Homily - The Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time - 20 August 2020

 The Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

 Dear brothers and sisters,

“…conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Philippians 1:27). This is the admonition Saint Paul leaves with us today, but what does it mean to conduct ourselves in a way worthy of the Gospel of Christ? As with so many things in life, it may be easier to say what it does not mean than to say what it does mean.

When the Apostle tells us to conduct ourselves he is actually speaking about something we pretend not to like discussing. The Greek word he uses – politeumai – has at its root the word from which we derive our word politics. Now, before you tune me out altogether, let me assure you this is not a “political” homily but rather one focused on what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ. How can I say this? Because Saint Paul’s use of this word “suggests the civic or social dimension of life” and that he “wants his readers” – as well as his hearers – “to be alert to the dimensions of their citizenship.”[1] In this same letter, he will later remind us that “our citizenship” – our politeumai – “is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20).

When he wrote these words to the Christians in Philippi, he wrote in a time when it mattered greatly if one was a citizens of the Roman Empire or not; we live in a time and place in which something very similar may well be happening. 

Just as many residents of Philippi identify themselves as citizens of Rome even though they live in Philippi, so also the members of the local church, whether Roman citizens or not, find the root of their identity as citizens of heaven. That their conduct here on earth as citizens of the heavenly commonwealth should be worthy of the gospel of Christ is to say that their community life should reflect the good news of Christ their risen Lord and Savior…[2]

Looking around our present society, there are a great many Christians, a great many citizens of heaven, who are not conducting themselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ because they live, act, and speak in a way that does not reflect the good news of Christ risen from the dead.

Our politics are no longer actually concerned with the common good, with “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.”[3] Instead, our politics – and our political conversations - are too often governed, moved, and directed by ideological bents. Rather than truly seeking what is best for society, we blindly hold fast to this political party or that political party, all the while never actually considering what that particular party truly wants to attain. One party accuses the other of incivility, while utterly ignoring its own incivility. (It can easily be found on both sides of aisle.) How does any of this petty bickering and childish manipulation reflect the love of Jesus Christ? How is any of this worthy of the Gospel? How does any of this change the present situation to become more like our heavenly homeland?

This has all been swirling about in my thoughts these last couple of decades, but especially during these last few days following the death of Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg Friday evening. While I disagreed strongly with many of her judgments on the Supreme Court because they were not in keeping with the true common good, I admired her friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia, with whom I often agreed strongly and with whom she often disagreed strongly. To the eyes of most Americans, theirs was an unlikely friendship, even an impossible one, because we have forgotten how to view each other not as rivals and enemies, but the “brother [or sister] “for whom Christ died” (I Corinthians 8:11). While Justice Ginsburg was not herself a Christian, her friend Antonin was a devoted Catholic who knew something about conducting himself in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ.

I once had the pleasure of hearing Justice Ginsburg speak of her friendship with Justice Scalia shortly after his death. She reflected on how frequently she was asked how she could be so close a friend with him when she often vehemently disagreed with his way of thinking and of seeing the world. Her answer was simple: Justice Scalia always attacked ideas, but he never attacked people. She admired this quality in him and built a friendship with him around it. “Yes, they disagreed. A lot. But somehow they managed to see each other as human beings, not units of animosity, and it was a beautiful, humane, and civilized thing.”[4] It was a true political thing.

The friendship between these two was not as simple as agreeing to disagree, as we like to pretend we do with one another, but really we only agree not to talk about our disagreements; on the contrary, the two Justices sparred intellectually with each other because they did not want to simply dismiss one another. 

Without a grounding in Christ, the truths by which we live our lives can gradually recede, the practice of the virtues can become formalistic, and dialogue can be reduced to a form of negotiation or an agreement to disagree. An agreement to disagree… so as not to make waves… This sort of superficiality does us great harm.[5] 

This was something Justice Scalia knew; he knew agreeing to disagree does not engage the truth and wherever truth is lacking, love is also lacking. And whenever love is lacking, we are not living in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ. Perhaps the reason we are so often lacking in love is because we do not see the world as God sees it. His ways, after all, are not our ways, nor are his thoughts our thoughts (cf. Isaiah 55:8).

