By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
The Healing of the Man Born Blind
Once, when Jesus was in Jerusalem, performing miracles and preaching His teaching, His enemies became so enraged that they wanted to stone Him. But He departed from them and, as He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth.
His disciples asked Him: “Teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus answered: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be revealed in him.”
The Lord had compassion on the unfortunate blind man. Spitting on the ground, He made clay, anointed the blind man’s eyes with it, and said to him: “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” This was a spring at the foot of Mount Zion. The blind man went, washed, and received his sight. This miracle filled everyone with amazement. Some said, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”
Others said, “It is he.” Others said, “He only resembles him.” But he himself said, “I am the one.”
They began asking the man born blind how he had received his sight. He answered: “The Man called Jesus made clay, anointed my eyes, and told me to wash in the pool of Siloam. I washed, and now I see.” They brought him to the Pharisees, and it should be noted that this miracle had been performed on the Sabbath day. In response to the Pharisees’ questions, the healed young man again recounted the story of his miraculous healing. Then a dispute arose among the Pharisees concerning Jesus. Some said: “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” Others objected: “How can a sinful man perform such miracles?” They asked the healed man: “What do you say about Him?” “I think He is a prophet,” he answered.
But the Pharisees were still not convinced by such a clear testimony of the power of God. They doubted whether the man had truly been blind and, calling his parents, asked them: “Is this your son, whom you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”
The parents of the man born blind knew that the Pharisees hated Jesus and had already agreed to expel from the synagogue anyone who confessed Him to be the Christ. In their weakness, they feared bringing upon themselves the anger of the Pharisees if they gave proper honor to the One who had healed their son, and so they answered only: “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees and who healed him, we do not know. He is of age; ask him. Let him speak for himself.”
Then the Pharisees said to the man born blind: “Give glory to God; we know that the One who healed you is a sinful man.”
“Whether He is a sinner, I do not know,” answered the man who had received his sight. “One thing I know: I was blind, and now I see.”
Again the Pharisees questioned him about how he had received his sight. “I already told you,” he answered. “Why do you ask again? Do you also want to become His disciples?”
The Pharisees became angry. “You are His disciple,” they said, “but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this Man, we do not know where He comes from.”
“It is remarkable that you do not know where He comes from,” replied the young man, “and yet He opened my eyes. We all know that God does not listen to sinners, but He listens to those who honor God and do His will. Never since the world began has anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing.”
The Pharisees grew even more enraged and cast the healed blind man out. The Lord Jesus Christ heard about this and, meeting him, asked: “Do you believe in the Son of God?”
“Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” asked the man who had received his sight.
“You have seen Him,” said the Lord, “and He is speaking with you.”
“I believe, Lord!” cried the young man, and he bowed down before Jesus to the ground (cf. John 9:2–38).
One can imagine how overjoyed the healed man was when he learned that the One who had healed him was the very Son of God Who had come down to earth for the salvation of mankind! How deeply he believed in Him! How fervently he loved Him! He probably did not even grieve that the Pharisees had cast him out of the synagogue and despised him. They rejected him, but he had found and come to love the Savior, and this happiness is greater than all earthly blessings.
We often see good and pious people suffering insults and persecutions in the world. But if they firmly believe in the Lord, if they love Him with all their soul, if they keep His commandments and confess His holy name, then they patiently endure afflictions, because they know that they possess the highest good and that nothing in the world can separate them from the love of Christ. The parents of the man born blind, fearing the Pharisees, did not dare to give the Lord glory and honor for the healing of their son. They feared being expelled from the synagogue. May the Lord preserve us from such cowardice! Better to lose everything, better to endure every insult and hardship, than to turn away from the Lord in anything, for He is the highest and eternal good. Neither fear nor the desire to please anyone should ever lead us to do or say anything displeasing to God.
The Holy Church, remembering on the sixth Sunday after the Bright Resurrection the healing of the man born blind, cries out in the name of all to the Healer of souls and bodies:
“Blinded in the eyes of my soul, I come to You, O Christ, like the man blind from birth, and with repentance I cry to You: You are the radiant Light of all those dwelling in the darkness of sin.”
Unfathomable Are Your Judgments, O Lord!
