Our Lord's truimph in His own Person over Satan is followed up on this
Sunday by a narrative of one of those cases in which He exhibited the same
power for the good of others. "Grievously vexed with a devil" is
a phrase which seems to point to an utter subjugation of the poor victim
so afflicted to the power of the Evil One; and in that subjugation physical
and mental evil were doubtless combined. He Who, having been tempted,
was now able to succour them that are tempted, manifested that ability
on this occasion by the effect of His will alone, so that without the use
of any apparent means or any visible act, He caused the Evil One to give
up his power over the afflicted, and in answer to the urgent prayer of
the mother, "her daughter was made whole from that very hour." There
is, doubtless, a connection between the fact told in the Gospel and the
exhortation of the Epistle, the epithet designating the evil spirits who
possessed their victims, and that by which St. Paul designates impurity,
being the same; and several pieces of evidence pointing to extreme impurity
of life as one result of possession. The Collect is moulded in the
same lines of thought, acknowledging the power of the Tempter to assault
the soul by evil thoughts, and our own inability to prevail against such
assaults without the aid of Him by Whom the Tempter was, and is overcome.
The note of the day and week, therefore, so far as Lent looks to discipline,
is a call to the subjugation of the sensual part of our nature by earnest
prayer for a participation in the power of Him Who was tempted, and yet
came out of His temptation without sin, that He might succour others in
His strength.
