What the Text Says
Jesus and the disciples cross the sea to the country of the Gerasenes. As soon as he steps out of the boat, a man possessed by an unclean spirit comes out from among the tombs to meet him. Nobody could bind him anymore, not even with chains. Night and day he cried out among the tombs and hills, cutting himself with stones (Mk 5:1-5). Seeing Jesus from a distance, he runs and falls before him, shouting, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me” (Mk 5:6-7). Jesus asks his name. “My name is Legion, for we are many,” the spirit answers (Mk 5:9). The demons beg to be sent into a nearby herd of swine instead of being sent out of the country. Jesus allows it, and the herd, about two thousand strong, rushes down the bank into the sea and drowns (Mk 5:10-13). The townspeople come out and find the man “sitting there, clothed and in his right mind,” and they are afraid. They beg Jesus to leave their region (Mk 5:14-17). The man begs to go with him, but Jesus tells him instead, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you” (Mk 5:18-19).
Jesus crosses back over the sea, and a large crowd gathers. Jairus, a synagogue official, falls at his feet, begging him to come heal his dying daughter (Mk 5:21-23). As Jesus goes with him, the crowd presses in, and a woman who has suffered from a hemorrhage for twelve years, who has spent everything on doctors with no relief, comes up behind him and touches his garment, saying to herself, “If I touch even his garments, I shall be made well.” Immediately her bleeding stops (Mk 5:25-29). Jesus, aware that power has gone out from him, asks who touched him. The woman comes forward, trembling, and tells him the whole truth. He tells her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (Mk 5:30-34).
While he is still speaking, men arrive from Jairus’s house saying his daughter has died and there is no need to trouble the teacher further. Jesus overhears and tells Jairus, “Do not fear, only believe” (Mk 5:35-36). At the house, amid the weeping, Jesus says the child is not dead but sleeping, and the mourners laugh at him. He puts them all outside, takes the girl’s hand, and says, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” She gets up immediately and walks. Everyone is overcome with amazement (Mk 5:38-42).
What the Church Teaches
Exorcism is a real and specific act, not folk superstition, and its authority comes directly from Christ. CCC 1673 teaches that “when the Church asks publicly and authoritatively in the name of Jesus Christ that a person or object be protected against the power of the Evil One and withdrawn from his dominion, it is called exorcism. Jesus performed exorcisms and from him the Church has received the power and office of exorcizing.” What Jesus does among the tombs is the origin of an authority the Church still exercises today, carefully and under proper authorization.
The healings in this chapter are not random acts of kindness. They are signs meant to reveal who Jesus is and to invite faith. CCC 548 teaches that “the signs worked by Jesus attest that the Father has sent him… to those who turn to him in faith, he grants what they ask. So miracles strengthen faith in the One who does his Father’s works.”
Jesus’ power to free people from sickness and from death itself is a specific category of sign the Church names directly. CCC 549 teaches that “by freeing some individuals from the earthly evils of hunger, injustice, illness and death, Jesus performed messianic signs.” The hemorrhaging woman’s healing and Jairus’s daughter’s return to life are two sides of the same sign: Christ has authority over the evils that ordinary men cannot touch.
Personal Reflection: For Fathers
(This section is pastoral application and personal takeaway, not a restatement of defined Church teaching. If you are wrestling with a real question about your own spiritual life or your family’s, bring it to confession or a conversation with a priest or spiritual director rather than treating this reflection as a ruling.)
Jairus is a picture worth studying closely. He is a man with standing in his community, and he falls flat on his face in public, begging, because his daughter is dying. Whatever pride or position he had did not matter to him in that moment. A father’s job is not to protect his dignity when someone he loves is in real danger. It is to go directly to Christ and ask, plainly, without worrying about how it looks. Too many fathers stay quiet about the things that actually terrify them, a marriage in trouble, a kid falling apart, their own health, because admitting the need feels like weakness. Jairus shows the opposite. Real strength went and got on its knees.
Then there is the delay. While Jesus is on the way to Jairus’s house, he stops for someone else entirely, the woman with the hemorrhage, and by the time he gets there, the girl has died. Every father knows some version of this: the help you needed seems to arrive too late, and the worst has already happened. What Jesus says next matters more than almost anything else in this chapter: “Do not fear, only believe.” Not because the outcome will always be the one you want, since not every story ends with the child getting up. But because fear is not the posture Christ is asking of you even in the worst moment. Trust does not require you to already know how the story ends.
The man freed from Legion wants to go with Jesus afterward, to leave his old life behind entirely and follow. Jesus tells him no. Go home. Tell your own household and your own friends what the Lord has done for you. That is the mission field most fathers are actually given: not a dramatic departure to somewhere else, but the ordinary people already in your own house, who already know exactly what you used to be.
Call to Action
This week, take one fear you have been carrying quietly, about your family, your health, or your own failures, and bring it to Christ as directly and plainly as Jairus did, without managing how it looks. If you have a story of how God has worked in your own life, even an ordinary one, tell it out loud this week to someone in your own household rather than assuming they already know it. When something in your family’s life seems to be arriving too late or ending badly, practice saying “do not fear, only believe” to yourself as a real instruction, not just a nice phrase.
Doctrinal note: Claims above are tied to CCC 1673, 548, and 549. Translation used: RSV-CE. Please confirm any point you plan to teach publicly with a priest, deacon, or trusted catechist before publishing.
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