O how great are Your works, O Lord! Wonderfully deep are Your thoughts! “A senseless man does not know, nor does a fool understand this” (Psalm 92:5–6). Truly, You are a hidden God, incomprehensible to the mind of creation!
Saint Anthony the Great, reflecting on the hidden and unknowable mysteries of God and marveling at them, once cried out humbly to God: “O Lord my God! Sometimes it pleases You to grant a long life to people who appear useless and immersed in an abyss of lawlessness, while at other times You prematurely take away the lives of people very useful for the common good. Some who have sinned little are severely punished by You, while others, on the contrary, live happily without sorrows and thus become bolder in committing crimes.” While pondering this, Anthony heard a voice: “Attend to yourself. What you are considering is the Judgment of God; do not investigate or test it.”
Saint Athanasios, Archbishop of Alexandria, describes in the life of Anthony the Great the following event. Two monks were traveling to visit Saint Anthony. Passing through a waterless and scorching desert, they became so overcome with thirst that one of them died, while the other was already near death. Saint Anthony, remaining in his monastery many miles away, suddenly called two of his monks and said to them: “Run quickly to such-and-such a place in the desert, taking with you a vessel of water. One of the two brothers traveling to us has already died of thirst. The other is still breathing but suffering greatly and completely exhausted. If you delay, you will not find him alive either. God revealed this to me while I stood at prayer.” The monks immediately hurried on their way. They found the travelers, buried the one who had died, refreshed the other with water, strengthened him with food, and brought him to Saint Anthony. Saint Athanasios then remarks that perhaps someone may ask: why did Saint Anthony not send his monks sooner to save the travelers before one of them died? Such a question, however, is truly unworthy of a Christian, because this was not Anthony’s doing, but the Judgment of God. God Himself pronounced His righteous sentence: for one to die and for the other to live. And God revealed His will to Saint Anthony concerning the salvation of the traveler.
In the year 1117 a great earthquake struck all Italy. In the city of Milan, several people were gathered in one house when suddenly a voice was heard from the courtyard calling one of them to come outside. The man being called wondered who was calling him and why, and therefore did not hurry to leave. Then a stranger approached the door and urgently begged him to come out at once. Hardly had the man stepped outside and gone a short distance when the house collapsed and everyone inside perished. One may ask: why was only one of those in the house saved while all the others died? The judgments of the Lord are a great abyss! Who cannot clearly see in this event the fulfillment of ancient wonders? Thus the Angel of the Lord led Lot and his children out of Sodom while leaving all the other inhabitants to perish in the fire. In the same miraculous manner, many people have been preserved unharmed while others around them perished in common disasters. What can be said of all this except the just saying: “Your judgments, O Lord, are a great and immeasurable abyss!” Who would dare say to God: “Why do You do this, Lord?” “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (cf. Isaiah 55:8–9).
Saint Gregory said that to investigate the hidden causes of God’s judgments means to oppose our sinful pride to His decrees. Our duty, whenever something extraordinary happens, is to repeat the words of the Apostle Paul: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33). In this earthly life we will never fully understand many things with our reason. It is enough for us to know and firmly believe that God is just, and that on the Last Day of Judgment there will not be a single one among the judged who will say anything to the Lord except: “Righteous are You, O Lord, and upright are Your judgments!” (Psalm 119:137).
Once King David, seeing the prosperity of the wicked of this world, who by their evil example led others into ungodliness, desired to understand the ways of God concerning them. Long did he ponder this matter, and finally he humbly confessed: “It was too difficult for me to understand, until I entered the sanctuary of God” (cf. Psalm 73:16–17). We too must postpone until the future and better life the full understanding of the incomprehensible judgments of Divine Wisdom in this present life.
And why, restless and excessively curious human mind, do you seek to uncover all these things? By touching the fire of God’s judgments, you will melt away. You will merely circle around this fire like moths and mosquitoes circling a candle at night until they are burned. The wise son of Sirach says: “The works of the Lord are wonderful, glorious are they, and His mysteries are hidden from men” (cf. Sirach 11:4). The eternal and all-wise God has arranged everything by measure, number, and weight. Who can resist His power and will? Why then do we insignificant creatures exalt ourselves in pride and daringly try to weigh the heaviness of fire, alter the speed of the wind, or bring back yesterday? It is enough for us to believe that the cause of all causes is the will of God. God allowed it, God willed it, God created all things. What more is there to seek?
