The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

"Lord that I may see." These words are very profound for us especially today. The apostles in the Gospel today were told by Christ exactly what was going to happen to Him in Jerusalem, yet they could not understand (see) it.

This blind man gives us the example of what we should do. We must cry out to God no matter what the world says to us. We must beg of Him the wonderful gift of sight. Not so much the sight of the eyes so that we can perceive His created physical world but even more so the spiritual world and what is of benefit for our eternal life.

Spiritual blindness is much more dangerous to us than physical blindness could ever be. There are all too many who have eyes but cannot see. Physical blindness may allow us to fall into many physically dangerous things and may hamper us from making the progress that we would like, but if one is humble and acknowledges his defect he can find ways to work around it. And this affects only his body. The spiritually blind however, will not acknowledge their blindness and their darkness they take for light and so they do not look for any assistance. And this affects their eternal life.

There may be little that we can do to correct physical blindness but there is much that we can do to correct spiritual blindness. It is truly a matter of the will. Both to avoid and to correct spiritual blindness it is necessary to develop true humility. We must strive constantly to know ourselves as God knows us (This is the only true knowledge there is.). Once we know ourselves then we realize our own nothingness. We realize that everything that we have, and everything that we are, is from God. In this knowledge of ourselves we most naturally call out to God "Lord, that I may see." We see and know ourselves to be weak and in need of help, so we cry out for this help.

And more often than not, our cries are met with a reproach by the world. We are told that it is not important. That it is not worth the time we are spending on it. There are greater and more profitable things to concern ourselves with. But, what could be more important than securing our eternal salvation? "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?" Everything else is secondary. Only our salvation is important.

We must truly humble ourselves and call out to God for the grace to see and strength to practice the true faith. Let us not just blindly put our trust in those who would feign leading us to the eternal truths. For then we have the blind leading the blind and they all fall into the depths of Hell. What we need are the eyes to see the true shepherd and leaders established by God. And then we need the grace to see and to follow them to the gates of eternal happiness.

Not all are competent guides, but only those who have been appointed by God. Only in the True Mystical Body of Christ will we find those guides to follow. If we attempt to find it ourselves we are truly the blind leading the blind. If we trust in some pagan religion or philosophy we are sure to be led only to the gates of Hell. If we follow the many Protestant sects that have broken away from the Church we only have the illusion of following Christ and this requires not just the closing of one eye but blindly closing both eyes to accomplish this journey. If we follow the modernist Novus Ordo religion you might say that we must close at least one eye and be partially blind. This sect provides a concatenation of true and false that maintains the majority because they will not humble themselves enough to see the truth that the new is not the same as the old; that the false is not the same as the true. As we progress from one extreme to the other; from the pagans and liberal "Christians" we finally arrive at the other extreme of the "Traditionalist" sects. In these we find an even more absurd blindness of those who will lead themselves; or follow those whom they acknowledge to be heretics, or they follow those whom they acknowledge have no authority (jurisdiction) to lead.

None of these appear capable of seeing their own folly and truly must be pitied for their blindness. There are none so blind as those who will not see. Let us make sure to humbly cling steadfastly to the true Church and those who have the commission from God to lead us to Heaven by the safe and sure path of the true Sacraments in the Mystical Body of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church.

Franciscan Benefactor Seraph Subscription Vocations Have you remembered God?