THE TENTH SUNDAY OF MATTHEW
Matthew 17:14-23

EPILEPSY

Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic,
and sore vexed.

Man, my beloved, when he emerged from the creative hands of God, resembled a fine statue that had just come out of a sculptor’s studio.  He glowed with physical and spiritual purity and health.  He had no germs.  His eyes, ears, hands, feet, lungs, heart, kidneys, and every organ of his body, to the very last cell, were healthy and in an excellent state.

In the same way that no one would suggest that a soulless statue was rendered without a sculptor, no thinking, logical being would suggest that man, with a soul and reason, was made by chance.  Someone designed him and created him.  That creator was God.
If there were no other creation and only man, this excellent creation would be enough to prove that there is a God.  The phrase “know thyself” leads to “know God”.  The knowledge of man is connected to the knowledge of God.  Man is an image of God.
Man emerged from the hands of God healthy and was destined for immortality.  But unfortunately, the first man sinned, and sin made him mortal.  Like a terrible germ, sin corrupted the soul; it also corrupted the bodily organisms of man.  The body began to be affected by different diseases, which, with the passing of time, have increased.  Today, the number of sicknesses cannot be counted.  There is not a part or a cell of the human body that remains unaffected by different germs.  Man, under attack by so many sicknesses, resembles a statue that barbarous hands have hit and mutilated, destroying its original beauty.  Man is a ruin, a museum of diseases and sicknesses.
One of the many illnesses is epilepsy, a disorder of the brain that causes some people to suffer periodically unexpected spasms that make the whole body shake.  Like an earthquake, epileptic episodes occur at unexpected times and last but a few seconds.  The sick person having a seizure loses his senses and falls down.  He gnashes his teeth.  Because, as we said, seizures cannot be predicted, the epileptic runs the risk of disaster.  If he is near a well, river, lake or sea, he could fall into the water.  If he’s near fire, he could fall into it and be burned.  If he’s standing at some craggy place, he could fall and be killed.
Epilepsy is an ancient disease.  In spite of all the progress in medicine, epilepsy, which is sometimes due to hereditary causes from the dissolute and wanton life of our ancestors, continues to remain difficult to cure.  The ancients saw that the seizures associated with the disease coincided many time with the full moon, and they thought that the moon caused the illness.  Therefore, they called epilepsy selenianism, or lunacy.  But, as St. John Chrysostom observed, the moon does not cause epilepsy.  Satan, wanting to defame the works of God, exploited these coincidences and spread the myth that the moon was the cause of this sickness.  In addition, there are situations, by God’s concession, in which the devil becomes the cause of physical illnesses to torment man.
In this category of illnesses, which by God’s concession are caused by the devil, is the case of the epileptic in today’s Bible reading.  This youth, as the Bible describes, had the characteristics of epilepsy, or selenianism.  But his epilepsy was caused by the devil.  That is why this epileptic youth is also called a demoniac.
Oh, what mysteries there are in this world.  Sicknesses that are thought of as having natural causes, are at their depths probably caused by some demonic energy.  We live in a world that is under the influence of different visible and invisible factors.  Naturally, in the end, God is proved to be the Lord.  But there are times in the life of an individual, of families and communities, in which the demonic element dominates because of the sins of man.  During these times, Satan is called the ruler of the world by St. Paul.
The epileptic young man in today’s Bible reading was under the influence of the satanic spirit.  His situation was awful.  When a crises took place, he foamed at the mouth, gnashed his teeth, and was in danger of falling into water or fire.  He was a burden for his unfortunate parents, who could not leave him alone but followed him everywhere.
After many efforts by his father to cure him, the epileptic son was cured by Christ.  He was cured immediately with only one word.  Christ ordered the demon to come out.  The demon came out, and the young man was cured instantly.  Whatever the devil had been building over years and years, Christ knocked down in one moment.  Oh Christ!  You are the conqueror of demons, of sin and of death.  You are the physician of souls and bodies, and to you belong honor and glory to the ages of ages.
The question arises: Are there seleniatics, or lunatics, today?  Unfortunately, yes.  There are two kinds of selenism.  In one form, the body is attacked by the physical illness of epilepsy.  This kind of selenianism is very small compared with the other form of selenianism, in which the afflicted do not suffer from epilepsy of the body but are infected by awful social diseases that destroy the youth of today.  These diseases are debauchery, lewdness, and unmentionable passions of the flesh.  They are alcohol and drugs.  These vices destroy the health of people.  They can cause the most healthy organism to be filled with horrible diseases.  Young people who have fallen victim to these diseases end up in neurological clinics, psychiatric hospitals, or asylums for the chronically ill; some even commit suicide.
Who will save these moon-struck young people of our times?  Only Christ.  Only if parents and guardians, teachers and professors, priests of the Most High, and every person who aches for the youth and for this country lead them to Christ, Who continues to live and reign for all the ages.

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Απόσπασμα του βιβλίου «ΣΤΑΓΟΝΕΣ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΥΔΩΡ ΤΟ ΖΩΝ», του Μητροπολίτου Φλωρίνης Αυγουστίνου Ν. Καντιώτου, εκδοση Γ΄, σελ. 200.
Η μετάφραση στα Αγγλλικά έγινε από τόν ακούραστο εργάτη καί αγωνιστή της Ορθοδοξίας, πνευματικόν τέκνον του πατρός Αυγουστίνου, πατέρα Αστέριο Γεροστέργιο.  Προσφέρεται ταπεινά με την εν Χριστώ αγάπη εις ψυχικήν ωφέλειαν των απανταχού της γης Ορθοδόξων Χριστιανών καί επισκεπτών της ιστοσελίδας του σεβαστού Γέροντος Αυγουστίνου
προς δόξαν του Τριαδικού μας Θεού.

This chapter was taken from the book “DROPS FROM THE LIVING WATER” by Bishop Augoustinos N. Kantiotes.

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