We Who Are Strong Ought to Bear the Infirmities of the Weak
There are many unfortunate people in the world. We often encounter the lame, the blind, the deaf, and those suffering from various illnesses. Merely seeing them awakens in us pity and compassion for their sorrowful condition. But perhaps there is no greater misfortune than blindness, especially when it afflicts a person from birth. Listen to how sorrowfully the man born blind, remembered in today’s church services, describes his condition: “I do not know when it is night or when it is day; my feet cannot endure stumbling over stones, for I have never seen the shining sun, nor Him Who created me in His image.” “All his life the blind man considered to be one continuous night.”
We who possess sight and use it cannot properly appreciate this precious gift of God or fully understand the bitterness of losing it. But if we imagine ourselves with closed eyes even for a single day, we will understand how terrible it is not to see God’s light, the bright sun, the beauty and order of the world, which raises our minds to the Almighty Creator; how painful are these constant stumblings, not only for the feet but for the whole body; what it means “to think of one’s whole life as one unending night.” The blind man grows up, but neither he nor his family find joy in it. As he reaches maturity, his sorrow does not diminish but increases. Marriage and family life are beyond him, for he cannot even support himself. O how bitter is bread received from another’s hand! It is bitter also because a man knows within himself that he has strength, health, and abilities. He himself would wish to help and support others, but without sight he can do nothing except walk, and even that only with another’s assistance, and beg for alms.
Our Lord Jesus Christ saw a man “blind from birth,” as we heard today in the Gospel, and He healed him; the man received his sight and began to see. To work miracles is, of course, not within our power, and we cannot give sight to the blind. But we can and must lighten the burden of the unfortunate. It is our “indispensable duty to help the weak, to be merciful to all with longsuffering.” “We who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves” (Romans 15:1).
And truthfully it must be said that the compassionate Orthodox Russian people have always treated the blind with particular sympathy and have not been stingy in giving alms. Charitable offerings for the blind have never ceased and do not cease in Russia.
Therefore, Orthodox Christians, take pity on the bitter lot of the blind. When giving alms, we sometimes fear that our charity might harm rather than help the one receiving it, because some misuse what is given them. But here there is no room for such fears. Be assured that every coin you give will be put to good use. Do not say that you yourself are poor. Someone wealthier than you will give more, but you too should show mercy in your poverty. Out of your own need, help sweeten the bitter lot of the blind. A single small coin seems insignificant, but when many people give, their small offerings together become a great help to the blind.
Let us also respond with whatever we are able to offer. And the Lord, Who today granted sight to the man born blind, will find our sacrifice pleasing. “It is better to give alms than to store up gold, for almsgiving delivers from death and cleanses every sin” (Tobit 12:8–9). “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7), “for judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy” (James 2:13).
The Voice of Saving Grace
Here is what a nun named Eusebia, who lived in the Bryansk Monastery, related about herself:
“I was born to Orthodox parents and was raised in the Orthodox faith. Unfortunately, according to worldly reasoning, they married me to an Old Believer. My father-in-law was a harsh and hardened schismatic, and he persistently demanded that I join the schism. Sinful as I was, I did not stand firm but agreed.
In the village of Kolcheva they rebaptized me. When they began immersing me into the tub of water, I trembled with fear. ‘Why,’ I thought, ‘am I abandoning the Orthodox faith and the Holy Church? Merely because of the reproaches and threats of my aged father-in-law? What cowardice!’
Be that as it may, when they immersed me in the water, what did I see? O my God! Even now I often remember that vision. It seemed to me that a white dove flew away from me...
‘What is this?’ I thought. ‘Could it be that the grace of the Holy Spirit, given to me in Orthodox baptism, is departing from me? Yes, it must be the grace of the Holy Spirit...’
And I became sorrowful. But the world, vanity, and worldly cares entangled me on every side. I became accustomed to the schism and forgot that vision. A sinner often forgets God, but God never forgets the sinner. He did not forget me either, though I had fallen away from the Orthodox faith.
