4TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

In the gospel today we meet a man described as having an unclean spirit. He makes an outburst at the synagogue in Capernaum, just as Jesus has concluded preaching.
We seldom encounter situations like this in our modern world, but if we did, we might decide that the person was suffering from schizophrenia. The man in the Gospel appears to be deluded, thinking that Jesus has come to destroy him. Just as Jesus cured the physical conditions of cripples, lepers, and blind men, he cures themental illness of this man in today’s Gospel. Jesus orders the evil spirit to come out of him. But the man is not delusional when he declares that Jesus is the Holy One of God, he is prophetic. He sees that Jesus came to destroy the evil in us so that we can be reborn as children of love.
Deacon Dick Folger