An Instruction for the Thirty-First Sunday: An Explanation of the Mystical Meaning of the Gospel Narrative

The holy Fathers give a mystical interpretation to the event which the Gospel has now recounted. They see in the blind man who drew upon himself the attention and mercy of the God-man through urgent entreaty and cry, a figure of the sinful one praying, praying without ceasing and with weeping, obtaining through such prayer the forgiveness of sins and the renewal of the soul by Divine grace. All of us are sinners; all are in extreme need of God’s mercy. Sinners! Let us consider carefully how the sinner obtains God’s mercy through prayer.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Gospel recounts, was going out from the city of Jericho. His disciples followed Him and a great crowd. By the way, a blind man was sitting, asking alms of those who passed. Hearing the noise of the large crowd, he became curious about the cause of the gathering of people. He was told that Jesus was passing, that His presence had attracted this multitude. Then the blind man began to cry out loudly: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me”. Those walking ahead of the Lord tried to stop the blind man, ordering him to be silent; but he cried out even more loudly: “Son of David, have mercy on me”. The Lord stopped and commanded him to be brought to Him. The blind man was called. He threw off his cloak and came to the Lord. The Lord asked him: “What do you want from Me?” The blind man answered: “Lord! I want You to grant me sight.” The Lord said: “Recover your sight; your faith has saved you”. The blind man immediately regained his sight and followed Jesus, glorifying God (Lk 18:35-43; Mk 10:46-52).

In a spiritual sense, all sinners must be recognized as blind: they truly are blind. Sacred Scripture calls them blind (Mt 15:14); the facts themselves prove their blindness. The sight of sinners is so distorted and damaged by sin that it must be justly recognized and called blindness. This blindness is the blindness of the spirit. This blindness is all the more dangerous because it most of all recognizes and preaches itself as the most satisfactory, most excellent sight. The blind sinner does not see God, nor eternity, nor himself, nor the purpose for which man was created, nor death awaiting him and all men, inevitable for him and for no one of men. Wretched one! He acts from his blindness, acts for his own destruction, acts for what is merely vain and temporal, pursues only phantoms. And forgotten by him, death comes, snatches him from the scene of his activity, brings him before God’s judgment, about which he never thought, for which he never prepared. The beginning of the return to sight for the blindly sinning man is the recognition and confession of his blindness, the cessation of the activity accomplished under the guidance of this blindness.

Jericho was situated in a valley, cut by the Jordan River. The region occupied by the other Israelite cities was generally mountainous. The lowly position of Jericho represents our state of fall. The mystical blind man came out from Jericho. He ceased to participate in the activities with which the inhabitants of the city are occupied; he ceased to commit manifest sins by means of the body; he sat by the way, by which the Saviour and salvation travel; began to ask alms of those who passed, to live scantily on the meager donations. Those passing by are living vessels of the Holy Spirit, whom God sends into the world for the guidance of the world to salvation, throughout the whole life of the world (2 Pet 1:19). Those passing by are the teachings of the shepherds of the Church and the practitioners of piety, temporarily pilgriming on earth like all men; they guide the sinner at the beginning of his conversion; they feed his hungry soul with knowledge imparted by faith through hearing (Rom 10:17). The blind man, though he came out of the city, could not go far from it because of his blindness. He sat near the city gates; the city’s rumors reached his ear, troubled his heart, threw his mind into confusion. And so the blind sinner, when he abandons gross sins, cannot break his ties with sin, both as it lives within him and as it acts upon him from without. Even after his conversion, he remains near sin and in sin; sinful thoughts, fantasies, sensations do not cease to disturb his mind and heart. Those accompanying and assisting Christ—the prophets, apostles, and holy Fathers—announce to the blind man the nearness of the Saviour to him, because the blind man in his darkness cannot imagine that God is near him. It seems to him that God is far away, as if not existing at all. The blind man, instructed by God’s word that the omnipresent God is nearer to him than all objects of the visible and invisible world, takes courage, enters upon the ascetic struggle of prayer. He has entered the struggle; but his mind is sealed by carnal reasoning and, being material because of the impression of material things, cannot pray spiritually; his heart, infected with various attachments, is constantly drawn away from prayer by these attachments. The prayer of the blind man is crude, material, mixed with carnal and sinful thoughts and fantasies, defiled by them, cannot rise from the earth, creeps on the earth, casts itself down to the earth, the moment it makes an effort to rise from the earth. The blind man has no satisfactory understanding of God: such understanding is foreign to the carnal state; the prayer struggle of the blind man is still a bodily struggle. “Blind,” said the venerable Mark the Ascetic, “is he who cries and says: ‘Son of David! have mercy on me.’ He prays still bodily, has not yet acquired spiritual understanding.” He sits, alone, at the gates of Jericho.