As one example, we are tempted to think the landowner in Jesus’ parable today acted unjustly or unfairly because we do not see the world correctly; our minds have been darkened by sin. When Jesus asks, “Are you envious because I am generous?”, he uses a figure of speech (Matthew 20:15). Literally, he asks, “Is you eye evil because I am generous?” “The key expression here is ‘evil eye,’ which is a Semitic idiom that describes someone who is envious, grudging, or culpably lacking in generosity.” Generosity, of course, need not only concern money; one can also lack generosity of heart.[6] Where generosity is lacking, so also is love lacking, and when love is lacking we cannot live in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ.

When we look upon the world, do we see two camps, “us” and “them,” the “good guys” and the “bad guys”? If so, our eyes are darkened by sin and we do not see rightly. This is not to see that we should need recognize the wicked deeds of others; we must recognize such evil and work to root it out. But there is a difference between seeing wicked deeds and wicked people. Let us beg the Lord to purify the eyes of our hearts so we might always look upon the world as he does, with eyes of love and mercy. If we do, we will keep the two great commandments of love of God and of neighbor and so live in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ. May we become true citizens of heaven. Amen.

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[1] Dennis Hamm, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: Philippians, Colossians, Philemon (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2013), 89-90.

[2] Ibid., 90.

[3] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1906.

[4] Elizabeth Scalia, “Ginsburg; RIP, Scalia; RIP; Happy Warriors, RIP,” The Anchoress, 18 September 2020. Accessed 18 September 2020. Available at https://theanchoress.com/ginsburg-rip-scalia-rip-happy-warriors-rip/?fbclid=IwAR2YS8h2CRkx8S4eFMp6Luf4crW7RVq1bkQi82HN8laeaHXdHBKuKC8bngk

[5] Pope Francis, Address to the Bishops of Asia, 17 August 2014.

[6] Curtis Mitch and Edward Sri, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2010), 255.

Homily - 10 September 2017 - Does the dogma live loudly within you?

The Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Dear brothers and sisters,

Living as I now do on the near outskirts of civilization, I take great pleasure in watching the sunset from within the back yard of the rectory. I have only been with you just a few weeks, but already there is a great difference in the time the sun passes below the horizon. Whereas once the daylight began to fade after 8:30 p.m., now it begins to fade before 7:30 p.m., making it sometimes difficult for me to be home in time to see the glowing orb descend. As I look at the appearance of the sky, I know the great white death of winter will soon be upon us and my heart grows a little sad; as you see the appearance of the sky, you likely know the harvest will soon be upon us and your hearts probably grow a little happy.

The ancient Anglo-Saxons also knew something about the appearance of the sky and of the natural world. While we say the autumn season will not be upon us for a couple of weeks yet, they said autumn began on the seventh of August because it coincided with their harvest; the Anglo-Saxon word for autumn is haerfest, from which we have our word harvest, a season “bright, laden with fruits.”[1] The harvest, said the Anglo-Saxons, “is a joy to men, when God, holy king of the heavens, causes the earth to give bright fruits for nobles and the needy.”[2] All of this we know simply by looking around us.

Jesus once rebuked the Pharisees and the Sadducees who “asked him to show them a sign from heaven” to prove his identity (Matthew 16:1). He said in answer, “In the evening you say, ‘Tomorrow will be stormy, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to judge the appearance of the sky, but you cannot judge the signs of the times” (Matthew 16:2-3). Though nearly two thousand years have passed since he spoke those words, the truth of his words has not passed and we have sadly not grown wiser. If you do not think a persecution of faithful Christians is slowly building within these United States of America, you simply are not reading the signs of times.

