You come to the house of God on behalf of your son, and this is good, for a mother's prayer has great power to draw down mercy. Yet we must understand the nature of the wound before we seek the remedy. You see the worsening behavior, the troubled mind, and you ask for his good mental health. But often what we call a sickness of the mind is, in truth, the fever of a soul that has been given over to its own disordered passions. The outward actions you witness are but the smoke of a fire raging within.
Do not judge by appearances. The world sees a man acting strangely and calls it a disease of the brain, but the Scripture teaches us that sin is a sickness far more grievous than any possession of a demon. The possessed man, when the fit leaves him, is downcast and ashamed; he has been wronged by the evil spirit and we pity him. But the man who has made a habit of sin, who gives himself daily to anger, lust, or pride, receives a wound that makes his soul more insensible to shame with every blow. His condition is not merely a subject for pity, but for his own deep repentance. The venom of each sin remains in the soul long after the act is done, weakening it, making it ready for yet more grievous falls. Is his behavior worsening? This is the nature of the sickness when the medicine of repentance is refused.
Yet let your heart not despair. Is it not written, "Shall not he that falleth arise?" and "Lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees"? Let no one think his case hopeless. But neither let him presume on a shallow cure. Too many think to propitiate God with a few days of altered behavior, only to return to the food that caused the sickness. Such a man undoes all his former labor. The physician of souls calls for a lifelong turning, a daily taking up of the cross. To truly cast away the love of money, of pleasure, of self-will, this is to cut out the root of the madness. For what a sword is to a madman, much the same is an unchecked passion to a soul: it drives it to pierce itself with ten thousand wounds daily, and the madness only grows. Your son does not need merely to behave better; he needs to become what he is not, to awake from the sleep of sin and arise from the dead, that Christ may give him light.
And you, who pray for him, examine your own heart as well. Are your hands stretched out in supplication, while they are also ready for grasping after the world's goods? There are wars and destructions around us, the wrath of God enclosing us as in a net, and yet we walk in security as though we were well-pleasing to Him. He is rich who does not desire to become rich; he who stands in need of nothing. Let your own disposition be one of true poverty of spirit, trusting not in your own tears but in the abundant mercy of the Master. Present your son to the Physician of our souls, but do not think to dictate the length of the cure to Him. Let your prayer be constant, your exhortations firm but full of pity, and your own life a mirror of the healing you desire.