On the field of prayer struggle, the practitioner encounters many and diverse obstacles. Their actions and power are based on the blindness of the practitioner. While the blind man was occupied with begging alms from those passing by, his position was that of one sitting. And even in his first cries, he remained in the sitting position. There is no yet true spiritual progress, no spiritual movement in one who is occupied with studying God’s word according to the letter and with bodily prayer. He continues to remain under the influence of sinful thoughts and sensations, under the influence of carnal reasoning; he continues to remain on the earth; ascent to heaven is impossible and unnatural for him. He struggles in prayer struggle as in a struggle foreign to him, compels himself to the struggle by force, draws himself to this struggle as to a bitterest enemy, to a merciless killer. This feeling, this pledge of the carnal man to prayer is inherent in him: prayer kills, it slaughters the old man in us, and the old man fears the slaughter, wishes to escape it, opposes it with all his strength. All around the practitioner stand fallen spirits: they have not withdrawn from him, because he has not received liberation from them, having submitted to them by the sinful life that preceded his conversion to God. They strive to keep him in slavery; they forbid him to pray; they threaten him, trouble him, take every measure to compel him to silence. They bring him unbelief, suggesting that his prayer will not be heard. They bring him despair, reminding him of the multitude of sins he has committed, vividly presenting them to his imagination and feeling, arousing their enjoyment in his soul and body. They plunder and destroy his prayer, bringing to mind various cares, presenting the necessity of immediate occupation with them. They produce dryness in the soul, despondency, so that the practitioner, seeing the fruitlessness of the struggle, may abandon it. They mock the struggle, deride it as fruitless and vain, because they tremble at its consequences. The practitioner of prayer, having given himself to the struggle of prayer far from the occupations of human society, will hear the infernal speech of demons. He will see his captivity, his chains, and his prison. “You have made us”,“ says the great practitioner of prayer, ”“the reproach of our neighbors, the derision and scorn of those around us. All day long my shame is before me, and confusion covers my face, at the sound of the one who taunts, before the enemy and the avenger” (Ps 43:14-17).

