Today’s gospel was repeatedly the subject of preaching among the early Christian communities, because Christians saw in Bartimaeus the blind beggar their own picture. They realized how their coming to the faith had been a miracle worked by Jesus. Jesus gives to a Christian, spiritual eyesight, faith, in much the same way as he gave bodily eyesight to Bartimaeus. The Church invites us to reflect, as those early Christians did, on these three points: The pitiable situation of a person before coming to Christ. The great mercy Jesus displays giving us faith in himself, and the tremendous change that takes place in a Christian after accepting Christ.
A person without Christ is indeed a blind man. A man without Christ in his heart cannot see the Savior even when he passes close to him in the daily events of his life. A person without Christ in his heart cannot see God’s plans for him; he goes on in life aimlessly. A person without Christ in his heart is led further and further away from God. Greediness, ambition, pleasure, pull him in various directions.
Christ passes close to each one of us and invites us to come to him. There is a moment in the life of every person when Jesus comes to him. He comes in many ways and he comes with the express intention of saving and healing us. Happy are we if we acknowledge these things: our misery, our blindness and our own powerlessness and realize that it is only Jesus who can save us.
