The Healing of the Blind & Mute - Homily for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost (2026)

Today’s Gospel speaks about the healing of two blind men and of a mute man possessed by a demon. Today’s Epistle teaches us that everything which has been written before us has been written for our own learning. Every case of bodily healing in the Gospel is also an image of how God heals our souls. Physical blindness is an image of spiritual blindness. Physical muteness, of spiritual muteness. Spiritual blindness is the inability of our mind—our mental and spiritual vision—to see God Who is everywhere present, to see others as in the image of God, and to see created things in their Creator.

If we cannot see God’s grace permeating our mind, heart, senses, and all the world in His peaceful joyous light, we are spiritually blind. If we cannot see God’s providence in everything, we are spiritually blind. 

If we cannot see the nobility and worth of every person, we are spiritually blind. If we see others only as obstacles to be despised and avoided, or as objects to be lusted after and misused, we are spiritually blind.

If we cannot see the good things of this life as gifts from God which must be seen, understood, and interacted with to the glory of God, the profit of others, and our own salvation, we are spiritually blind.

A blind mind is accompanied by a spiritually mute and demon-influenced reasoning. Spiritual muteness is the inability of our reasoning power—our mental and spiritual thought and word—to glorify God, to thank God, to confess God’s power, to confess our weakness and sins, to pray unceasingly, and to properly think and speak of things and others.

Blind to God’s grace and providence, we cannot glorify and thank Him unceasingly, but we rather complain—not to say blaspheme.

Blind to the spiritual worth of others, we cannot think properly about them, nor speak graciously to them, nor about them to others, nor for them in prayer to God. Blind to the historical, complex, unseen, and deep-seated struggle of others, we cannot speak well of them, but we babble, judge, condemn, gossip, slander. Blind to the beauty of the human soul, we cannot discern beyond surface appearances nor direct our behavior with wisdom, but we passionately avoid the outcast, needy, sorrowful, and ugly; and we mindlessly crave the famous, rich, supposedly happy, and beautiful.

Blind to the true reason and purpose of created things, we can only think about them with passion. Mindlessly eating food, we do not thank the Giver of food, but we eat gluttonously, thanklessly, without thought of our own prosperity, without thought for the poor and starving, and with complaint that the food is unsatisfying or boring. Mindlessly acquiring and spending money and other valuables, we do not tithe to the Church nor gives alms to the needy, but we hoard things up with an iron grasp until death. Mindlessly seeking honor and praise—not to say worship—from others, we dishonor, insult, offend, reproach, defame, and exchange evil for evil.

All this has been said to bring to light our failings and need for God’s healing. The blind men in today’s Gospel first followed after Christ with patient cries and prayers. Then they met Him in a house. After this, Christ asked them if they believed He had the power to heal them. They said yes. Christ attributed the healing to their faith. He opened their eyes.

So it is with us. The first step of being healed from spiritual blindness is to become aware that we are blind. Then we must patiently call after Christ. We do not yet see Him nearby. He seems far away. We cannot see Him spiritually or palpably. He has gone before us, planting Himself within our hearts. This is the house mentioned in the Gospel. He is there, but we often are not. If we cry and pray with patience, humility, and faith, Christ will gradually draw us more inward. Once there we perceive even more our need for healing. Then Christ is found, or rather, He then reveals Himself to our awareness. We know He is there, listening, looking on us, but we cannot yet see Him. Then a gentle motion arises in our mind and heart. This is Christ’s question to the human soul of whether we truly believe that with one touch He can open our spiritual eyes. If the heart assents, its faith is praised by Christ through a gladdened conscience. This gladness then  permeates and illumines the conscience, mind, heart, understanding, thinking, reasoning, soul, and body. Christ is then known openly.

Yet sometimes we are bound hand-and-foot by our passions and sins. Often we are stifled, paralyzed, confused, mixed-up, upside-down, self-divided, in doubt, in despondency, in despair. The mute man in today’s Gospel was possessed by a demon which caused his muteness. This was an unholy silence caused by an unclean spirit. More literally, the man was demonized, suffering from demons. This is an image of our soul’s powers of reasoning, thinking, feeling, and acting. What do we do in this case?

Often we must wait. How long did this man suffer before he—not able to bring himself—was brought by others to Christ? It is not known. But what is known to us is how long we have been suffering from some spiritual affliction, or malady of mind and soul, or bodily illness, or difficulty in life, or any other trial which exhausts us. This we do know.

What to do when we are cast down and bound like this? We must patiently wait. Today’s Epistle, after stating that the events in Scripture have been written for us personally, then states that it is through patience and comfort in these Scriptures that we come to hope. It then proceeds to call God the God of patience and comfort. 

Patience is not passive, but active. Pain is suffered passively, but reacting to it is active. Patience acts to keep the soul from reacting by unleashing our pain on others through wrath, on ourselves through despair, and on God through complaining, murmuring, railing, and blaspheming. Patience involves spiritual mourning. This is not deadly sorrow which gives up hope, but honest scrutiny of, and painful contrition, over our wretched state, sins, failings, inability to help ourselves, and need for God’s help. This patient mourning is called blessed by Christ. It is intermixed with comfort, consolation, and grace. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. They shall be comforted by the grace of the God of patience and comfort, by Christ our Comforter, and by the Holy Spirit, Whom Christ called that other Comforter.

The Epistle goes on to state that if we are all struggling in this manner, we shall come into greater unity in Christ Jesus. If we are all struggling for and with the Crucified One, we shall be constantly made new and more united in the Resurrected One, that we may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Such glorification by mind and word is the perfect healing of spiritual blindness and muteness.

Yet no matter how much we may be healed, no matter how much we may think we have progressed, we must never stop seeking greater glorification by God and of God. This was the state of mind of the blessed St. Sisoes whom we commemorate today. Upon his deathbed he revealed to the brothers around him that he was begging the Lord, His saints, and His angels for a little more time to repent. The brothers said he was perfect and needed no more repentance, but the saint corrected them, saying that he had not even made a beginning in repentance.

So let us ever seek repentance in this life. If we have sinned, let us get back up. If we have done some good, let us seek to do more good. If we do even more good, let us not stop adding virtue to virtue and goodness to goodness. Even if we come to the stature of the saints—God forbid we should ever delude ourselves in this manner—let us, with them, seek greater perfection. Let us not measure ourselves to ourselves, nor to others, but to Christ and His Saints. But if we harbor a high self-opinion, then let us measure ourselves only to Christ, perfect God and perfect Man. If we do this, and are honest with ourselves, we have not even made a good beginning. And truly, what great thing could we ever bring to Christ God Who needs nothing, Who needs no addition, Who is beyond perfection, Source of perfection, Infinite Love ever desired by all, ever fulfilling all, ever eluding all by His incomprehensible depths?

Let us listen to St. Sisoes. If we fall, he counsels us to get back up. If we fall again, he counsels us to get up again and again. If we wonder how many times and for how long, he counsels us to do so until either our bodily death or the Coming of our Lord, until we are found either fallen in sin and despair or getting back up in hopeful repentance.

Let us all seek to do this. Let us all pray for one another. Let us all desire salvation for all mankind as much as we desire it for ourselves. Rather, let us realize that the Lord thirsts for the salvation of us all an infinite amount more than we do for ourselves. And realizing this, let us be spurred on to an ever-greater desire for the salvation of ourselves and all mankind. Let us do this, constantly crying out to the Lord Jesus Christ—Son of David, Son of God, God of David, God of all—until we are taken from this life, that we may ever glorify Him together with His Father and the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen.