Monday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 20, 2023

Luke 18, 35-43

“Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”  I think of this phrase when I am walking through a hospital hallway, carrying the Blessed Sacrament in my pyx to a member of the faithful who has fallen ill or suffered an accident.  The nurses, doctors, and technicians in the hallway are preoccupied with their work and do not look up when a priest comes by.  But when the priest appears with the pyx in the patient’s doorway, there is happiness and relief.  Jesus is here.  Everything will be all right, no matter what happens. Among the members of the crowd St. Luke describes here, there is mixed opinion of who he is.  The blind man has a strong feeling for who Jesus is.  Jesus has walked this way before, and he has heard of him and his miracles.  He knows that Jesus can save him from his life of blindness and begging.

“Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!”  The blind man cries loudly so that he might be heard.  This is a prayer, a prayer straight from the heart.  There is nothing fancy about it.  It features not rhetoric.  It is not delivered with a flattering tone.  It is a great cry of need from someone who believes. “The people walking in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent.”  Why would people do this?  Does his need offend their propriety?  Do they think that Jesus should be shielded from such a sight as this blind man would present?  Or do people speak out of their own need to control?  All of these possible motives are signs of inward blindness as terrible as the outward blindness suffered by this man.

“But he kept calling out all the more.”  Jesus urges his followers to persevere in prayer: “Pray always and do not grow weary” (Luke 18, 1).  We see this too in the persistence of the Syrian woman (cf. Matthew 15, 21-28).  It is a sad spectacle, the blind man crying out to Jesus almost against all hope, and the people who could help him try to silence him.  Perhaps this is our modern secular world which wants its Jesus to be a wise man but without any trace of divinity, such as the power to heal blindness.

“Then Jesus stopped and ordered that he be brought to him.”  The Lord halts his progress for the sake of the blind man, whose cries he has heard, and orders the people who had tried to silence him to bring him forward.  He makes them useful despite themselves.  He makes them the means by which the blind man can come to him.  Thus does God show his power, using the people who assail us for believing as the means of drawing us nearer to him.  “What do you want me to do for you?”  The Lord asks us this question continuously throughout our days.  He asks it as one who has come to serve and not to be served.  He does not act as a ruler would on this occasion, asking him his name and where he is from, and why he should grant the favor he seeks.  He does not insist on signs of respect or obeisance.  The Lord simply asks the question, calmly and without any fuss.  Now, the Lord knows the man is blind.  This is even apparent to anyone capable of watching him stumble up over people to get to Jesus.  But the Lord wants him to say what he wants.  Does he want food or money? Does he want to see?  Sometimes when we pray we are too shy to ask for what we really want, as though it would be too much for the Lord to do for us, or that we do not really deserve for our prayer to be answered.  But we should ask for the biggest thing a person can want: eternal happiness with him.  And for cures for diseases, jobs, the needs of others, the conversion of family members — all of these too.  

“Lord, please let me see.”  Let us note the simplicity of this prayer, right out of the heart.  We should pray like this: Lord, give me faith.  Lord, make my child well.  Lord, give me justice.  Lord, forgive my sins.  The simplicity is not for the Lord’s benefit, but for ours.  We put ourselves not in the position of a bargainer or someone owed a favor, or of a flatterer at court, but as we truly are, utterly dependent upon him.  “Have sight; your faith has saved you.” And the Lord replies just as simply and directly.  And he does not demand arduous rituals or sacrifices in order to facilitate the healing.  He simply heals.  He is the server who makes a reply to the master.  He adds only, “Your faith has saved you.”  The faith that increased each time he was told to be silent and he shouted anyway.  The faith that grew “the more” in the face of opposition and the temptation of others for him to give up.  This is precisely how faith grows, not so much in favorable times.  For those whose faith is weak, that is, faith that is not fought for, it may be snuffed out altogether by opposition: “For he that has, to him shall be given, and he shall abound: but he that has not, from him shall be taken away that also which he has” (Matthew 13, 12).  In adverse times such as these, when the leaders of the Church and of our society seem to flaunt the law of God with impunity, this is important to remember.

“He immediately received his sight and followed him, giving glory to God.”  We hope that when we open our eyes after death the first thing we see is the face of Jesus, and that was the case with this man.  And he is not leaving to celebrate his sight elsewhere.  He is where he needs to be, close to Jesus, giving glory to God.  “When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God.”  The people had been walking with Jesus to Jerusalem, but they had not been rejoicing.  The Lord used them to bring him the blind man, and he uses the newly sighted man to bring them to him.  It all works in God’s Providence.

Let us be patient in these days and ask the Lord to increase our faith.  If harder days come, we will be able to withstand them, with the help of God, and even to see our faith continually increase.  In this way we help others, too, or, God helps them through us.  There is a folksy saying that we may be the only Bible another person ever reads.  But we may also be the only Crucifix another person ever sees.