Translation of the Holy Gospel According to Luke (18:31-43)
At that time Jesus took unto Him the twelve and said to them: Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things shall be accomplished which were written by the Prophets concerning the Son of Man. For He shall be delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked and scourged and spit upon: and after they have scourged Him, they will put Him to death, and the third day He shall rise again. And they understood none of these things, and the word was hid from them, and they understood not the things that were said. Now it came to pass, when He drew nigh to Jericho, that a certain blind man sat by the wayside begging. And when he heard the multitude passing by, he asked what this meant. And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried out, saying: Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And they that went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace. But he cried out much more: Son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus standing, commanded him to brought unto him. And when he was come near, He asked him, saying: What wilt thou that I do to thee? But he said: Lord, that I may see. And Jesus said to him: Receive thy sight, thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he saw and followed Him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.
From St. Anthony of Padua’s Sermons: Quinquagesima
Passing over all the other blind men who had their sight restored, we will mention only three. The first is the man in the Gospel, blind from birth, whose sight was restored with mud and spittle. The second is Tobias, blinded by the swallow’s dung, but cured by the fish’s gall. The third is the Bishop of Laodicea, to whom the Lord says in the Apocalypse:
Thou knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold, fire-tried, that thou mayest be made rich and mayest be clothed in white garments; and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear. And anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see (Rev 3:17-18).
We shall explore the meaning of [the first of] these.
The man blind from birth is the human race, blinded by our first parents. Taking this story allegorically, Jesus enlightened the blind man when he spat on the ground and spread mud on his eyes. Spittle (coming from the head) represents the divine nature; earth is human nature. The mixture of spittle and dust is the union of the divine and human natures, by which the whole human race was restored to light. This is also the meaning of the blind man’s words as he sat by the way-side and cried out, Have mercy on me, (referring to the divinity), Son of David, (referring to his humanity).
Morally. The blind man stands for the proud man, whose pride is described like this by the prophet Obadiah:
Though thou be exalted as an eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars: thee will I bring down, says the Lord (Oba 1:4).
The eagle, which flies higher than any other bird, represents the proud man, who seeks to seem higher than everyone else, by the two wings of arrogance and vainglory. To him is said, If among the stars (that is, among the saints who in this dark world shine like stars in the firmament) you set your place (your life), Thence I will bring you down, says the Lord. The proud man tries to establish the nest of his life in the company of the saints; which is why Job says:
The wing of the ostrich is like the wings of the heron and of the hawk (Job 39,13).
The ostrich is the hypocrite, the hawk the just man. A nest has three characteristics: it is lined with soft material inside, but it is hard and prickly outside, and it is set precariously, exposed to the wind. In the same way the life of the proud man has a certain inner softness, sensual pleasure; but outwardly it is all girt about with the thorns and dry sticks of dead works. Moreover, it is exposed to the wind of vanity, and set precariously, for the man does not know from evening to morning when he will be taken from the midst of it. So these words follow: Thence I will bring you down. I will pull you out of it and thrust you to the depths, says the Lord; and in the Apocalypse he says:
As much as she hath glorified herself and lived in delicacies, so much torment and sorrow give ye to her (Rev 18:7).
Note that the blind, proud man is enlightened by spittle and mud. The spittle stands for his father’s seed, which was emitted into the sorrowful frame of his mother, wherein the wretched man was conceived. Pride would not have blinded him if he had but paid attention to the lowly circumstances of his origin. Isaiah says:
Look unto the rock whence you are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you are dug out. (Isa 51:1)
We may regard ‘the rock’ as a reference to our father according to the flesh; while ‘the hole of the pit’ refers to our mother’s body. From him we are hewn out in the effusion of seed; from her we are dug out in the pain of child-birth. What is there to be proud of, wretched man, begotten from vile spittle and created in an abhorrent pit, where for nine months you were nourished with the blood of menstruation?… If only you would attentively ponder these things, wretched man, proud blind man, and remember that you are born of ‘spittle and mud’, in very truth you would be enlightened, and you would become truly humble.
And to confirm the foregoing interpretation of Isaiah, that it is a reference to carnal generation, the following verse makes it clear:
Look unto Abraham your father and to Sarah that bare you
The Lord tells the proud blind man to Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and out of thy father’s house (Gen 12:1).
There are three sorts of pride: towards inferiors, towards equals and towards superiors. The proud man treads underfoot, despises and mocks. He treads on his inferiors as on the ground (indeed, he ‘grinds them down’). He despises his equals (“familiarity breeds contempt”) and has no difficulty in looking down on those close to him. He even mocks his superior, whom he should respect as his father. The superior may well be termed ‘his father’s house’, because he should be subject to him as a son in the paternal home.
Here there is shelter from the rain of carnal lust, the storm of devilish persecution and the heat of worldly prosperity. But the blind, proud man turns up his nose and pulls a face at his superior; so the Lord says “Go out, O proud blind man! Go out from your country, lest you tread on your inferior. Go out from your kindred, lest you despise your equals. Go out from your father’s house, lest you mock your superior.”
There follows: And go into the land which I will show you. This land is the humanity of Jesus Christ, of which the Lord is speaking when he tells Moses, in Exodus,
Put off the shoes from thy feet: for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground (Exo 3:5).
The shoes are dead works, which you must put off your feet (the affections of your mind) because the ground (the humanity of Jesus Christ on which you stand by faith) is holy and sanctifies you, sinner that you are. Go then, proud man, go into the land. Consider the humanity of Christ, attend to his humility, repress the swelling of your heart. Go, I say, with steps of love. Draw near in humbleness of heart and say with the prophet,
In thy truth thou hast humbled me (Psa 118:75).
O Father, in your Truth (that is to say, in your Son, humbled, needy and homeless) you have humbled me. He was humbled in the womb of the Virgin, needy in the manger of the sheep, and homeless on the wood of the Cross. Nothing so humbles the proud sinner as the humility of Jesus Christ’s humanity. So Isaiah says:
O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and wouldst come down. The mountains would melt away at thy presence (Isa 64:1).
The mountains of pride melt away and fail before your face, present in the humanity of Jesus Christ, considering the head of divinity bowed down in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
Go into the land which I have pointed out to you as with a finger at the River Jordan, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matt 3:17). You too will be my beloved in whom I am well pleased, my son adopted by grace, if only you will be humbled by the example of my co-equal Son, whom I will show you in such a way that from the shape of his life you may shape the conduct of your own life. So shaped, you will receive life and be enabled to hear the words, Receive your sight; your faith has saved you. Your faith has enlightened you.