St. Volodymyr's Parish

Sunday Gospel Matthew 9, 27-35

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Today’s Gospel tells us about two healings that Jesus Christ did. He returned sight to blind men and then He cast out a dumb evil spirit and a man whom the spirit had possessed started to speak.

Let us pay our attention on the first healing.

We can see that blind men started to cry aloud when Jesus was passing by. They were crying: "Son of David, have mercy on us”. Blind men, who cannot see... They didn’t know who was going near them. They heard uproar and maybe someone told them that Jesus was passing. They had never met Christ. They cannot see how he looks like. Maybe they knew something about Him. But at the moment when He was around they started to cry aloud for His mercy. They didn’t ask about healing, they didn’t cry for some kind of miracle. But they were crying out that Jesus have mercy on them. These people, who hadn’t physical sight, have seen by the eyes of faith in Christ God who can give them mercy; who can give them His love.

Very often we, who have good eyes, cannot see God, who can give us His mercy. We pray, ask about different things (and this is good), but would we really like to receive from God that what He gave us in the first place? He offers us His love and mercy. These two blind men were crying out about mercy… and when they met Christ He asked: "Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said: "Yes, Lord” and Jesus healed them. They were asking about mercy and received sight… Do we believe that God is able to do everything for our good?!

Also, important is the fact that there were two men and they cried not for personal needs: "give me this, give me that”, but that did cry: "have mercy on us”. They were asking jointly, together. Here we can see how important is prayer of community, common prayer. When prayer is about common welfare…

Why is important to go to church? Not just because here is nice, good singing, priest could say something , but because here, in a church, we pray together to God for common welfare, which we all need. Take a look at the Litany during Divine Liturgy. We pray for peace of the world, for good health of all people, for the welfare of all people; we pray for every of us, for good weather, to have something to eat and to dress; we pray for everything that we need and do it together. This is important, Jesus said: "if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matt. 18, 19-20). We gather in a church in the name of Christ as one family, as one parish, as body of Christ, to pray and ask God His mercy and love.

And what is happens next, when we go out from a church? We can see, that the blind men "went away and spread His fame through all that district” (Matt. 9, 31). And what do we (sometimes) do? We close in on ourselves. We close our Christianity under a big lock and wait until the next Sunday, next big feast, next Easter…and that is all. We don’t share this event (meeting with Christ) with other people; we are afraid to be ridiculed by someone; we are afraid to be abused by someone; we are afraid to spoil our relation with our friend, our children, our relatives, if we will show or talk about our faith, about God. If we show that we are Christians. But Jesus Christ gave us another example…

That is why, I would like to wish all of us, that we take this example of the blind men and start looking for ourselves with the eyes of faith, through which we can see God. Whereby we can meet with Him and then, because of this faith, we can bring Christ to other people. I would like to wish, that we go to church not for duty, but to meet Christ together and pray together for all goods that we need. And God will give it for us, because He loves us. Because He is our Father, who takes care about us every day of our life, if we give Him this opportunity. I wish that we give Him this opportunity, to be closer to Him, witness about Him, live with Him every moment of our life and also for ever in the Heavenly Kingdom. Amen.

Fr. Andriy Mykytyuk