Here faith is needed: “your faith has saved you,” the Lord said to the blind man after healing him. Faith is needed for steadfastness in prayer struggle; persistence, patience, and long-suffering are needed; the rejection of false shame and insistence are needed, so that the struggle may bear its wondrous fruit. Initially, intense bodily struggle is needed: there are needed genuflections, which tire the body and humble the soul; there are needed prolonged standing and all-night vigils; there is needed oral prayer, loud prayer, prayer joined with weeping and crying, when we are alone in our cell and can weep and groan freely; there is needed silent prayer with the silent weeping of the heart, when we are in the company of men. Those forbade the blind man to cry out, and he cried out all the more; they commanded the blind man to be silent, and he cried out all the louder. Thus should we also act: we must overcome and trample all obstacles to prayer; we must disregard all obstacles and pray all the more zealously and diligently. If in your morning prayers your prayer was plundered by thoughts and fantasies, and you did not belong to yourself on account of the violence of the passions overwhelming you, then do not slacken, do not fall into despair. With renewed zeal stand at evening prayers, striving to attend to your prayer and gathering your scattered thoughts like the leader of Israel, who said to his soldiers: “Let us be courageous and strengthen ourselves for our people and for the cities of our God, and the Lord will do what seems good to him” (2 Sam 10:12). In prayer struggle, self-denial is necessary, entrusting our progress to the will of our God, who grants gracious prayer at the time known to Him to one who actively demonstrates by his own struggle his intention to have it (1 Sam 2:9). “I do not count my life of value” to myself, (Acts 20:24), says the Apostle; those deceived by pride and conceit consider themselves worthy of grace. If in the course of a year our progress in prayer, despite constant exercise in it, has turned out scant and insignificant, in the following year let us employ whatever efforts are in our power so that the progress bears fruit. If ten years have passed, if decades of years have passed, and we have not yet seen the desired fruit, let us strive to remain faithful to the struggle in the remaining days of our life. The treasure provided by the struggle is eternal; it is of immeasurable value; it is not at all strange that God’s Providence permits us toil, which at least somewhat corresponds to the reward that crowns it.

The main condition for progress in prayer is that prayer is always performed with the greatest reverence and attention. For this, not only the abandonment of sinful life is needed, but also the going out beyond the city, which especially represents the rejection of all cares and concerns during prayer. We achieve this when we lay upon the Lord everything that concerns us. To such surrendering to God, the holy Church invites us; often it remembers this surrender, saying: “Let us commit ourselves, one another, and our whole life to Christ God.” Supporting attentive prayer is the remembrance of God’s omnipresence and omniscience. If God is present everywhere, then He is present in the place of our prayer. If He sees all things, then He sees the disposition of our heart, the state of our mind. Standing in prayer, we stand before the face of God, before God’s judgment; we have the possibility to appease God by our prayer’s cry and lamentation. The remembrance of the unknown hour of death also stirs us to zealous, warmest prayers. We shall not err at all if each time we pray, we pray as if in the last hour of our life, as if in the hour of our approaching death. When the mind attends to prayer, the heart also attends to it, expressing and proving its attention by the feeling of repentance. For the easier achievement of the state of attention, the holy Fathers counsel to pray slowly, as if enclosing the mind in the words of prayer, so that no word escapes attention. A word that escapes—a lost word! A prayer that escapes attention—a lost prayer!

A mind that has not acquired the habit of attentiveness learns it with difficulty. This should not plunge the ascetic in prayer into despondency and confusion. “Instability,” says the holy John of the Ladder, “is characteristic of the mind”222 of fallen man—a mind corrupted by sin. “When your mind,” the great John continues to instruct the ascetic in prayer, “is drawn away from attentiveness because of its infancy, you must again lead it back into the words of prayer. Make this invisible struggle your own, and abide constantly in it. If you do so, then He who sets bounds to the sea will come to you and command your mind: ‘Thus far shall you come’ in your prayer, ‘and no farther, but within you shall your waves break’ (Job 38:11)223; your thoughts shall be gathered together in you.” Constant labour in acquiring attentiveness is an active testimony before God of our sincere desire to possess attentiveness. But to bind one’s spirit is impossible for man by his own efforts: for this is needed the commandment of the Most High Spirit, the Spirit who is Lord and Creator of our spirit. And the Spirit of God accomplishes this work. This is the One Sent, who is sent by the Son of God to the blind man sitting and crying out, who calls the blind man to Jesus (Jn. 16:7–14). The Spirit of God proclaims the Son of God (Jn. 16:14). The Spirit, overshadowing the servant of Christ, guides him “into all truth” (Jn. 16:13), and guides him into attentive prayer as well. The attentiveness of the mind in prayer is its complete striving toward Truth, its proper state and action; distraction, by contrast, is a state of self-deception, a sign that the mind is drawn toward the teaching of falsehood—through thoughts and imaginings brought to it by demons and arising from nature sick with sin. The state of profound, constant attentiveness in prayer comes from the touch of Divine grace upon our spirit. The bestowal of gracious attentiveness upon one who prays is God’s first spiritual gift224.

