Mark makes a curious remark: “Immediately on seeing him, the whole crowd was utterly amazed.”  Now, the Lord had just descended from the mountain with Peter, James, and John.  This was Mount Tabor in the southern part of Galilee, about ten miles from the Sea of Galilee, fifteen miles southwest of Capernaum, and a few miles southeast of Nazareth.  This may be as close to Nazareth as Jesus came after his former neighbors had tried to kill him.  The crowd gathered at the foot of the mountain would have consisted mostly of Galileans, people who had seen him before.  This fact perhaps explains the note that when they saw the Lord, they were “utterly amazed”.  He was somehow changed in appearance, perhaps his face shone as had that of Moses at the time he returned from Mount Sinai with the commandments of God.

“O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you?”  This cry of the Lord might be explained through the Apostles attempting to cast out the evil spirit though they had not yet been appointed with the power and authority to do so, and also through the arguing of the scribes, who may have been criticizing the Apostles for their ignorance of traditional Jewish exorcism rituals.  

“I do believe, help my unbelief!”  The pitiful, heartfelt cry of the father shows the requirement the Lord expects for faith on the part of the those who ask for a miracle and also the situation of so many people then and now: there is faith, or the beginnings of it, but not enough.  Yet the father does not make only an admission but a prayer, and of such a kind as is hard to find the like in the Gospels.  The Lord often counsels the Apostles to pray for faith, to increase their faith, but here we see someone, not an Apostle, doing just this.

“Mute and deaf spirit, I command you: come out of him and never enter him again!”  This is one of those elements which we do not see in other accounts of the Lord’s exorcisms: “never enter him again”.  This is a significant part of the exorcism because after the exorcism, the survivor is vulnerable.  Exorcism is not a Sacrament and does not confer grace.  In order to avoid the terrible fate of the re-possessed, the person must embrace a truly devout life, a very different life from that prior to the exorcism.  “This kind can only come out through prayer.”  Another unusual element to this story is the discussion about the exorcism between Jesus and the Apostles.  Many important Greek manuscripts have “prayer and fasting”, but the scholars who edited the critical edition of this Gospel decided to go with those that did not have these words.  Jerome retained them for the Latin Vulgate.  Now, the ”prayer” of which Jesus speaks is a period of spiritual preparation which a human exorcist must undertake in order to successfully cast out the demon(s) in a particular case.  The preparation is quite rigorous, for though the power used is that of Almighty God, the instrument which wields it must be strong.  Fasting and prayer accomplish this.  Jesus specifies “this kind” requires such preparation, that is, even more especial preparation than for other cases because the demon has got such a great hold on the child.

Thousands of exorcisms are commissioned by bishops and carried out by the appointed priests every year.  Some cases go on for months.  We should pray for the priests involved and for those possessed to be freed and never be possessed again.