Saturday in the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 12, 2023

Matthew 17, 14-20

A man came up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said, “Lord, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.” Jesus said in reply, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, and from that hour the boy was cured. Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

“A man came up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said.”  This event occurred following the Lord’s descent from the mountain after his Transfiguration.  From the way St. Matthew presents his account, he wants us to appreciate the human situation without faith.  We might compare this to the stories of the Judges who were sent by God  to deliver his people after they had forgotten him and gone back to the worship of idols.

“Lord, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water.”  Up until fairly modern times it was believed that overexposure to the moon affected the mind just as overexposure to the sun affected the body, and so, “lunacy”.  The father, in Matthew’s telling, does not ascribe the boy’s condition to demonic possession, possibly indicating that he is a Gentile rather than a Jew.  It was formerly the fashion among scholars to confidently assert that this child suffered from epilepsy, but the symptoms presented here and in the accounts found in the other Gospels are consistent with possession.  The boy’s “falling” into fire and water is not accidental but a regular occurrence and is as though he were pushed into them.  These would have been very dangerous episodes and the boy would have to be watched continually to keep him from being killed.  We might think here of how the herd of swine drowned themselves when Legion entered them.

“I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.”  These would be the nine disciples who remained below while Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him up the mountain.  We may infer from their failure to help the child the lack of strength in their faith at this point, pointing to the reason they were left out of seeing the vision: they were not ready for it.  “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you?”  The Lord directs these words at the nine disciples.  Thus, the Lord “goes away”, and soon thereafter the people he has left as teachers and guides fail through their weak faith to spread the Gospel, as seen through the inability to “cure”, that is, to teach the Faith to nonbelievers and restore the Faith to those fallen away.  The Lord may be said to “go away” at a time when there are no great leaders visible in the Church or when the leadership has fallen to mediocre depths.  “Bring the boy here to me.”  The Lord himself will heal the child out of his mercy for him, not in order to rescue his disciples.  This signifies the Lord raising up great, visible leaders in the Church to restore what had fallen apart: “Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, and from that hour the boy was cured.”

“Why could we not drive it out?” The .apostles had previously received the power to drive out demons and had indeed already done so.  But this power is not magic and is reliant on factors within the person who wishes to exercise it.  It is significant that the Apostles do ask the Lord why they had failed.  They want to grow and improve and want to know what they must do. For this to happen.  “Because of your little faith.”  The Lord does not mince words with them or soften them to spare the feelings of his followers, for souls are at stake here.

“Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”  The Lord uses this vivid image to speak of the enormous work of converting souls, which is done through actions and words generated by deep faith.  This faith must be both prayed for as well as exercised through perseverance.  In St. Mark’s account, reliant upon the recollections of St. Peter, the question the Apostles ask is phrased just a little differently, with the emphasis on what is necessary to drive out a demon of this type.  The Lord answers, “This kind can go out by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.”  “And fasting” is found in the Vulgate and many ancient manuscripts but the translators of the New American Bible used a text that does not contain them.  Their absence does not affect the meaning of the text, but it is very useful to know this variant, for it is true that deeply embedded demons can be driven out only with the preparation of fasting on the part of the exorcist.

The Church today does not possess the great, visible leaders it did even a generation ago with John Paul II and Mother Teresa.  We must pray that God will mercifully send us men and women to lead us out of the darkness into which the Church has fallen.