As a priest of Jesus Christ, I have been appointed a watchman and I must warn you of a coming danger (cf. Ezekiel 33:7). The Senate Judiciary Committee sat this past Wednesday to consider the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett - a distinguished lawyer and professor, and faithful Catholic - to the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals. During her confirmation hearing, a sitting U.S. senator said to her:

Why is it that so many of us on this side have this very uncomfortable feeling that—you know, dogma and law are two different things. And I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country.[3]

Yes, a nominee for a federal court was told by a sitting U.S. Senator that her deeply held Catholic faith are troubling. She would never have dared to speak such words to a Muslim, a Jew, or a Quaker, but Catholics are fair game.

The Senator went on to say, “You’re controversial because many of us that have lived our lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems. And Roe entered into that, obviously.”[4] She said this despite the judicial nominee’s insistence that “It’s never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge’s personal convictions, whether they derive from faith or anywhere else, on the law.”[5] She said this, moreover, because she is reading the signs of the times. She knows that each year the March for Life grows both longer and younger. She knows Catholics are and have been at the forefront of the growing movement to protect human life at every stage. The senator knows the generations after her will seek to undo the evil she supports and she and her colleagues will not let this happen quietly.

Another senator went so far as to ask the nominee pointedly, “Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?”[6] He asked her this question despite Article VI of the Constitution of the United States, which declares:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Ask yourself this question: If the role of a judge is to apply the law of the land to cases heard before him or her, why is her faith being questioned at all? The question should instead be whether a nominee will apply the law as it is written and nothing more.

That is not what happened this past week in Washington, D.C. The implication behind the two senators’ lines of questioning is that a faithful Catholic is unfit to interpret American law. And if a faithful Catholic is unfit for such a high office, for what else is a faithful Catholic unfit in this country? Anyone who knows the history of this nation knows that Catholics were publicly persecuted for more than a century because it was believed that faithful Catholics could not also be good Americans. We fought long and hard to be accepted in this country and those days of persecution and discrimination may soon be upon us again because we remain unflinching in our recognition of the great dignity of all human life. Therefore, each of us must ask ourselves, “Does the dogma live loudly within me?”

Before we can answer this question, we must know what a dogma is. To put it simply, a dogma is “an article of faith proclaimed by a Council or the Pope as divine revelation contained in Scripture and Tradition.”[7] The dogmas of the Church are contained in the Creed, which we recite every Sunday and holy day. They are statements of faith that must be believed in order to be a Christian. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, the dogmas “are lights along the path of faith; they illuminate it and make it secure. Conversely, if our life is upright, our intellect and heart will be open to welcome the light shed by the dogmas of faith” (89).

The dogmas of the Church should live loudly within each one of us because they each contain a different aspect of the life of Christ Jesus and of our salvation from sin and death. If the dogmas do not live loudly within us, we can be certain something is not as it should be, that we have hardened our hearts and have not bowed down in true worship or humbly knelt “before the Lord who made us” (cf. Psalm 95:8; 6). To accept the dogmas of the Church, to embrace the truth of the aspects of the life of Jesus and of his Church they enunciate and reveal, is to live the life of a disciple. This is why the dogmas must live loudly within each one of us. Jesus himself, “What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops” (Matthew 10:27). The Christian faith is not meant to be kept quiet and so the senator’s attempted insult was paradoxically a mark of high praise.

