Most of us, I am sure, wouId find it quite inconceivable that Christ's disciples, who by now had been following him closely or perhaps even living with him, who had heard his words and witnessed his miracIes, should remain so insensitive to human suffering as was the case with the episode we read about in today's Gospel.

As Jesus was on his way to Jericho accompanied by his disciples, a blind man named Bartimaeus was sitting by the wayside, begging. As the poor man became aware that Jesus, about whose kindness and healings he had already heard much, was passing by, he started crying out saying: "Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!" The disciples did not want to be bothered, and so they rebuked the man. But Jesus nonetheless stopped by.

At that moment Bartimaeus leapt to his feet and came to Jesus imploring him: "Lord, give me back my sight!" And Jesus' reply was unusually prompt: "Go home now, your faith has brought you recovery." We can hardly imagine what a joy must have filled the blind man when he opened his eyes for the first time, and the first thing he could see in all his life was the face of Jesus!

Should we have the courage to look deep enough into our own lives, we would probably discover that we ourselves are no less blind than Bartimaeus was. The latter was materially blind; we are often spiritually blind, with a blindness that is probably worse than that of the poor man we meet in today's Gospel narrative.

We are blind whenever we lack faith, which is spiritual vision. And if we are not altogether blind, we cannot hide the fact that so very often our spirituaI vision has been defective, blurred by our own sins and passions.

The object of our faith consists in the spiritual realities, in all that God has revealed to us in Jesus Christ: that God is our Father in heaven, that we are sinners and Jesus has freed us from our sins, that our ultimate destiny is God Himself in heaven, and that all men and women, the good and the bad ones, the rich and the poor, are truly our brothers and sisters in Christ, because we are all children of God.

Like the poor man in today's Gospel, we all need to be cured by Jesus, to be freed from our passions, from our excessive attachment to material things, from our pride and conceit.

We do not need, Iike Bartimaeus, to wait until the Lord passes by, because He is always near us, there at our disposal. All we have to do is to cross the bridge of faith and discover the presence of Jesus: He is there in the Blessed Sacrament, in Holy Scripture, but above all in those brothers and sisters of ours who need our help, our material or spiritual support, our love and care.

The blind man in today's Gospel was blind and knew it. Worse than him are all those, perhaps including ourselves, who are blind and do not know it or do not want to admit it. Only the Lord can cure this type of blindness and the right medicine against it is prayer, which awakens our faith and makes us aware that the Lord is near us and is there to help us.

In our spiritual blindness and shortsightedness we too want to wait for Jesus passing by to hear his assuring words: "Be healed; your faith has cured you!"

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