Homily: Wednesday 6th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: Gn 8:6-13, 20-22• Psalm 116 • Mk 8:22-26
----------------------
I can't speak for anyone else, but my conversion has been a long, often painful process, one that's still ongoing. It certainly wasn't instantaneous. I didn't have a Road to Damascus experience like St. Paul. 

But God does appear to me. He appears to me again and again. He does so through the others He sends into my life. Some are called and tell me so. Not long ago one person said to me, "I was praying and God told me to come to you about this." And it's usually something about which I haven't a clue. How do I deal with that? I don't. I just turn it over to God and ask Him what to do.

But most of those He sends me are just there. They appear in my life and they have a need. I'd like to say that I'm always ready to do what I can to help, but that would be a lie. Sometimes I turn away. Sometimes I make excuses. Sometimes I give a half-hearted response or send them to someone else. And, yes, sometimes I actually turn to God and ask for His help.

Faith for me has been a journey, a process, a long process, probably much longer than the Lord would like. And I suspect that's true for most people.

This is one reason why the saints sometimes discourage me more than they encourage me. Their holiness just seems impossible to imitate. Examining their lives we see what we are called to become, but we don't really see how to get there. That's why I like it when I come across one of those slightly more scruffy saints. You know what I mean, a saint with a past, one who led a sinful life before responding to God's grace.

St. Augustine is the first to come to mind. For a good part of his life he was far from saintly, but he went on to become one of the greatest saints in the early Church. Saints like Augustine give us hope and a glimpse of the mercy of God. They show us a loving God working patiently on intractable material. They show us the path, not just the destination.

Our readings give us a glimpse of the same thing. Several of the early Church fathers describe the passage in today's first reading as a process of worldwide purification or conversion. Noah and his family were brought to a safe haven because they obeyed God's will; they found salvation through a process that took both time, effort, and total trust.

Now this becomes even more apparent in the Gospel passage we just heard. Mark tells only two stories of Jesus restoring the sight of blind men. The first is the blind man in today's reading; the other is Bartimaeus [See Mk 10:46-52].

I've always thought that Mark wants us to see these two blind men as metaphors for the Christian community.  The man from Bethsaida in today's reading stands for the condition of most Christians, while Bartimaeus stands for where Mark would like us to be.

He Laid His Hands on Him

The man from Bethsaida comes across as hard to convert. At first he's only half-healed by Jesus. Compare him to Bartimaeus, who jumps up, runs to Jesus when called, and is healed instantly.

And yet, I find myself more sympathetic to the slow healer, the reluctant blind man who regains his sight slowly over time. Notice what Jesus does with him. First He pulls him away from the others, the skeptics, the curious, from those who might hinder his journey to faith. He needs to be alone with Jesus, up-close-and-personal with God.

Jesus leads him outside the village, for in the village - the place he came from - there is blindness, spiritual blindness. Jesus then begins the cure using what is almost a sacramental rite. He puts spittle on the man's eyes and lays his hands on him. And just as sacramental grace acts in our hearts and souls, the man's sight is then restored in stages as he responds to Jesus' healing touch. Jesus lays hands on the man twice with Mark recording this remarkable miracle in three short phrases: He looked intently and was restored, and saw everything clearly.

Jesus Alone with the Blind Man

Yes, brothers and sisters, that's what true conversion does: it lets us see everything clearly. And because conversion never ceases, Jesus sent him home with a warning to avoid the village, the place of spiritual blindness, the home of those who thrive only in darkness.

St. Jerome in the Desert (Da Vinci)

St. Jerome, the great Scriptural scholar and Father of the Early Church, explains the spiritual significance of this healing for us:  

"Christ laid his hands upon his eyes that he might see all things clearly, so through visible things he might understand things invisible, which the eye has not seen, that after the film of sin is removed, he might clearly behold the state of his soul with the eye of a clean heart."

We are, then, left to consider the spiritual blindness in our own lives, the blindness that obstructs our vision preventing us from following Jesus. What's keeping you and me from being the true disciple Jesus seeks?

Allow the Lord to lay hands on you, to touch you with his grace and power that you may walk in the light of his redeeming truth and love.