Mark 5:1-20 = Jesus doesn't like pork.

Sometime last week the Gospel was the story of Jesus's encounter with the man possessed by Legion. Here's a link if you want a quick refresher: http://old.usccb.org/nab/bible/mark/mark5.htm. Now I don't know about you but this one has always confused the heck out of me. I mean whats with the whole dialog with the demons and then granting their request to go into the swine? The homily was not helpful at all in understanding the meaning on the verses so I asked my spiritual director the next night when I met with him and he was stumped too, which was a little intimidating as he's an 80 year old Hungarian Cistercian who's been studying theology his whole life. My last resort was to bring out the big guns and ask Abbot Denis after class last Saturday. As my spiritual director predicted, he had an answer and a good one too.

Abbot said that in the dialog with the demons we were witnessing a contest of strength between the demons and Christ. Most ancient cultures believed that names held great power and so after the demons interrupt Jesus as he is telling them to come out of the man he asks their name which would symbolize his authority over them. These demons are sneaky demons though and they answer that their name is Legion, which is not really a name at all, but rather a collective identity. However, as the story shows, Jesus makes the Father's glory known because he doesn't need their real names to send them out of the possessed man.

Now for the really weird part, what's up with sending the 2,000 pigs into the sea? Again Abbot to the rescue. If you assumed (like me) that since they were herding swine that Gerasenes was pagan territory, you'd be wrong. Gerasenes was a Jewish region but it had paganized and no longer faithfully followed the law as was evidenced by their eating pork. Thus Jesus allows the demons to enter the swine to symbolizes the spiritual destruction that will come upon the people if they continue to worship other gods. If this Gospel confused you on a yearly basis like it did me, I hope this offers some illumination and can provide some fruitful reflection. Until next time, see you in the Eucharist!