29 January 2024 Mark 5:1-20
A Devout Meditation in Reverent Memory of St. Legion, the First Apostle to the Gentiles.
No one knows the name of this Apostle, but if Paul is a Saint, so is he. The only name we are told is “Legion,” so he is St. Legion. He wanted to stay with Jesus after his demons were cast out, but Jesus sent him back to his home, back to the gentile Decapolis, east of the Jordan River, to tell the people there everything Jesus had done for him. He was successful there – when Jesus returned to the Decapolis it wasn’t evil spirits who awaited Him, but people who knew He was a healer, and they brought the sick to Him. The people were “astounded beyond measure” at Jesus because they had been prepared by St. Legion (Mark 7:31-37).
You don’t need a theology degree to be a successful witness. You only need to be able to speak with conviction about what Jesus has done for you, about the mercy He has shown you, as St. Legion did.
When he was possessed by demons, Legion had enormous strength: “He had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him” (4:4).
St. Legion reminds us that we have enemies. They are serious, powerful, they are coming for us, and they have most people scared to death. But as soon as Legion saw Jesus he fell down in front of Him and called Him “Son of the Most High God” (4:7). Pope Francis has called the distortions of reason, sexuality, and faith happening in these days the “most dangerous ideological colonization of our time.” In greater and greater numbers, however, people are acknowledging that this ideological colonization is making everyone miserable, and some, like Legion, are seeking the feet of Jesus again. That’s how the witness of St. Legion was successful – he showed his family and neighbors what Jesus could do. He showed them there was an alternative to misery.
St. Legion reminds us that not everyone will be persuaded. When his neighbors came out to see what had happened to him they were filled with fear, and they begged Jesus to leave (5:15-17). Maybe it was because they saw what had happened to their pigs (5:11-13), but more likely it was because they knew they couldn’t remain neutral about Jesus anymore. They had seen too much. They saw Legion healed and in his right mind, and if he was hard to subdue before, he was going to be even harder to subdue now. They feared what they would have to think because of this Jesus, what they would have to believe because of this Jesus, what they would have to become because of this Jesus, and they begged Him to leave so they could get back to the misery they understood. The opposite of faith isn’t doubt or distrust; the opposite of faith is fear – fear of what Jesus will make us.
St. Legion was the “too much” that his neighbors saw. His witness was the power that made it impossible to be neutral about Jesus. His witness made people decide. Not everyone is happy about that, but some people are. Not everyone decides rightly, but some people do. More people are.
St. Legion was the only person in Mark’s gospel who was healed, and then told to tell everyone about it. All the other healed people were told to keep their mouths shut, even the disciples, but not St. Legion. St. Legion’s story is also the longest exorcism story in Mark. It prefigures Pentecost and the Acts of the Apostles. It prefigures the story that is still going on. It prefigures us. “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). We are still being called to be the reason people can’t remain neutral about Jesus, the reason why people make up their minds.
So, what has Jesus done for you? What mercy has He shown you?
St. Legion, pray for us.
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