Which demons are possessing you and so not allowing you to be free? Do you believe that Jesus can exorcise them from your life today? Genesis 21,5.8-20; Amos 5,14-25.21-24; Mt 8,28-34

The text begins by stating that Jesus arrived on the other side, which because of the presence of pigs mentioned in 8,30 is clearly Gentile territory, since Jews considered pigs as unclean. While in the story in Mark 5,1-20 there is one demoniac, in Matthew’s story there are two (8,28). The version in Matthew is considerably shorter than the one in Mark, since Matthew omits many details that Mark gives. One possible reason for this is that Matthew wants to focus attention in his story solely on Jesus. The demons recognise Jesus and also recognise that they belong to two different worlds. In Mark, the demons enter into conversation with Jesus, but in Matthew they do not, but only beg Jesus to send them into the herd of swine., and Jesus exorcises them with just one word, “Go”. Matthew does not tell us what happens to the demoniacs after the demons leave them. However, when the people of that town are told what happened to the demoniacs, they beg Jesus to leave their neighbourhood.

More than physical demons that may possess us, we may be possessed by psychological demons. These can be feelings of fear, anger, revenge, jealousy, envy and a pessimistic attitude. If we continue in these feelings we are not living fully the life that God wants us to live. We need to decide that with the help of Jesus we are going to get rid of them today.