Wednesday in the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 30, 2021

Matthew 8:28-34

When Jesus came to the territory of the Gadarenes, two demoniacs who were coming from the tombs met him. They were so savage that no one could travel by that road. They cried out, “What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time?” Some distance away a herd of many swine was feeding. The demons pleaded with him, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of swine.” And he said to them, “Go then!” They came out and entered the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea where they drowned. The swineherds ran away, and when they came to the town they reported everything, including what had happened to the demoniacs. Thereupon the whole town came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him they begged him to leave their district.

As St. Mark tells the story in his Gospel, it is one demoniac, and when the Lord Jesus demands the name of the chief demon possessing the man, he declares, “Legion, for there are many of us.”  Matthew’s recalling two possessed men speaks to the ferocity and confusion of this incident, with the possessed man tearing about so chaotically that a witness might easily think more than one man was causing the fury.

Reflecting on this account helps us to learn about the nature of evil.  First, “Two demoniacs who were coming from the tombs met him.”  Evil causes death — the death of both body and soul.  Once it sets into a person, or, rather, once a person has set upon an evil life, a terrible corruption begins, a necrosis of the soul.  “They were so savage that no one could travel by that road.”. Evil isolates the one who commits it and seeks to isolate the one harmed by it.  The person harmed by it may feel tainted and unworthy of society, and as though he himself had sinned.  “What have you to do with us, Son of God?”  Evil acts as though God does not exist: “They say, ‘The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive.’ ” (Psalm 94, 7).  And yet, deep in the heart of the wicked dwells a terrible fear that justice will come: “Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time?”  The demons already suffer fiercely, but their wickedness will be punished even more severely after the Judgment at the end of the world.  

“Some distance away a herd of many swine was feeding.”  It is no coincidence that the demons are in the same region as swine, which are very dangerous when aroused and they make an absolutely hellish sound when many of them are aroused together.  For the Jews, too, pigs were considered unclean.  “The demons pleaded with him.”  While engaged in doing evil, the wicked are confident and arrogant, but once caught, they plead and whimper childishly in order to gain sympathy and escape.  “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of swine.”  It may be that the demons think they can enlist the Lord’s compassion, and that, moved with pity, he would allow them to continue.  The wicked continually misinterpret the good as being weak.  “They came out and entered the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea where they drowned.”  Their scheme backfires.  They enter the swine, but the swine prefer death to possession and drown themselves so that the demons comprising Legion must descend into the ear pit again, to the mockery, sneers, and derision of their fellows.  

The fact that even the swine detested the demons and their evil should not be lost on us, and we ought to wonder why a human would live wickedly when a pig would not.