[00:00] Jesus leaving Jericho, Jericho, the sort of symbol of the Gentiles, bad way of life, darkness. Going towards Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. So

[00:39] Jesus is traveling with a huge, a huge crowd, His disciples, but also people going to Jerusalem for the feast. So it's this gigantic crowd, you know, going down this sort of rocky path, rocky road, and on the side of the road is this blind man sitting down, I guess, sitting down, sat by the roadside begging, blind, can't

[01:15] see, whether he's blind from birth, it's not indicated, but the son of Timaeus, Bar Timaeus. And so they know his name, so he must have become a follower, a significant follower of Jesus afterwards, after his healing. So he's there begging, but apparently he has very great faith, he's got a lot of faith, and he finds out, he hears some commotion,

[01:46] huge commotion, giant crowd, you know, what's going on, something different than just a regular crowd going to the feast, what is going on, people are talking and talking and gossiping about, not gossip, but talking about Jesus, and this new prophet is on the way, and he hears that he's Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus of Nazareth? Nazareth is a nothing town in Jesus from there, so he could have been tempted to think he's nothing special from

[02:23] a backward town, but he believes he's heard enough about Jesus to know that he's a good man, a very good man, a really good man, a prophet even, and more than that, the Messiah. He believes, and he calls Him Jesus, he uses that great name Jesus, the powerful name of Jesus he knows, he calls Him by name Jesus, Son of David, which means heir to the throne

[03:00] of David, heir to the throne of David and Messiah, Son of David, and then he says, "Have pity on me, have pity on me, well what can I do, have pity on me," he has such great faith, he believes that Jesus can heal him, heal him from blindness, that is just the most unbelievable miracle, to be healed from blindness, from seeing nothing, to being able to see

[03:31] with your eyes, that's an amazing thing, but he believes that it can happen through this man, Jesus, the humble Jesus from Nazareth, who is, he believes, the great man, the Messiah, the Son of David, heir to the throne, a king, a king, he believes, and many rebuked him, he cried out, he must have shouted from the top of his lungs, this is my only chance,

[04:02] my only chance to maybe be freed from this infirmity, he cried out, I don't know what the word means, cry out, but it certainly means some kind of shouting, is he screaming, but he's crying out probably more than once, "Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me," and many rebuked him, telling him to be silent, and that was all he needed to hear, to keep going, to keep crying out, and you know, our Lord seems to bless those who are fighters,

[04:41] those who really strive hard through opposition to get the good, to do the good, and to serve God, and to fight, to fight the wrong on the way to God, He seems to really bless that, you might think, you know, people are fighting, you know, with our humanity, there's anger involved, and there's, you know, gritting your teeth, or scrunching your face, or getting

[05:14] angry, and yet, if it's for the good, God seems to bless that, seems to bless the effort of fighting for God, defending God, I think we need to be mindful of that in our practice of our Christian life, many rebuked him, telling him to be silent, but he kept calling out all the more, that motivated him to do it even more, "Son of David, there you go, Son

[05:46] of David, the King, the Messiah to come, have pity on me, I believe that you can heal me," Jesus stopped, that's all he needed, you know, our Lord is always calling us when we're asking for things, we really have to struggle, very often we need to struggle, our Lord is looking for that effort, that struggle, that fight, that yearning and desire for what we are asking for from God, so he had to struggle like so many others in the Gospels in our own life,

[06:22] Jesus stopped and said, "Call him, I'm going to reward him, call him," so they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take courage, wait a second, take courage, you're telling me to take courage and I'm the one that has been fighting against you, I already have the courage, where's yours," he didn't need to be told, "Take courage, get up, Jesus is calling you," so he didn't need them to tell him that, he sprang up on his own, threw away his cloak and came to Jesus, threw away his cloak, sort of symbolizing, throwing away

[06:59] the world, my former life, I'm coming to Jesus, who will enlighten me, who will give me my sight, he sprang up quickly with that great faith, you know, no hesitation, quickness, speed to God, to doing God's will, to wanting what God offers us, speed is a symbol of what we need to do, going to God, be fast, jump up, no hesitation, come and he came to Jesus,

[07:37] Jesus said to him in reply, "What do you want me to do for you," you've already demonstrated that you have great faith, you've called me the Messiah, King of Israel, you've already fought for me and fought for what I want to give to you, the good that I want to give, "What do you want me to do for you? I want to see, Master, you are the prophet, the good man, the humble man, the Messiah, the prophet, the Son of God, the Son of David, and also

[08:10] you are the Master, my Master, who will teach me and lead me, Master, I want to see." Jesus said, told him, "Go your way, your faith has saved you," you've already demonstrated a great faith, go your way, you have what you wanted right away, immediately, you didn't have to test him anymore, go your way, go your way, well my way is your way, Jesus, you are the

[08:41] way to heaven, to God, to holiness, to see God, to vision, to spiritual sight, go your way, he says, and then he follows Jesus on His way, immediately, he received his sight and followed Him on the way, on the way, followed Jesus all the way, all during our life to follow Jesus, and this is a symbol of the spiritual sight that we are called to have,

[09:16] the physical world is a veil, it's a veil to the spiritual world, and the Eucharist is really that quintessential example of the veil hiding, the physical veil hiding the spiritual world, God, God in His ways, in His enlightenment through the Holy Spirit,

[09:49] all those intellectual, spiritual sight of the wisdom and knowledge of God through the world and understanding His ways, understanding His truths, and seeing God, especially what He is like, what He's really like, and what He does for us, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we really want and need counsel to know what we should do, what is God's will, sight,

[10:20] the intellectual gifts of the Holy Spirit, and this man was on his way, our Lord was giving him some of the Holy Spirit to see, to see his way, the way of Jesus, the way of God, and so we are on the way to God, and we need to see the physical world and everything that happens to us as a veil to the hand of God, the finger of God, the will of God in our life.