And they begged him that He would not command them to go out into the abyss.
This is a subject that is proclaimed as madness and since psychology dismissed the prime factor of the human person being spirit, who would disagree! Then there is the entertaining drama which Hollywood produces upon such. Lastly, the subject at hand is toned down and not spoken of much due to miss-representation, and fear to deal with such a reality that is alive, active and very much part of the reason why the INCARNATION took place!
When we read from the account of such an ocurence happening in the eighth chapter of the Gospel written by the Apostle Luke (Lk 8: 26-39) we have evil personified submerging itself in the very element that itself creates - fear! Fear and trembling as soon as the Lord comes near and rattifying that eternal absolute in why God needed to immerse himself fully into our existence in order to dissolve the power of evil which had us in its clutches.
Thus, the reality is that evil has now personified itself through wars, terrorism, violence, murder, rape, suicide, and of course most often passes undetected through illness and disease. The only one who can truly terminate this vicious cancer on the human family is the one who promised to come in his glory and end all pain! In the meantime, we struggle, but the greatest achievement we can have over personified evil is what Christ commanded us to do from the beginning: LOVE AS I LOVE! BE GENEROUS AS I AM! FORGIVE AS I DO! REACH OUT AS I CONSTANTLY DO!
Although we have the scenario of the swine which are infested by evil and are hurled into the sea, we can draw from this and reflect that humanity at times can be just as ignorant, careless and self obsessed as the swine; not caring for others around them and have little regard for that which is precious. "cast not pearls to swine!" (Mt 7:6)
Therefore, the Apostle Paul exhorts the Church of Ephesus (Ep 2: 4-10) in his second chapter that: "You have been saved through faith for this gift is the grace of God who has freely given to you!" Not every part of humanity has faith, believes, or even at times has lost whatever faith it had due to many factors especially of tragedy, loss and scandal! The greatest scandal and work of evil is when it vests itself in that which is holy and corrupts it in using such for the most unholy practices and foreign to that which the Lord firmly exhorts! This is the cause of many leaving their faith because they have sadly been effected and no longer know how to distinguish what is of God and what is not even if it appears in the gaze of deluded holiness!
The greatest offence to God is the scam of so called Holy War! The Christians were guilty of it in the middle-ages with the various crusades, and now the Islamic extremists are doing the same thing! God does not need the aid of weapons and armies to reprimand us when we stuff up, but he comes of himself in his own way and power to administer accordingly as he has always done! Unfortunately, this is even a greater excuse for personified evil to cheer when people say: "RELIGION IS EVIL! GOD IS THE CAUSE OF ALL THIS! WE WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH GOD! Therefore, we willfully walk away from God and open ourselves to evil which awaits again and again to carry out its objective: TO DESTROY AS MUCH OF GOD'S CREATION AS POSSIBLE!
Brothers and sisters, I strongly invite you to open your eyes, ears and hearts! First and foremost, we are NOT TO BE AFRAID! Why? St Seraphim of Sarov, a Russian Monk who lived in the forests and received many for spiritual direction and healing greeted each one in this way: "My child, my joy; CHRIST IS RISEN!" Thus, the Incarnate one suffered all bitter pain and agony on the wood of the cross and TRAMPLED DOWN DEATH BY HIS OWN DEATH! Thus, we rejoice in him who is the Lord of life and we seek shelter in his Church which is the Ark of Salvation from the floods of deception, torments, and woe!
And Jesus said to the man who he delivered from the unclean: "Return to your own house, and tell what great things God has done for you!"
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