Homily For Wednesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time Year A, 15 February, 2023

Readings: James Gen. 8:6-13.20-22; Ps. 116; Mark: 8:22-26

Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.

 

SOME HEALING REQUIRES A CHANGE OF ENVIRONMENT

 

Blindness is one of the most difficult human deformities, that deprives one the ability to exercise some of the characteristics of human person. So anyone suffering from such deformity constantly look forward on a day when he or she will be restored. This is the case with the blind man in our Gospel passage today who some people brought to Jesus and begged him to touch him.

 

Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. Then putting spittle on his eyes and laying his hands on him, he asked, ‘Can you see anything?’ The man, who was beginning to see, replied, ‘I can see people; they look like trees to me, but they are walking about.’ Then he laid his hands on the man’s eyes again and he saw clearly; he was cured, and he could see everything plainly and distinctly.

 

Here we see the compassionate love of Jesus in it’s historical and physical solidarity with human suffering, which springs from the love of God the Father and constitutes the basis of the Church’s liberating activity which is rooted in our faith in God. In this miracle Jesus did something quite different from his usual ways of healing, he began by separating him from his present environment and then put spittle on his eyes and the healing took place gradually. After the healing was completed, Jesus asked him not to return to the village from which he came.

 

This is very significant because oftentimes our problem and cause and compounded by our present environment. So, for significant change to occur we need to be separated from our present environment. So Jesus is using this opportunity to teach us in order to lead us out of our present environment that makes us blind to the spiritual realities of our lives. For it is important for us to know that the physical activity of the human person can be linked to the present nature of his environment, because the physical is being controlled by the interior being of the person.

 

And when the interior being of a person is engrossed in a wrong environment, then, the ugly fruit of this environment is manifested in the physical activity of the person. This can be  likened to the situation Noah was struggling with in our first reading today. For God decided to destroy the face of the earth with flood in order to give Noah a new environment better than the formal environment corrupted by sins. And God said: Never again will I curse the earth because of man, because his heart contrives evil from his infancy. Never again will I strike down every living thing as I have done.

 

Dear friends, are we in suffering in anyway as a result of the ugly nature of our present environment? Do we know people who are suffering and in need of God’s intervention? Are we spiritually blind by the present activities going on in our environment? We need to be separated from this ugly situation and environment so that we can be restored completely like the blind man in our Gospel passage today. Let us therefore present ourselves and our Loved one to Jesus, who is always ready and willing to heal us and set us free from the ugly situation we are passing through, because the touch of Jesus heals and restores us completely.

 

LET US PRAY: Heavenly Father, our environment has made us to be blind both physically and spiritually, as we present our needs before you today, may we experience once again your compassionate love and healing, we ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Wishing you God’s favour and blessings.