The blind man, hearing the call, is awakened, gladdened by this invitation; he rises, strips off his upper garment, and comes to stand before the Lord. “When the mind, by means of gracious attentiveness, is united with the soul,” say the Fathers, “then it is filled with ineffable sweetness and joy”225. Then begins the spiritual advancement of the ascetic in prayer; then, by the power and purity of prayer, he strives with all his being toward God; then all extraneous thoughts and imaginings depart and disappear, as the holy David said: “Depart from me, all you who do iniquity! For the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping; the Lord has heard my plea; the Lord accepts my prayer. Let all my enemies be ashamed and sorely troubled”—the rejected spirits—“let them turn back and be put to shame” (Ps. 6:9–11). By the casting off of the upper garment is signified the relinquishment of many and various external forms of prayer: they are replaced by prayer in the chamber of the soul, which embraces and gathers into itself all particular practices. Being a vast work, it absorbs and contains within itself the whole life of the ascetic. “There are many forms of virtue,” said the Venerable Nilus of Sora, “but they are particular; the prayer of the heart, however, is the source of all good: the soul is watered by it as a garden is by abundant waters”226. Pure prayer is the standing before the face of God. The one who stands before God seeks enlightenment and receives the gracious illumination of mind and heart. He enters into true knowledge of God and divine worship: he does not return to the former state of immobility at the gates of the city, but, joining the other disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, follows Him. He has both the possibility and the necessary capacity for such following. “Whoever prays with his lips,” says the holy Symeon the New Theologian, “but has not yet acquired spiritual understanding and cannot pray with his mind, is like the blind man who cried out: ‘Son of David, have mercy on me’. But whoever has acquired spiritual understanding and prays with his mind, whose soul’s eyes have been opened—he is like that same blind man after the Lord healed him, when his sight was restored and he, seeing the Lord, no longer called Him the Son of David but confessed Him as the Son of God and offered Him worship befitting God”227.

Faith is the foundation of prayer. Whoever believes in God as one ought to believe will certainly turn to God in prayer and will not cease from prayer until he receives God’s promises, until he is united to God, until he is joined with God. “Faith,” said the holy John of the Ladder, “is a standing of the soul unshaken by doubt, unmoved by any opposition. One is recognized as faithful not only if he confesses God to be almighty, but also if he believes that he will receive everything from Him. Faith is the mother of silence”228—both of the silence of the cell and of the silence of the heart. Believing that God unwearied watches over him, he places all his hope in Him, quiets his heart with hope, and through hope removes from himself all anxious care and gives himself entirely to the study of God’s will, revealed to mankind in Holy Scripture and revealed yet more abundantly through ascetic struggle. By faith in God the ascetic endures and overcomes all obstacles arising from our fallen nature and raised up by the spirits of malice—obstacles that seek to disturb his prayer and rob him of the means of communion with God. “Many a time have they fought against me from my youth; on my back they plowed, they made their plows run long” (Ps. 128:2–3). But I, strengthened and guided by faith, constantly “to You,” my Lord, “I have lifted my eyes,” my mind and heart. “Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he shows us mercy” (Ps. 122:1–2). Amen.

The Venerable Mark the Ascetic. On Spiritual Law, Chapters 13, 14; the Venerable Symeon the New Theologian. A Discourse on Faith. The Philokalia, Part 1

“We have the sure word of prophecy, and you do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts”

The third petition in the Short Litany

The Ladder, Homily 28

Drawn from the 28th Homily of the Ladder

Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopouli, Chapter 24. The Philokalia, Part 2

Nikiphoros the Monk. A Discourse on Watchfulness and Guarding of the Heart. The Philokalia, Part 2

Homily 2

A Discourse on Faith. The Philokalia, Part 1

The Ladder, Homily 27