Overview:

The Memorial of St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church

A Reflection for the Memorial of St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church

At sunset, all who had people sick with various diseases brought them to him.
He laid his hands on each of them and cured them.
And demons also came out from many, shouting, “You are the Son of God.”
But he rebuked them and did not allow them to speak
because they knew that he was the Christ.

At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted place.
The crowds went looking for him, and when they came to him,
they tried to prevent him from leaving them.
But he said to them, “To the other towns also
I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God,
because for this purpose I have been sent.”
And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea. (Luke 4:38-44)

Find today’s readings here.

Do you ever find yourself wondering about those demons that show up in the Gospels?

Casting out demons is one of the things that Jesus does fairly regularly that I think we tend to move past without really addressing. Every so often, you hear about Jesus doing this and you might think to yourself, “Huh, okay, well I’ve personally never seen a demon in real life but it might just be one of those things that only Jesus could do.” Or maybe you think that the demons are some kind of metaphor for sickness or mental illness or a disability of some sort that Jesus cures. It is easy to be dismissive of demons.

Of course, as Catholics, we believe that demons and evil spirits are very real. Satan himself famously appears to tempt Jesus when he is in the desert and Jesus rebukes him, saying, “Get behind me, Satan.” These sorts of evil entities pop up all the time in the Gospels, usually possessing some poor soul, and Jesus regularly performs exorcisms to lift their afflictions. For over a millennium, the Catholic Church has trained priests in the art of exorcism. This might seem like an archaic practice from a time of greater superstition, but it is a practice that is continued to this day because demons are not mere allegories, they are considered quite real.

It is very easy, I think, to be tricked into believing otherwise. After all, the devil and evil spirits are very much present in popular culture. Come Halloween every year, there is yet another bevy of movies, courtesy of Hollywood, where protagonists are trapped in some evil house haunted by demons or some such plot. Most famously, of course, there was “The Exorcist,” where two priests—one of whom is a Jesuit—attempt to exorcise a demon from a young girl. Admittedly, the subject matter can make for great films! But their original narrative usage goes all the way back to Jesus’ ministry.

In this Gospel reading, we see that demonic possession has afflicted a number of residents of a village in Judea. As they are brought to Jesus, he exorcises them and they are terrified of him, recognizing him as the Son of God. He casts them out, rebuking them and “silencing” them, no longer allowing them to haunt these people. While we could see this as a metaphor for Jesus curing them of their sicknesses (and that may well be an aftereffect), the demons are presented as very real—and we still consider them to be so.

Of course, while we should be wary of evil spirits, their influence usually comes in the mundane: sickness, yes, but also general evil. Evil in most of its forms can be fought through the ways in which our faith most regularly manifests itself: virtue, kindness, compassion. You probably won’t be needing to enlist the help of an exorcist any time soon (one would hope), but you can always strive to be a good person and come to the aid of those who are sick and ailing, as Jesus did.

Kevin Christopher Robles is the studio production associate at America. He was previously an O'Hare Fellow and intern.