A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark
Putting spittle on his eyes Jesus laid his hands on the man and asked, “Do you see anything?” Looking up the man replied, “I see people looking like trees and walking.”
The people in Bethsaida bring to Jesus a blind man and beg Jesus to touch him. Jesus leads him outside the village to cure him. At first, the man sees only indistinctly. Then Jesus lays hands on the man’s eyes a second time, and he sees clearly. What did Jesus see in the people of the village? Were they coercing him into performing a miracle? And why did the man see only partially the first time Jesus laid hands on the man? Partial faith, partial sight. In the first reading from Genesis, Noah receive partial answers as he sends out birds to see if the floodwaters are receding. In both readings, what is partial becomes whole as Noah sees the fullness of God’s mercy and the blind man sees distinctly. Jesus sends the man home and tells him not to return to the village. It may be that to return to the village was to return to a place of little faith.
Thank you, God, for meeting me where I am at those times when my faith is less than complete. You constantly send forth your Spirit through your Son to strengthen me in unending love. As the Responsorial Psalm says, “May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we may know what is the hope that belongs to his call.”
Be patient with me, God, in the little faith I have. Just as you are patient with me, let me be at peace in you when I meet others today who seem to lack conviction in what is true and good and beautiful.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.