meditation of the day

Casting Out the Unclean Spirit

Be gone from my heart, Deceiver, be gone right now; be gone from my limbs, be gone from my life.

Thief, snake, fire, Baal, evil, wickedness, death, chasm, dragon, beast, night, assailant, madness, chaos, deceiver, murderer, who even set ruin upon my forefathers, you calamity, when you made them taste evil and death. Christ the Lord orders you to flee into the depth of the sea, over the cliffs, or to a herd of swine, like that detestable Legion long ago.

But submit, lest I strike you with the cross, before which everything trembles. I carry a cross in my limbs, a cross on my journey, a cross in my heart. The cross is my glory.

Will you not cease assailing me, you waste of time? Will you not look upon the cliffs, or Sodom, or the hordes of the godless, who have destroyed the great divinity by cutting it apart, but rather upon my white hair and my heart? You always darken me, enemy, with dusky thoughts, fearing neither God nor the sacrifices. And this mind has even become the musical herald of the Trinity, and it sees its end is now.

Filthy one, do not disturb me, so that, purified, I might meet the pure, heavenly lights.

O radiance, come to my life. I lift my hands to you, receive me.

Farewell to you, O world. Farewell, source of anxiety.

Saint Gregory Nazianzen

Saint Gregory Nazianzen († 390) was a monk, bishop, and writer of letters, prayers, and poems. He is a Doctor of the Church. / From Poems on Scripture, Brian Dunkle, s.j., tr. © 2012, Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY. www.svpress.com. Used with permission.