If someone tells us the dogma lives loudly within us, we should “sing joyfully to the Lord, and acclaim the rock of our salvation” (Psalm 95:1). If someone tells us the dogma does not live loudly within us, we should be concerned because it would mean we have not yet begun to reflect the love of Jesus in our words and deeds. This is why Saint Paul tells us today to “owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another” and for which reason he reminds us that “love does no evil to the neighbor” (Romans 13:8, 10). The dogma will be known to live loudly within us if we listen to Saint Augustine, who said:

The rule of love is that one should wish his friend to have all the good things he wants to have himself and should not wish the evils to befall his friend which he wishes to avoid himself. He shows this benevolence to all men. No evil must be done to any. Love of one’s neighbor works no evil. Let us then love even our enemies as we are commanded, if we wish to be truly unconquered.[8]

Let each of us, then, not harden our hearts to the Lord, but allow them instead to melt before his the gaze of his mercy and be set aflame with the fire of his love. May all who see us or hear of us know us to be men, women, and children who love Jesus. May they know us to be people within whom the dogma lives loudly! Amen.

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[1] Menalogium, in Eleanor Parker, “‘On haerfest ham gelædeđ’: Anglo-Saxon Harvests,” A Clerk of Oxford, 7 August 2016.

[2] Old English Rune Poem, in ibid.

[3] Senator Dianne Feinstein, in “Democrats and ‘Dogma’: Are you now or have you ever been an ‘orthodox Catholic’?”, The Wall Street Journal, 7 September 2017.

[4] Ibid., in Matt Hadro, “Concerns of ‘Anti-Catholic bigotry’ as judicial nominee questioned about faith,” Catholic News Agency, 7 September 2017.

[5] Amy Coney Barrett, in ibid.

[6] Senator Richard Durbin, in ibid.

[7] YouCat: Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church, trans. Michael J. Miller, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 90.

[8] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Of True Religion, 87. In Thomas C. Oden, et al, eds., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament Vol. VI: Romans (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 1998), 320.

Life in Illinois: Where the Election Code apparently also concerns the funding of abortion

His Excellency the Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki, Bishop of Springfield in Illinois, has written a letter to the faithful of his diocese to alert them a particularly troubling piece of legislation soon to come before the Illinois General Assembly, HB 40, which is supposed to amend the Election Code.

The text of Bishop Paprocki's letter follows, with my emphases:

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, 

I am writing to alert you about a bill that is pending before the Illinois legislature that, if passed, would use your tax dollars to pay for the taking of innocent human lives through abortion.  The bill is HB 40, and I am told that it may pass if there is not a strong outcry against it. 

Since the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Roe vs. Wade, our country has endured the termination of more than 57 million lives.  We are working hard to build a culture of life by advocating for laws that make it easier to bring a child into this world.  And we are succeeding – the national abortion rate is at its lowest since Roe v. Wade was handed down.  Unfortunately, the enactment of House Bill 40 would set back those efforts by coercing all who pay taxes to indirectly support the taking of innocent human life.  It is worth noting that abortion is an elective procedure and using state tax dollars to pay for it is not only immoral, but also an injustice.  A far better use of tax money would be to fund prenatal services for the poor and child care for working mothers, as well as expand health care options for those in need.  

House Bill 40 not only mandates state support of abortion, but it would also include abortion coverage in state employees’ health care plans and the Medicaid program.  Additionally, the bill allows taxpayer money to fund grants to organizations such as Planned Parenthood that refer, counsel for, and perform abortions.  

The Catholic Conference of Illinois, which serves as the public policy arm of the Catholic bishops, has long joined with Catholic Charities and Catholic health care organizations to advocate that essential services be funded. However, as we have seen over the past few years and in the current budget stalemate, their efforts have largely been ignored by state lawmakers and officials.  We have to ask why our elected representatives would turn their backs on paying for programs that help the disabled, the elderly, children in need and students, yet find the will to publicly fund the terrible tragedy of abortion.  Please contact your state representative to vote against this bill. 

If you need assistance in determining the name of your lawmaker, or in sending a message to him or her, go to www.ilcatholic.org or call the Catholic Conference at its Chicago office at 312-368-1066 or its Springfield office at 217-528-9200.

One might well ask what the Election Code has to do with the funding of abortions, but such is the quality of the General Assembly these days.

