Gospel of February 4 2019

Letter to the Hebrews 11,32-40.
Brothers, what will I say more? I would miss the time if I wanted to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets,
who by faith conquered kingdoms, exercised justice, achieved promises, closed the jaws of lions,
they extinguished the violence of the fire, escaped the cut of the sword, found strength from their weakness, became strong in war, repelled invasions by foreigners.
Some women regained their dead by resurrection. Others were then tortured, not accepting the liberation offered to them, to obtain a better resurrection.
Others, finally, suffered taunts and scourges, chains and imprisonment.
They were stoned, tortured, sawn, killed by the sword, walked around covered in sheep and goat skins, needy, troubled, mistreated -
the world was not worthy of them! -, wandering the deserts, on the mountains, between the caves and the caverns of the earth.
Yet all of them, despite having received a good testimony for their faith, did not fulfill the promise:
God had something better in sight for us, so that they wouldn't get perfection without us.

Psalms 31 (30), 20.21.22.23.24.
How great is your goodness, Lord!
You reserve it for those who fear you,
fill those who take refuge in you
before everyone's eyes.

You hide them in the shelter of your face,
away from men's intrigues;
put them safe in your tent,
away from the brawl of languages.

Blessed be the Lord,
who has done wonders of grace for me
in an inaccessible fortress.

I said in my dismay:
"I am excluded from your presence".
Instead, you listened to the voice of my prayer
when I shouted for you.

Love the Lord, you all his saints;
the Lord protects his faithful
and pays the proud back beyond measure.

From the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Mark 5,1-20.
At that time, Jesus and his disciples reached the other shore of the sea, in the Gerasèni region.
As he got off the boat, a man possessed by an unclean spirit came to meet him from the tombs.
He had his home in the tombs and nobody could keep him tied even with chains,
for several times he had been tied with stumps and chains, but he had always broken the chains and broken the stumps, and nobody could tame him anymore.
Continually, night and day, between the sepulchres and on the mountains, he cried and struck himself with stones.
Seen Jesus from afar, he ran, threw himself at his feet,
and shouting in a loud voice said: «What do you have in common with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, in the name of God, do not torment me! ».
For he said to him, "Come out, unclean spirit, from this man!"
And she asked him, "What's your name?" "My name is Legion, he replied, because there are many of us."
And he insisted on warding him off so that he wouldn't chase him out of that region.
There was now a large herd of pigs grazing on the mountain.
And the spirits begged him: "Send us to those pigs, because we enter them."
He allowed it. And the unclean spirits went out and entered the swine and the herd rushed from the ravine into the sea; they were about two thousand and drowned one after another in the sea.
The herdsmen then fled, brought the news to the city and the countryside and people moved to see what had happened.
When they came to Jesus, they saw the possessed man seated, dressed and sane, he who had been possessed by the Legion, and they were afraid.
Those who had seen everything explained to them what had happened to the possessed man and the fact of the swine.
And they began to beg him to leave their territory.
As he got back into the boat, he who had been possessed asked him to allow him to be with him.
He did not allow it, but said to him: "Go into your house, tell yours what the Lord has done to you and the mercy he has used you".
He went away and began to proclaim for the Decapolis what Jesus had done to him, and everyone was amazed.