Before Jesus cured the two blind men, He is said to have asked them this: “Are you confident I can do this?” They, of course, answered: “Yes Lord.” Then, after He cursed them He said: “Because of your faith it shall be done to you.”

As I reflected upon this miracle story I realized that this is not the only story of Jesus curing blindness that we use in our weekly worship. The Church uses the cure of blindness just as she uses the cure of paralysis, namely to help us understand that with God’s help we can truly change our hearts and minds and become much more like Jesus.

I think people feel at times that they could never be like Jesus – they could never be a saint. And yet this is what we have been called to be: saints! Saints are people who have discovered the meaning and purpose of our earthly existence, namely to truly become spiritual beings.

Each of us, whether we are aware of it or not, have a Spiritual Self, that is a self that is made to live in accord with God’s Spirit within us. Because of God’s Gift of His Spirit, we can truly be spiritual beings, beings who know how to unconditionally love and forgive others. We have the power, because of God’s Spirit within us, to love our enemies and to live a life that is not self-centered but, rather, other-centered. We have the power to live like Jesus lived. It is all a matter of learning how to do this.

The problem is that we must be cured of our blindness and come to see that life here on earth is only one part of an eternal life of growing to be God’s children. We were created in the image and likeness of our Creator. This earthly existence is given to us to help us achieve this. It is truly all a matter of how we think about life.

In the portion of Paul’s Letter to the Romans that we use as our Epistle reading this weekend, Paul exhorts us, as he did the Romans, to become people who practice self-denial and patience. This is worthwhile advice for, when we practice self-denial, we learn how to be patient and, when we learn how to be patient, we begin to see life in a much different manner – we begin to see that who we are is much more important than what we have. We can be either people who make God’s Kingdom real right now for ourselves and others OR we can make life a hell for ourselves and others. We can be life-giving or death-giving by the way that we treat others. AND we must remember, that if we are death-giving we not only kill the spirit of others, we kill our own spirit!

Oh God, grant that we may truly see the real meaning and purpose of life and work to become Your children