Believing Is Seeing - Homily on the Sunday of the Blind Man (2026)

Christ is risen! After five weeks of Pascha-tide, the light of Christ’s resurrection has perhaps diminished for most of us at this point. It is hard to maintain that joy for so long, to hold onto that light. Thus, it feels appropriate that today we remember the healing of the man born blind. 

We are all born spiritually blind. We heard at Vespers last night a cry from the blind man, “I can no longer bear to stumble over stones, for I have not beheld the sun shining, nor Him Who created me in His image. Yet do I beseech Thee, O Christ God: Look down upon me and have mercy on me” (from Vespers for the Sunday of the Blind Man). How often are we frustrated not just at our falls, but that we can’t even see the stones of small sins that cause us to stumble in the first place? How often have we prayed in earnestness that Christ would shine on our soul, that we could see where we are going? How do we gain spiritual sight? 

It is sin that clouds the eye of our soul so that we can’t see where we are going. Our sins blind us, preventing us from seeing who we truly are. To the degree that we choose sin and not repentance, we choose blindness instead of sight. Our Savior pronounced this verdict, “The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19). If sin blinds us, then the sin that confirms us in our blindness is our trust in our own judgments, our own way of thinking.

However, Christ gives us the remedy. Elsewhere in the Gospels, he says, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3 KJV). One of the distinguishing features of little children, besides their purity, is their trust. They trust what they are told because they don’t have reason to be suspicious. They trust that their parents will take care of them and so are carefree. They know who to turn to when they are afraid. 

This trust shines brilliantly in the blind man in today’s Gospel. Blindness is so debilitating that the blind have to trust almost as a necessity, and this trust can go unnoticed. Christ spat on the ground and made clay with the dirt and wiped it on this man’s eyes. Think about how strange that must have been for this man. He could have easily assumed Christ was simply humiliating him and making a scene for others to laugh at him. But yet, he trusts.

Again, we see this man’s trust because Christ did not immediately heal him but told him to go to Siloam and wash. Now he has to go in public, everyone can see his mud smeared face. He had to trust that again, Christ was doing something helpful and that Christ actually had the power to give him sight. He walks to the pool of Siloam. He trusts. And Christ grants him sight.

Trust is fundamental for us. Faith is at its core simple trust in God. We can all say that we trust in God, but our trust in God needs to be personal and particular. We show our trust in God specifically by trusting what the Church teaches us and asks us to do. Even if we don’t always understand, even if it’s difficult. But more importantly, we show our trust in God by trusting the priest or spiritual father He has given us for our salvation. It is by trust in our spiritual father and walking along the path he directs us on that we are granted spiritual sight. 

It’s very easy for the devil to whisper reasons why we shouldn’t trust our priest. He’ll point out his sins (real and especially imaginary). He’ll remind us of any slights the priest may have given us, any time he was short with us or argued with us. All of this misses the point. If we listen to these excuses and lies, we will fail to realize that our success or failure in the spiritual life is not whether or not our priest is holy and good and educated, but whether we trust him. And so the responsibility falls on us. Trust is a choice.

To illustrate this, let us look at the life of two brothers who had the same spiritual father and see how the trust of one and the distrust of the other paved very different paths for them.

Ivan and Nicholas Belyaev were born at the end of the 19th century to a well to do Russian merchant family. Ivan was the younger of the two. He was the smarter one. He was the fervent one. He earnestly desired monastic life. Nicholas, on the other hand, was not as brilliant as his younger brother. He was not as fervent. While he joined his brother to Optina Monastery in 1908, he was inconclusive about the direction of his life.

Both brothers were under the care of Elder Barsanuphius, a clairvoyant elder of the Monastery. However, Ivan trusted in his own mind. He pelted the elder with countless questions about the spiritual life because he demanded answers to satisfy his mind. He couldn’t see the path in front of him and didn’t understand that the spiritual life is transmitted through another organ instead—the heart. Ivan had his own ideas about prayer and fasting—he did not trust the rule he was given was sufficient and gave himself over to excessive zeal. He landed in the infirmary the very first Lent. If we trust our own ideas about how to live a spiritual life, we will suffer similarly. While trusting ourselves might feel psychologically comfortable, we are willingly keeping our eyes shut.

On the other hand, Nicholas took everything in with an even tone and with absolute trust in his spiritual father. He quickly learned that obedience is higher than prayer. Sometimes his work as the Elder’s secretary would mean he had to miss church services or be unable to fulfill his prayer rule. He accepted that the spiritual life was not just exalted church services, heartfelt emotions in prayer and great feats of asceticism. Rather, the spiritual life was mainly hard work—backbreaking labors in the fields as a novice and the endless paperwork and administrative tasks he undertook as a monk. By patiently enduring these things, by paying careful attention to detail in his work, his eyes began to open. He began to see things spiritually. He could see the pitfalls along the path and avoid them. He learned how to pick himself up when he stumbled. Most importantly, He learned true prayer. 

Because Ivan did not trust his spiritual father, he couldn’t see things from a spiritual perspective, he couldn’t put his life in order and he constantly stumbled. He left Optina twice to go to other monasteries—places he thought were more spiritual. But he did not progress. Because his bond with his spiritual father was so weak, he was not able to withstand great temptation. He was drafted to serve as a medic in WWI. He fell in love with an atheist nurse and subsequently fell away from the faith. His inability to trust resulted in complete spiritual blindness. 

Nicholas, the less brilliant, the less fervent, but the more trusting, went from strength to strength. He was taught how to see and understand the spiritual life. He was soon tonsured as Fr. Nikon. Fr. Nikon’s vision was such that he could see God’s hand in everything that happened to him—grave illnesses, the early and unexpected loss of his spiritual father, the closure of the monastery, arrests, and exile. He inherited his elder’s blessing and became a light for others, guiding and shepherding souls through the turbulent times after the Russian Revolution. Before he died at the early age of 42, he grew to “the full stature of the measure of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). He was later glorified as a saint in 1990. 

Because of his trust, the mysteries of the spiritual life were unveiled for Fr. Nikon and not to Ivan. Because of his trust, the light of Christ illumined his heart and he was able to see clearly during the dark days of godless communism in Russia while Ivan was left in the blindness he chose. Because of his trust, the treasures of God’s gifts were open to him while Ivan could only enjoy the fleeting pleasures of this life. The real tragedy for Ivan was that he had the same spiritual father, he had the same opportunities, but he refused to see it. He kept his eyes shut, even if he didn’t think that’s what he was doing! While it was most certainly by his brother’s prayers that Ivan finally repented at the end of his life, he missed out on the spiritual vision his brother received. So, we see it is our choice to trust, to be open to our priest, to the Church, and to continually turn to them, that will give us our sight. Through the prayers of our Holy Father Nikon, may we make a good beginning. Amen.