The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friends,

We are all sinners and therefore we are spiritually like the blind man in today's Gospel. The blind man lacked the physical light of this world; the sinner lacks the spiritual light of Heaven. In this world Jesus Christ is passing by. Most everyone around us strives to have us remain quiet and in spiritual darkness. In such situations Jesus continues on — passing by. What we are to learn from the blind man in the Gospel is that we must cry out for Him. We must not remain spiritually blind, nor spiritually mute. If we cry out for Him, He will stop and stand still. Then, we can come to Him and He will heal us.

If we are blind we must then call out with our voices. If we are mute, then we should watch for Him with our eyes, and listen for Him with our ears. In whatever spiritual faculty we have working we must call out to Him so that we may be healed. Many will try to stop us or silence us. We must not pay any attention to these. We must become blind or deaf to these suggestions from all around us.

Those who call out to Jesus and stop Him are often looked upon as strange or different. It is difficult to stand out spiritually but, it is necessary for the health of our souls. We must stand out, not through pride or vanity, but in humility and virtue. The more the world and those around us try to stop us from calling out to Jesus in our lives, the greater our efforts should be. We must often stand alone to be counted with Jesus. Jesus was despised and abandoned for us, and it appears that we must be willing to do the same for Him.

We must stand up and be counted. We must work and pray. We must sacrifice and do penance. We must do all this while the world tells us to be silent and to be still in spiritual darkness. We were not made for darkness, but we were made for The Light. We must cry out ever louder and louder in our spiritual works or exercises — no matter what others may say or do. With the Apostles we may say that it is better to obey God rather than man.

God has instructed us to call out in our darkness so that we may obtain the Light. Seek and you shall find. Ask and it shall be given to you. We must be careful not to become lazy or indifferent in our prayers, because Jesus will just pass us by. We must watch out for the good people of this world that suggest to us that it is not necessary for us to pray and do penance or to ask anything of Jesus. They suggest to us that God is too busy to deal with our petty problems; or that we are not good enough to even pray to Him. They may suggest that God already knows what we need and so there is no point in crying out to Him. The blind man in the Gospel today tells us to turn a deaf ear to these suggestions and cry out all the louder to Jesus.

We should use all that is in our power to prevent Jesus from just passing by us. We must call out to Him, beg Him, plead with Him to stop and hear our prayers — to have pity upon us. He does already know our wants and needs, but He requires us to ask and to pray. We must humble ourselves turning our unworthy hearts meekly to Him for His mercy. He will not force His grace upon us, but will only shower graces where they are truly desired and asked for. It is in this manner that God honors His own gift of our free wills.

Once we have stopped Jesus and He showers us with His graces, we must seek to hold on to Him. We must not return to darkness once we have received the Light. He (the Light) must remain within us forever — we should never let Him go.

With the blind man we must give thanks to God and become living testimonies of Him. His Light that now lives within us will of necessity shine forth from us and hopefully, attract many other souls to Himself. This is not a light that we have of ourselves that others see, hear, or follow. It is, rather, God living in us, or shining through us. With Saint Paul we should understand that it is not us, but it is God's grace in us. It is no longer us, but Christ Jesus living within us.

We are to cry out boldly in opposition to the world, yet we are to ever remain humble and meek — knowing our own lowliness and unworthiness. All that may be good within us belongs to God as well as the honor and praise for any good that is in us.

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