Remember, those we elect to public office are supposed to represent us and our interests. If we do not contact them to tell them what we think about certain pieces of legislation, they cannot represent us. Please, pick up your telephones and your pens and urge your representative to vote against HB 40.

Homily - 2 October 2016 - How could we have fallen so low?

The Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Dear brothers and sisters,

People with whom I have spoken in recent days and weeks about the current political situation in these United States of America all seem to say something similar to the cry of the Prophet Habakkuk: “How long, O Lord, must I cry for help and you do not listen” (Habakkuk 1:1)? Many ask how we came to arrive at this moment in our nation’s history. How could we have fallen so low, they ask.

Commentators, pundits, and retirees around their coffee tables all have offered many different, varied, and sometimes contradictory explanations, but most of these conveniently overlook the fundamental reason we see near ruin all about us (cf. Habakkuk 1:3). We have arrived at this moment in our shared history for the simple and tragic reason that we have not kept Saint Paul’s words to Saint Timothy. “So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me,” he wrote, “but bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God” (II Timothy 1:8). As one simple test of this, you might ask yourself, “Am I willing to bear my share of the hardship for the gospel by joining in the Life Chain today, or am I ashamed to defend the dignity of the unborn child?”

We have focused our aspirations not on the Lord Jesus and on the spread of his saving Gospel but on ourselves these past ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or more years. As those joined to Christ in the waters of Baptism, our lives should be motivated by the love of God and of neighbor, always and everywhere, but too many of our lives are instead motivated by the love of self. We have heard the voice of the Lord and hardened our hearts to him. I daresay we have come to this moment in history for no other reason than the fact that we have sinned against God and against our neighbor by not living our faith in the public square, by not realizing that we are but “unprofitable servants” of Jesus; rather than doing “what we were obliged to do,” we have done our wills (Luke 17:10).

Here we do well to remember what Pope Francis reminded us of this past Thursday, namely, “the answer to the drama of evil lies in the mystery of Christ.”[1] Saint Paul, of course, knew this, which is why he urged Saint Timothy not to be ashamed of witnessing to Jesus Christ before the world. Indeed, his admonition to the young bishop focused on three things: power, love, and self-control. “When we look at the triad [of] ‘power, love, self-control’ as a whole, it is remarkable that the most important, love, occupies the center… The gift of the Spirit is one of power, but it is also the spirit of order, and it is both because it is the power of love.”[2]

When Saint Paul encouraged Saint Timothy to “stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands,” he referred to the grace Timothy received when Paul ordained him a Bishop. In doing so, Paul acknowledged Timothy’s faith, but at the same time he expressed his concern that the difficulties Timothy would experience in the exercise of his ministry might make him hesitant to use the gift he received to its fullest extent. Is this not a common temptation for each of us?

In the waters of Baptism and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation, each us has received a certain gift, a particular grace, for our work in giving witness to Jesus and in proclaiming his gospel. Despite this gift, however, we grow cautious – or even afraid – in exercising this gift in the public square, or even in our homes among our family and friends. We become ashamed of Jesus and worry what others will think of us. Saint Paul urged Saint Timothy not to have such thoughts, but to be instead a loyal servant of Christ and a bold herald of his salvation.

We sometimes grow quiet because we think our faith is not strong enough, not big enough, to speak up more courageously or that we are somehow incapable of giving a good witness to Jesus. But we heard in the Gospel today that “Jesus, when asked by his disciples to increase their faith, told them that the little faith they had, though it be as small as a mustard seed could move mountains, if they would just use it (Luke 17:6). It is not a question of Timothy’s acquiring something he does not already have, but rather of activating what he already has.”[3] So it is with us. It is not a question of our acquiring something we do not already have, but rather of activating what we already have.

