Daily Gospel Reflection
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February 20, 2023
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.”
As a parent, I can sympathize with Jesus’ experience of returning from some peaceful time only to walk right into an argument well underway. Everything’s going fine when I head out, but when I get back home, the teenagers are in the kitchen bickering about who should be the one that has to warm up the car in the morning for the drive to school.
I feel the exasperation in his words viscerally. “What are you arguing about with them? How long will I endure you? Bring him to me.” After all our family conversations about working through hard problems with empathy, cooperation, and kindness, this? If everyone had stopped pointing fingers, they’d have worked everything out long before I had to intercede.
When Jesus casts out the mute spirit, it feels efficient, like a talented doctor whisking in and out of an examination room to briskly complete a complicated procedure, routine to him, that baffled the less experienced resident. He inquires about symptoms, rebukes the spirit, and raises up the boy, waiting until they’re all in private to debrief about the disciples’ failure.
His explanation, “this kind can only come out through prayer,” rings of Dr. King’s admonition, “Hate can not drive out hate; only love can do that.” It reads to me like a gentle rebuke—“how did you expect to heal that boy while you were all arguing?”
As we approach the Lenten season, this reading weighs on me. I consider the “unclean spirits” I’d like cast out of myself and wonder, will my pride lead me to fruitlessly attempt to bargain, bicker, and boss them out? Or will I have the humility to plead for Jesus to help my unbelief and trust in the quieter power of prayer?
Prayer
Lord of life, through sin and lack of faith we become cold and lifeless. Help our faith to grow ever stronger, believing that Jesus, who is the resurrection, will raise us up from the death of sin to new and vibrant life.
Saint of the Day
Francisco and Jacinta Marto were siblings who lived near Fatima, Portugal, and received the famous visions of Our Lady there.
On May 13, 1917, they were tending sheep with their cousin, Lucia Santos, when they received the first of six visions of Mary. Francisco was 9 years old, and Jacinta was 7, at the time of the apparition.
Mary gave the children three secrets, studied and approved by the Church, in which she spoke of the coming world war and of the conversion of Russia. Reports of the apparition drew controversy and attention world-wide, and Fatima became a shrine and pilgrimage site.
The children were instructed to pray for the conversion of sinners, and after the visions they all took on mortifications such as fasting and wearing tight cords around their waists.
Francisco was thoughtful and quiet and preferred to pray alone. Jacinta was affectionate and had a sweet singing voice. In 1918, the two were struck with the Spanish Flu epidemic that soon took their lives. During their months of illness, they insisted on walking to church for Mass and Eucharistic devotions. They would also kneel and pray for hours with their heads on the ground, according to instructions they received in their vision.
Francisco declined hospital treatment and died on April 4, 1919, at the age of 10. Jacinta was taken several places for treatment, including a surgery without anesthesia.
Jacinta devoted the pain of her illness to the conversion of sinners, and she finally died on this date in 1920.
They are both buried at the Our Lady of Fatima Basilica in Portugal and were canonized in 2017. (When they were beatified in 2000, Jacinta was the youngest child to be beatified who was not martyred.)
Statues of Francisco and Jacinta kneeling before Our Lady of Fatima stand in front of what used to be the Fatima Retreat House across the lake from campus. The retreat house is now a residence for Holy Cross religious.
To learn even more about Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto, watch this video lecture from the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.
Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto, you saw Mary at Fatima and prayed for our conversion—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of Sts. Francisco and Jacinta Marto is in the public domain. Last accessed December 6, 2024 on Wikimedia Commons.
