Homily: Friday of the 1st Week of Advent - Healing of Spiritual Blindness

During the Advent Season daylight is seen less and less, the darkness comes earlier, the weather grows colder.  Remember back in summer—the long wonderful days of summer, sunlight until 9pm, the warmth?

As we near Christmas the days get darker and darker, the Christians Church calls to mind the promises of God’s light.  We wait for, and watch for “the dawn from on high to break upon us”, we watching for the coming of the Lord, the coming of the Messiah, and Isaiah foretells of there being so much light that “out of the gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind will see”. 

Without God humanity walks in blindness. And in the Gospels, one of Jesus’ most oft repeated miracles was the healing of the blind. 

Yet, the Messiah heals something far worse than physical blindness: spiritual blindness is far, far worse. 

To not have the light of God in one’s life, is far worse than being physically blind.  In our current age, we see in every dimension of society men and women going through life, raising their families as if God did not exist.  They do not know his promises, they do not recognize his presence, they do not walk in his truth.

Spiritual blindness is truly an epidemic—its symptoms are the erosion of the moral fabric of families and cultures, the corruption of children, the neglect of the poor among us.

The blind men in today’s Gospel are wonderful examples of faith.  In a way, though they were physically blindness, they could already see better than most.  They had heard the promises of God—that David’s heir would come bringing true healing, true peace.

Without physical sight, they recognized Jesus to be the Messiah and cried out, “Son of David, have pity on us.”   “Have pity on us.”  They recognized their blindness, they recognized their need for healing, and they recognized that they cannot heal themselves.

During Advent we say to God, like those blind men, “have pity on us.”  Bring us light, bring us healing, “come, that we may see you”.   Jesus proclaims in the beatitudes, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”  This Advent, may we be purified of all that keeps us from seeing God.  May we be healed of our spiritual blindnesses, that we may bear the light of Christ to all those we meet, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.