The power to which Saint Paul refers is the sacred power Saint Timothy received in ordination that made him a minister of the Sacraments. This power is principally that of absolving sins and of confecting the Eucharist; it is a power that “proceeds from love, leads to love, and is tempered by love. Or better, it is the very power of love itself.”[4] Though we exercise it differently as members of the Body of Christ, each of us has received this power of love that poured forth from the side of the Crucified Savior. “The cross reminds us that there is no true love without suffering, there is no gift of life without pain.”[5] We have almost forgotten this truth today because we spend too much time looking at ourselves, taking selfies wherever we go, and not enough time looking at Christ Jesus.

If we truly considered ourselves as unprofitable servants of the Lord rather than our own masters, we would realize the power of suffering love and its ability to move hearts and transform the world. If we truly considered ourselves as unprofitable servants of the Lord rather than our own masters, the sufferings that would come with giving witness to Jesus in all times and places would not frighten us, but would instead move us to give an even greater testimony so as to share more closely in his cross. Centuries ago, Saint Basil the Great urged us forward, saying, “Therefore, the more have been your trials, look for a more perfect reward from your last judge. Do not take your present trials ill. Do not lose hope. Yet a little while longer and your helper will come to you.”[6]

We frequently hear the Lord’s promise to be with us always and to send the Holy Spirit to give us the words to speak, but we doubt his promise and question his trustworthiness; we think him too much like us and fail to strive to become more like him (cf. Matthew 28:20; Matthew 10:19). This is unfortunate because we have nothing to fear in God; he is only to be loved and trusted with all our hearts.

God is all-powerful, and, since he is all-powerful, he cannot die, he cannot be deceived, he cannot lie, and, as the apostle says, 'he cannot disown himself' (II Timothy 2:13). Very much he cannot do, yet he is all-powerful. It is because he cannot do these things that he is all-powerful. If he could die, if he could deceived, if he could deceive, if it were possible for to do an injustice, he would not be omnipotent. If it were in him to do any of this, such acts would not be worthy of the Almighty. Absolutely omnipotent, our Father cannot sin.[7]

There is nothing false in our Master, only – sadly – in his servants who too often seek to profit themselves instead of serving him in love. This is the self-control to which Saint Paul referred.

If each of us stirs into flame the gift of love we received at Baptism and Confirmation, if each of us uses this power for self-control and lives as unprofitable servants, then will the Lord hear our cries for help and begin to turn back the ruin that seems to be falling upon us in these days. If we turn from our ways of self-absorption and seek to be absorbed into the love of Christ, then will our hardened hearts be softened and we will know the joy and peace that comes from serving God.

In these troubling days, each of us should remember these words of the great Saint Ambrose:

Know that you are a servant overwhelmed by very much obedience. You must not set yourself first, because you are called a son of God. Grace must be acknowledged, but nature not over-looked. Do not boast of yourself if you have served well, as you should have done. The sun obeys, the moon complies, and the angels serve… Let us not require praise from ourselves nor prevent the judgment of God and anticipate the sentence of the Judge but reserve it for its own time and Judge.[8]

Let us, then, not be ashamed of our testimony to our Lord, but let us bear our share of hardships for the gospel, confident that the answer to the drama of evil lies in the mystery of the cross of Christ, in the mystery of suffering love. Amen.

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[1] Pope Francis, Address to thePontifical Council Cor Unum, 29 September 2016.

[2] George T. Montague, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: First and Second Timothy, Titus (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2008), 144-145.

[3] Ibid., 141.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Pope Benedict XVI, GeneralAudience Address, 17 September 2008.

[6] Saint Basil the Great, Letter 238. In Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament Vol. XIV: The Twelve Prophets. Alberto Ferreiro, ed. (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 2003), 191.

[7] Saint Augustine of Hippo, On the Creed, 1.2. In Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament Vol. IX: Colossians, 1-2 Thessalonians, 1-2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon. Peter Gorday, ed. (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 2000), 247.

[8] Saint Ambrose of Milan, Exposition of the Gospel of Luke, 8.31-32. In Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament Vol. III: Luke. Arthur A. Just, Jr., ed. (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 2003), 267.