In 1830 cholera appeared among us, and I was the first in our family to be struck by it. Terrible pains tormented me, and there was nowhere to expect help except from God. At that time everyone feared cholera as a dreadful and contagious disease, and then I could truly say with the Prophet David: ‘My neighbors stood far off from me’ (Psalm 37:13).
I lay alone, struggling against the terrible sickness. Night came; all was silent, and only my groans were heard in the lonely room where I lay. Suddenly, in the midst of that silence, I heard a voice saying: ‘Euphrosynia! Join the Holy Orthodox Church.’
The voice repeated this three times, and I was ready to obey the mysterious call. My pains subsided, and I peacefully fell asleep. Morning came, and I was completely healthy; there was not even a trace of the terrible illness left in me.
I told my family what I had heard during the night. My father-in-law was there as well. When he heard my words, his face changed completely. Looking at me with eyes flashing in fierce anger, he said in a trembling voice full of rage:
‘See how cunning the devil is, how he hates what is good! He is tempting you again into delusion so that afterward you may suffer in eternal fire.’
And what did I do? I marvel at my own foolishness: I believed my father-in-law’s deceitful words as though they were true...
But again came the visitation of the Lord, again His gracious call to me, a sinner.
That very evening cholera struck me again, and I suffered so terribly that I expected death every hour. While I lay in agony, despairing even of life itself, during the night the same voice again said:
‘Euphrosynia! Join the Holy Orthodox Church.’
Then I firmly vowed to God that I would join the Orthodox Church if only the Lord were pleased to restore my health. With that resolve I drifted into sleep.
Suddenly I saw the holy icon of the Mother of God with the Eternal Child in the air above me, bending down over me so closely that it covered my face. This happened several times. Afterward I peacefully fell asleep, and in the morning I again felt completely healthy.
My niece came to visit me, and when I told her about my vision, she immediately took me to church.
As soon as I entered, I at once recognized the very same icon I had seen during the night. My heart beat strongly with joy, and with deep emotion I stood through the entire Liturgy. Afterward I told the priest everything that had happened to me and expressed my desire to join the Holy Orthodox Church.
The good shepherd took heartfelt interest in my situation and told me to prepare for reception into the Church, which he intended to perform the following day.
I left the church filled with joy, but on the way home dark thoughts again began troubling me: how would my husband treat me, and especially my father-in-law?... Ah, how much strength man has for evil and how little for good!
But thanks be to God, when I told everything to my husband, he said to me:
‘Well then, good. I myself would be ready to join the Orthodox Church with you, but you see how our old man looks upon it. I am afraid to offend him. What can we do? God’s will be done! But you be at peace, fulfill your vow, and fear nothing. I will protect you.’
The next day the Lord made me worthy to be received into the Orthodox Church, and I returned with such joy as I had never before experienced. My husband shared my heartfelt joy.
And my father-in-law? At that very time the Lord visited him with cholera. He suffered terribly, only groaning, unable to say anything, and after about six hours he died. I felt sorry for the old man. Whatever he had been, he was still family, my husband’s father, and yet he died in stubborn delusion...
But after one sorrow came another: cholera struck my husband as well. For three days the poor man suffered greatly. But, glory to God, during those three days of trial he managed to repent, was received into the Orthodox Church, and died after receiving the Holy Mysteries.
Thus I became a sorrowful widow. Only two joys remained for me on earth: my son, about thirteen years old, and my younger daughter. I sent my son to Bryansk to learn trade work, but two years later he died there. Everyone knows what the loss of a son means for a mother, especially for a widowed mother. Pouring out bitter tears, I traveled from the village to Bryansk so that I might weep over the grave where the precious remains of my beloved child lay buried.
But where can one fully pour out all sorrow? To my consolation I learned that a women’s monastery was being established there in Bryansk. So my daughter and I decided to remain there, seeking comfort in God, and the Lord fulfilled my desire.
Thus He, the Merciful One, calls us to Himself by unknown paths.”
