by Fr. Gabriel (Hieromonk) –
“Having the eyes of my soul blinded, I come to Thee, O Christ, like the man blind from birth, and with repentance I cry to Thee: Thou art the bright Light of those in darkness.”
Sadly, it is no coincidence that the wisest and most learned men in the Gospels were precisely those whose hearts were more blind than any. Immediately after today’s Gospel passage, the Lord said: “For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.” Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, “Are we blind also?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.” (John 9:39-41).
Truly, how terrible is such blindness: the blindness which convinces itself that it is, in fact, the most perfect sight. How much such blindness there is among the learned scientists and scholars of the modern age, who have enough knowledge and enough information to routinely perform “miracles” the likes of which the world has never seen, yet who have not enough wisdom to understand even the first thing about the true miracles of life — and who even dare to deride such wisdom and such miracles as nothing more than foolishness.
But, my brothers and sisters, here we must be exceedingly careful. Without any doubt, pagan Rome was just as blind as pagan modernity — yet it was by no means the Romans for whom Christ reserved His harshest rebukes (in point of fact, He barely mentioned them at all). Yet how many times, and with how much vehemence, did He denounce the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the scribes! It was not those blinded by earthly knowledge whose souls He declared to be in the gravest danger, but those blinded by their own supposed spiritual knowledge.
And today, my dear brothers and sisters, Christ’s divine warnings ought to ring out loudest of all in your ears and in mine: in the ears of all Orthodox Christians, and especially in the ears of us monks and us priests. For truly, “to whom much is given, from him much will be required” (Luke 12:48). It is to us that all the riches of Orthodoxy have been given; it is to us that the gates of Heaven have been thrown open wide.
But are we, in fact, actually choosing to walk through those gates? Are we truly availing ourselves of such infinite treasuries of grace? Or do we pay mere lip services to these truths and treasures, acknowledging and claiming them for our own outwardly, yet in our heart of hearts forsaking them each day in favor of the cares and desires of this vain and transitory life?
Or worse yet: do we take up the spiritual treasures we have been given, only to use them to bludgeon one another in the head, through our judgment and condemnation and pride? If so, then truly we are hypocrites indeed, and find ourselves in a state far more unenviable even that that of the Pharisees: for though we have seen with our eyes and confess with our lips the risen Lord Christ, yet we have not seen fit to give Him the highest place in our hearts. And what form of blindness could possibly be worse than this?
But even so, the mercy and the healing grace of God are never far from any of us. The waters of repentance are always close at hand to wash away even our most grievous sins, just as Christ used the waters of Siloam to wash away an entire lifetime of blindness in today’s Gospel story. And truly, today’s Gospel assures us beyond any doubt that there is no form of blindness which is any obstacle at all to seeing God: in the end, only our own stubborn refusal can possibly prevent Him from opening our eyes to all the fullness of His divine glory.
So let none of us by any means despair. Rather, let us humbly acknowledge all our past blindness and error and sin, and let us then press forward, entrusting ourselves — with sincere repentance and heartfelt faith — to the infinite mercies of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, for truly: “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:4).
And let us call out to Him with our whole hearts in the words of the kontakion of today’s feast: “Having the eyes of my soul blinded, I come to Thee, O Christ, like the man blind from birth, and with repentance I cry to Thee: Thou art the bright Light of those in darkness.”
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Excerpts from Are We Blind Also? sermon. (Minor organizational edits to optimize readability and emphasize key points made by Chris Banescu. Also used NKJV for Scriptural references..)
