The compassion of our Lord is very great, since here in the
Gospel, He reveals that many years before, the Lord already prepared this man
to manifest His kindness to him. What does this mean? This means that in our
sufferings, we can think: “Perhaps I have been prepared to show forth the great
mercy of the Lord.” In this way, my suffering makes sense, since I am the
manifestation of God’s mercy, and my suffering has a metaphorical and symbolic
meaning for all people, and especially for myself, just as the suffering and
cure of the man born blind has meaning for all of us. We should pray for this
understanding: Lord, grant me peace in the little sufferings of my life, or
even the great ones. Above all, grant to me a sense of purpose in suffering, so
that I understand myself prepared as a manifestation of your mercy. Let me be a
sign of your love for all people through my faithfulness in suffering, just
like your servant, the man born blind.
So, what is this metaphorical and symbolic meaning of our
suffering and especially the suffering and cure of the man born blind? Here, we
have the symbol of blindness. Just like paralysis, this is a very important
symbol. Blindness shows to us the sickness of our nature, our inability to
discern accurately and truly between good and evil. In the beginning, the serpent promised our
ancestors, Adam and Eve, knowledge concerning good and evil, but the serpent
lied, since they only gained knowledge of evil, but they lost their knowledge
of God. Thus, the generations after our
first parents fell into idolatry. For us, just as for our ancestors, everything
has the propensity to become idolatry, since we make unhealthy attachments to
temporary things: our automobiles, our homes, our property, and even other
persons. This is the essence of our blindness: we are not able to perceive the
difference between good and evil, between the Highest Good and temporary goods.
In Baptism, we put on Christ, and when we say this we do not merely mean that
we wear Christ, but that we take part in the identity of Christ, because we
have communion in His Person. Lord, grant to me to drive out all idolatry from
my life. Daily, I see that I have many attachments to created things. I have a
jealous love for my plans, my will, my property. Purify me, I pray, of all
these things, since they are merely distractions from the life that You want to
give me, eternal life in Your presence. Give me clear vision, just as you gave
to your servant the man born blind, in order to perceive the true Good, to
desire It and to follow It until I possess It.
The problems in our life related to sin are on account of
the imperfect way that we have put on Christ. In a similar passage of the
Gospel According to Saint Mark, the Lord Jesus cures a blind man, but by
degrees. When at first He cures the blind man by laying on of hands, the man
receives sight, but he sees the world around him imperfectly, since other
people appear to him as trees. Our
participation in Christ has to grow to perfection, just as the Apostle tells
us, namely, if we die with Christ, we will also live with Him, and if we suffer
with Him, we will also reign with Him. Day after day, we have to work, so as to
grow by grace out of the blindness of our nature, for the Apostle also says “I
die daily.” This has to be a rule for us too. We have to die daily to
ourselves, to our passions, to the love of temporary things. Help me, Lord, to
die to myself and to grow in Your likeness—becoming full of virtue. Just as
your servant the man born blind died to his blindness, so as to wake to the
true knowledge of God, so may I drive out by Your grace the blindness of my
destructive habits.
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