Eyes Have They But See Not

There are many different kinds of blindness.  Not all blind people see nothing at all.  Many are able to detect light to some extent.  Even more common are people suffering from macular degeneration, glaucoma, cataracts or other form of blindness.  Some of these impairments can be healed or improved through surgery or less intrusive medical care like eye drops or special exercises for the eyes.  For most people whose eyesight is not what it should be, glasses or contact lenses do the job of rectifying any deficiencies.

Back in our Lord’s day there was nothing much that could be done.  Corrective lenses had not been invented and medical science scarcely existed.  The gentleman in today’s Gospel is described simply as being blind.  Was he totally or only partially blind?  He had to ask what was going on when he heard the multitude pass by.  He could not even see our Lord being followed by the crowds.  He then went to a great deal of trouble begging our Lord for mercy.  And when our Lord asked him what he wanted, he replied: “Lord, that I may receive my sight.”  Not that his sight would be improved, but that it would be restored completely, something that medical science even today could not do.  The point of all this is to be found in the words of our Lord: “Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee.”

The blind man had faith in our Lord.  If he didn’t believe in him, he wouldn’t have bothered asking him for something which would normally be impossible.  A blind man today would not go the doctor’s office and beg him to restore his sight.  He would know it could not be done.  He can ask for all the treatment, surgery, glasses and eyedrops the doctor has, but he knows it’s a waste of time to ask him for a miracle.  Our blind man in the Gospel has faith in our blessed Lord, and knows that he is quite capable of performing a miracle and restoring his sight.  And so he asks.

There’s another kind of blindness, unfortunately.  Psalm 113 describes the pagan idols thus: “They have mouths, and speak not; eyes have they, and see not.”  How many men and women do we know who resemble these godless, faithless idols?  There are so many who have eyes but see not.  These are the blind of this world, those who suffer from a far worse kind of blindness than the kind that prevents their physical eyes from doing their job of translating the world around them into images.  The spiritually blind might see things around them, but distort what they see into their own version of reality.

For them, truth is whatever they want to believe.  There is no objective reality such as what we see with our own eyes.  They might see what we see, but they then translate it into what they want it to be.  Think about it, there are so very many examples.  What we see as an unborn baby murdered in the womb, they see as the removal of some unwanted tissue.  When we look to Rome, we see a corrupt man masquerading as the pope, doing his best to destroy the Catholic Church.  They see a humble saint, doing away with the irrelevant trappings of an outdated religion.

Pontius Pilate asked our Lord the question, “What is truth?”  It’s a question our Lord had answered elsewhere when he said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  Christ, the Son of God, is the Truth. As such, truth has many of the properties of God.  That includes being eternal and unchangeable.  It does not alter its form or structure depending on a person’s opinion.  It is what it is, just as God said to Moses in the burning bush, “I am that I am.”  Those who deny this are blind.  They refuse to see the world around them as the creation of God, they refuse to accept a moral law that is given to us and enforced by God.  And in the case of the Apostles, they were blind too.  Look at today’s Gospel where they simply do not understand the words that our blessed Lord tells them.  “All things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished.  For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: and they shall scourge him and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again.”  Lent hasn’t even started yet, and our Lord is telling the Apostles what is going to happen.  But they don’t take it in.  “Eyes have they, but see not.  They have ears, and hear not.”  They are blind and deaf to the truth, even the truth coming from the mouth of him who is the Truth itself.

As St. Paul mentions in today’s Epistle, “now we see through a glass, darkly.”  Certainly, that’s what the Apostles were doing.  They heard our Lord’s words, but, as the Gospel explains, “they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.”  They were like the people today who see dozens of genders when there are only two, who see popes where there are no popes, goodness in evil, and evil where there is good.

What does it take to heal this blindness?  It is a far greater miracle our Lord performs when he restores sight to those who have eyes but see not.  Only with the wisdom of God can such a miracle be performed without trampling on a man’s free will.  He did it in the case of St. Paul, knocking him from his horse and appearing to him, causing the wicked persecutor of Christians to convert voluntarily.  He did it again with the apostles, not in their case with a single spectacular event, but over the duration of his ministry as he performed one miracle after another.  In today’s Gospel, no sooner had he described his upcoming arrest, passion and death to their deaf ears and blind eyes than he proved to them that he was the Messiah by healing the blind man.  They saw him heal the blind man, and still they did not see the truth in what he had told them about his death.  They heard him tell the blind man that it was his faith that had healed him, and still they did not fully possess that faith themselves.  It isn’t that they were incapable of having that faith, of being healed of their own blindness.  It just shows that sometimes it takes time for the faith to sink in so the blind may finally see.

To wrap up what we’ve witnessed in today’s readings, we should ask ourselves if we, like the apostles, still see through a glass, darkly.  Are we quite clear in our understanding of what the faith teaches us?  Of what the moral law demands of us?  Do we understand the real reasons we are here today and not at the Novus Ordo church in our own neighborhood?  And do we see what kind of patience and perseverance is required from us to attract our neighbor away from the blindness of his ways and his inability to see the state of his soul?  It is faith that will help us with all these duties towards ourselves and our neighbors, and it’s hope in our salvation that keeps us going.  But above all, above even that faith and that hope, as St. Paul says, we must have charity.  Because even if we have all faith, so that we could remove mountains, but have not charity, we are nothing. Let’s remember that as we enter the holy season of Lent.