Gospel
Jesus and his disciples came to the other side of the sea,
to the territory of the Gerasenes.
When he got out of the boat,
at once a man from the tombs who had an unclean spirit met him.
The man had been dwelling among the tombs,
and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain.
In fact, he had frequently been bound with shackles and chains,
but the chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles smashed,
and no one was strong enough to subdue him.
Night and day among the tombs and on the hillsides
he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones.
Catching sight of Jesus from a distance,
he ran up and prostrated himself before him,
crying out in a loud voice,
“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?
I adjure you by God, do not torment me!”
(He had been saying to him, “Unclean spirit, come out of the man!”)
He asked him, “What is your name?”
He replied, “Legion is my name. There are many of us.”
And he pleaded earnestly with him
not to drive them away from that territory.
Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside.
And they pleaded with him,
“Send us into the swine. Let us enter them.”
And he let them, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine.
The herd of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank into the sea,
where they were drowned.
The swineherds ran away and reported the incident in the town
and throughout the countryside.
And people came out to see what had happened.
As they approached Jesus,
they caught sight of the man who had been possessed by Legion,
sitting there clothed and in his right mind.
And they were seized with fear.
Those who witnessed the incident explained to them what had happened
to the possessed man and to the swine.
Then they began to beg him to leave their district.
As he was getting into the boat,
the man who had been possessed pleaded to remain with him.
But Jesus would not permit him but told him instead,
“Go home to your family and announce to them
all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.”
Then the man went off and began to proclaim in the Decapolis
what Jesus had done for him; and all were amazed.
Round of the Soul-17th Hour
As You travel through streets and towns, I come across a moving scene. I behold You surrounded by the blind, the mute, the deaf, the lame, the paralytics and the lepers. All such human misery pierces your Divine Heart
and, oh, how You tremble! Your Heart breaks in seeing human nature reduced to such misery – the same human nature that was fashioned by God’s creative hands so beautifully and perfectly, is now almost horrid to behold. And all this is due to the degraded human will that, producing its worst effects, renders human nature so unhappy. Oh, my love, I entreat You, make your Fiat reign in us. If You will it, You can make your Fiat put to flight the unhappiness the human will has produced.
And so I make my “I love You” flow in your act of restoring sight to the blind, so that everyone may come to see and learn of your Divine Will. And how many are blind to your Divine Will! The earth is filled with such blind souls, wherefore I beseech You to grant sight to all so that they may see and gaze upon your Most Holy Will.
My love, I see that with each step You take You heal those who are afflicted. A deaf person is presented to You, and with the authority of your voice, You restore his hearing. I make my words, “I love You,” flow in the sound of your command and ask You to restore hearing to so many who are deaf to the voice of your Divine Will. You take another step and loosen the tongue of a mute person. And how many mute souls there are whose tongues are unable to speak of your Divine Fiat! And I, prostrate at your feet, approach your knees and, despite my ineptitude, refuse to move from here until You perform the miracle of loosening the tongues of the many mute souls, so that they may all speak of your adorable Will.
O my Jesus, your Heart experiences a harrowing blow on account of such human misery – all the result of the human will. Wherefore You go about working miracles to free them [of their afflictions] and obtain for us the grace to invoke your Divine Will so that it may reign on earth. Thus You make the lame to walk, You cleanse the lepers and heal the paralytics. And I, my heavenly Savior, accompanying You always with my, “I love You, I adore You, I bless You and I thank You.” And do You know why I love You and follow You? Because I desire to straighten the legs of those who limp in your Will, to cleanse all human generations of the leprosy of the human will that made them deformed in spirit and in body, and to heal all those who are paralyzed from the misuse of their own human will.
My love, the human will is the sower of all ills, and so I beseech You to perform the miracle of miracles: Make your Will reign on earth as in heaven so that all ills may be banished from our midst.
JOURNEY INTO THE DIVINE WILL 