The Possessed Boy—Tenth Sunday of Saint Matthew

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We see in today’s gospel reading a tragic scene of a father entreating our Savior for his son, who was possessed by a demon. It is a mystery as to why God allows some and not others to be afflicted so openly by demons. Perhaps God allows this to help us confront our inner demons, that is, the passions that we have allowed ourselves to be overcome by. We can’t say that the boy in today’s gospel reading was possessed because of some personal sin. A person can become possessed for reasons known to God that have nothing to do with personal sin. Saint Mary Magdelene had seven demons that tyrannized her and there is no record of her being rebuked for past sin. The Possessed man in the country of the Gadarenes likewise was not rebuked for some former sin when he was set free.

Yet, there are forms of being under demonic influence are clearly from choices that we make and it is this that we must be wary of. The Holy Fathers teach that a person is responsible when, through longstanding voluntary habit, they completely come under the domination of a passion and the tyranny of Satan. We are God’s free rational creatures and God grants us the great gift of free will to enable us to freely choose life, yet we can also choose death. Satan tempts us, but he cannot constrain us to sin. The real danger is when we are tempted and fall and then trivialize our sin. When sin becomes a habit Satanic temptation gains great strength. For this reason it is good for us to remember the spiritual maxim, “fear bad habits more than enemies.”

We must always reject the false notion that evil is some cosmic force. The Holy Fathers teach that evil has no existence of itself, but rather it is a misuse of free will. Evil originated among God’s rational creatures with the Angel of light, Lucifer, who became the angel of darkness, Diavolos, the Slanderer. This Slanderer turned our first parents away from the will of God and the contagion of evil and sin entered into the race of mankind. When we sin we undermine our freedom for the good and serve a person, the Slanderer.

Even the saints can err and stumble into sin and sinners can demonstrate some virtue. The outcome of our life depends on the inclination of our will. Great sinners have repented and men of great spiritual stature have fallen and chosen to remain thus. Observe the icon of the “Ladder of Divine Ascent” and see that Satan causes not only those on the first rungs to fall, but also those that are nearing the very top. For those who progress on the ladder of the virtues, the one sin that precedes all others is pride. May God preserve us from this passion. We are all mere fellow laborers in the Vineyard of Christ. He alone is Lord and we will all give account unto Him.

Saint John the Apostle summed up our struggle when he told us that the spirit of the fallen world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Sometimes the choices we make and the motives we have are not always so clear. Amma Sara of the Egyptian Desert comments on this, saying that there are times when a man gives alms for the sake of vainglory, adding that this is not necessarily a bad thing if he comes to understanding and begins to give alms for the glory of God. And so also with ourselves, we may also practice a virtue or labor for the Church for the sake of vainglory, but if we practice careful self-examination and a frank honesty of heart, we can confront the error within and cast it out. This points to the fact that we cannot overcome sin and the Diavolos without self-examination and honesty. If we are honest with ourselves, the Lord has something to work with, in order to cast out the demon. If we are not honest with ourselves we arm Satan against us.

In the case of today’s miracle, our Savior rebuked the father of the possessed boy saying “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I bear with you?” Later He told the Apostles they could not cast the demon out because of their unbelief adding that “this kind of demon goes not out except by prayer and fasting.” In other words, it takes work, it takes faith strengthened by prayer and fasting to attract the grace of God to free a man from the tyranny of Satan. We arm ourselves against the evil one by prayer and fasting.

Prayer and fasting are the healing therapies for our souls. At times the fasts of the Church seem laborious, and there are some days that we feel a bit oppressed by the fact that we have to fast. It is then that we must remember that a fast day is a therapy day, a day to cry out to God for an increase in our faith and entreat Him that He free us from the influence of the Evil One.

We are still in the midst of the feast of the Transfiguration and when we juxtapose the scene from today’s gospel with the imagery from the hymns for the feast we are confronted with the heights and the depths. On one hand we see the glorified and Transfigured God-Man, and on the other hand, we see an unfortunate boy, wracked by the oppression of the Evil One. Daily we make the choice between one and the other. If we seek the Transfiguration, we must follow in the footsteps of our Savior and ascend the mountain with Saints Peter, James and John. Just before the account of the Transfiguration in the Gospel of Saint Mark our Savior spoke to these same disciples saying, “whosoever would come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me,” and, “Whosever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall find it.” Saint Luke records that when Moses and Elias stood with our Savior at the Transfiguration they “spake of His departure which He was to accomplish at Jerusalem.” That is they spoke of the mystery of His Cross.

We worship Jesus, the Crucified, the God-Man that suffered for us to demonstrate His co-suffering, self-sacrificing love. In like fashion, the therapy that leads to glory is to live a life of self-sacrificing love. This does not mean that Christians should simply be doormats to the world or that we sacrifice ourselves in a mindless way. Self-sacrificing love is a spiritual endeavor that requires discretion.

We recognize the message of the gospel wherever we see self-sacrificing love. Unfortunately, today there is manifest a strange pseudo-gospel that is of this world, that is of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life and not of the Kingdom of Christ. Pride, politics and personalities have become the source of heresy and the overturning of Holy Tradition throughout the history of the Church. The gospel of Ecumenism is a self-serving politicized version of the gospel that claims to speak of love but does not love the truth and rejects self-sacrifice. In this age of the spirit of Anti-Christ false shepherds and seers of false dreams preach a gospel that focuses on them and not on Christ and His Cross. We see spiritual fathers that put their own personal enterprise before the good of the Church. This not the gospel of the Transfiguration, but simply the gospel of this world.

One ecclesiastical writer made the observation that one of the great dangers in our culture in North America is that many people refuse to recognize evil for what it is. We must recognize the spirit of this fallen world in order to reject it. We must learn to speak the truth about this in love.

Let us seek Transfiguration in Christ by spiritual vigilance, honest self-examination and ever showing sympathy for our neighbor in a spirit of self-sacrificing love, that in so doing we may find everlasting glory in Christ Jesus our Lord.

May the love and joy of Christ reign in your families. Amen.