The Healing of a Blind Girl
At the end of the nineteenth century, in the stanitsa of Uryupino in the region of the Don Cossack Host, there lived a tailor named Alexander Moiseevich Yakovlev. A daughter, Maria, was born to him. At six months of age large white films formed over both of her eyes, so that her eyes became completely white. Yakovlev sought help from Dr. Tenchinsky, then from Dr. Zakharyevsky and others, including a military physician, but medicine proved powerless. By her fourth year the child had become completely blind, and her eyelids closed shut. The girl was so exhausted by her illness that even at six years old she could not walk.
Once her father pried open her eyelids and, instead of eyes, saw only tissue covered with blood. Having lost all hope for his daughter’s recovery, Alexander and his wife took the sick child to the church at the old cemetery of the stanitsa of Uryupino, where the wonderworking Uryupino Icon of the Mother of God is kept. There they asked a priest to serve a moleben before the icon.
After the service they returned home and, as usual, seated the girl on her bed atop a chest, while they themselves prepared tea. At that moment their daughter unexpectedly opened her eyes and discovered that she could see her father, the samovar, and everything on the table. She then asked her parents to say something, since she had never seen them before and had known them only by their voices.
Later the Yakovlev family moved to the city of Borisoglebsk, where they lived on Bolshaya Street in the house of Feofanov, not far from the district council building. Their daughter Maria, who by then was already eleven years old, continued to see well and studied at the Borisoglebsk Girls’ School.
Without Sorrows One Cannot Enter the Kingdom of Heaven
“God is the necessity of the sorrowing heart,” an old philosophy used to say. This truth is founded upon psychological and spiritual experience. It is well known that in happiness a person easily forgets God, while in misfortune he remembers God, even if he had forgotten Him before.
The very groan of a suffering soul, the very cry of pain that escapes it, the very feeling of helplessness that naturally arises in moments of outward affliction and inward despair—all this involuntarily turns the eyes of the sufferer toward heaven, whether with faith or without faith. Even unbelief then naturally strives to be transformed into faith; even hopelessness unwillingly takes wing with at least a faint hope, carried along by the natural and involuntary desire to escape sorrow and despair, to be delivered from spiritual and bodily pain, to remove the threat of death, and to turn away from oneself the most dreadful and horrifying thing of all: the hopeless darkness of eternal death.
Sometimes people call death upon themselves, even inflicting it upon themselves. But this criminal movement of feeling and will, and sometimes of the suicidal hand itself, is always—or at least in the vast majority of cases—a burst of despair and cowardice.
To look constantly, or too often, into the face of death and the torment of death or what comes after death is too unnatural. Then a person inevitably longs to live for light and joy, simply even for the feeling of being alive. He longs to lean upon a higher power capable of turning away death and mortal torment, as well as every kind of suffering. He longs to flee to God, the Master of life and death, the Giver of all blessings and Deliverer from every evil.
Frequent sorrows and sufferings, continual dangers, especially mortal dangers, keep the soul in continual tension, in continual turning and striving toward God the Savior. Preserving and sustaining the soul in this direction, they guard it, as much as possible, from every defilement of flesh and spirit, and truly bring it nearer to God—not only by turning and striving toward Him, but also by purification and perfection, by the keeping of God’s commandments and pleasing Him. Thus man reaches the Kingdom of God through many sorrows.
That is why “whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (cf. Hebrews 12:6). That is why, when a man becomes forgetful, God sends sorrows upon him, casting him into the furnace of temptation, in which man is tested like gold in a crucible.
And when even a faithful people becomes forgetful, God casts them into wars, plagues, famines, and other national calamities. But remember how, in times of national trial, the spirit of the people rises, faith grows stronger, the warmth of popular piety increases, public prayers multiply and become more fervent and persistent, and noble acts of patience and self-sacrifice, of faithfulness and devotion, of love and mercy become more frequent, even ordinary and common. Then society, which at another time may be frivolous and imperfect in many ways, becomes more and more like the Kingdom of God on earth during the time of national suffering.
Look and consider how soldiers in war, how sailors at sea—people to whom death so often and relentlessly stares in the face—whether secretly or openly, almost always and almost all of them in their souls are involuntarily and naturally turned toward God. And how the upheavals of storms at sea or the storms of battle are reflected in powerful and often beneficial upheavals within their hearts, sometimes for their whole lives until the grave, and even beyond the grave itself.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
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