Mtr Mary Trainor

“Silence, frenzied, unclean spirit!”
cried God’s healing Holy One  …*

Dear friend,

Demons. Are they real? Are they little organisms that can be extracted from us? Are they more amorphous, like fears and woes that burden our days, even years?

The Gospels contain numerous references to Jesus freeing people of demons, which often seem to have a physical form. Such is the case with the Gospel for today, the Seventh Saturday of Easter.

“Cease your ranting! Flesh can’t bear it.
||Flee as night before the sun.”

I’m not sure what you think or believe about demons. I’m not even too sure what I think or believe about them, especially when they are portrayed as little physical beings.

But I do believe that a dark force exists, by whatever name you may choose. I believe there are spiritual and physical stumbling blocks we encounter, and need some special help to navigate around, lest we go off the rails.

I believe anger, ego, pride, arrogance, ambition, self-interest—even woundedness—can set us on a troubled course where we react poorly, quickly, out of scale to what has happened—and we hurt ourselves or someone else in the process. I believe this is what it may be like to be under the spell of a demon.

At Christ’s words the demon trembled,
from its victim madly rushed,

My mother had a sense of humor, even in times of peril or danger or frustration. One day she had harrumphed around most of the morning, clearly in a foul mood.  Everything wrong was someone else’s fault. Nothing was right. We all tried to stay out of her way. By late afternoon, she found us together and confessed: “I am so toxic, I think if I bit myself I’d die.” We all laughed, but I believe that in her confronting what was going on with her, another demon died, exposed for the troublesome being he was.

... while the crowd that was assembled
stood in wonder, stunned and hushed.

Mtr Mary

Silence! Frenzied, Unclean Spirit, Thomas H. Troeger. Worship 4th Edition.