Jer. 31:7-9; Ps. 126:1-6; Heb. 5:1-6; Mk. 10:46-52
“God save us!” We call out to God to save us but the salvation we seek is of the flesh. God comes to save us from the greater sin of our flesh. Like the blind man who says “Master, I want to see” he desires to recover his sight. Jesus’ response is “Your faith has saved you” saved his soul and given him the vision to see with his eyes so that to “go your way” was to “follow him on the way”. Yes, the blind man wanted to see with the eyes of the flesh but he also was given the eyes of faith to call out to Jesus. Faith opens the spiritual eyes for salvation.
The blind man had a spiritual vision of Jesus when called out to him, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” He could have looked with only the eyes of the flesh and called out to Jesus, “Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph” or “Jesus of Nazareth” claiming only what others believed that Jesus was only this human prophet. His blindness gave him the vision of faith to see someone greater than a prophet. God save us from the eyes of the flesh and give us the spiritual vision to seek what is above and to pray “God save us and grant us your salvation”.
What we seek is to meet the needs of the flesh. The blind man wants to see, the leper to be healed, the people in the desert seek water to drink. Humanity seeks the needs of the flesh. It is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs describing a “Theory of Human Motivation”. We are motivated by the flesh beginning from the bottom up seeking our physiological needs first for food, water, and shelter, then followed by safety, a sense of belonging, our esteem from others, our aesthetic pleasure in our own creation, our self-actualization by our work, in other words it is all about ourselves before we look to the transcendence to become what we were made to be outside of ourselves.
We were made to be someone beyond ourselves with meaning and purpose for God’s greater good. We were made to be in the image of God, revealed in Jesus, and guided by the Holy Spirit to seek first what is above, the greater need and he will provide for humanity the essential needs. Our God provides for all of his creation not only the essential needs but the essential purpose for salvation. We find our freedom not in the flesh that keeps us captive but in the transcendent that unites us to God and saves us.
We call out “God save us” from our sickness, from danger, our fears, even from ourselves our thoughts, emotions, and impulses. God’s answers us as he did the blind man with a salvation that is greater than the flesh that perishes. God saves us for himself for all eternity. God comes to “save us” from the temptation of sin, from the evil one, from the fire of hell but he cannot save us without us. We are to call out to God to save us and defend us from our weaknesses, from falling into mortal sin, and from eternal death.
God the Father sends us Jesus the Son to teach us the most essential need is “the way” of salvation. Motivated for salvation is the transcendent need and the other needs become less demanding upon the flesh. You hear how many saints lived a very ascetic lifestyle requiring very little food while maintaining a very rigorous life. Padre Pio was one of those saints who ate little but did enjoy a little wine with supper.
While our lives don’t live a priestly vocation, our vocation becomes less about the needs of the flesh and more about the need for God in our lives. Our vocation does not come from the world, from what the market is seeking to feed itself with workers, or from the passions of the flesh. Our vocation comes from God and we serve God with our vocation in the world with the works of salvation. Our works begin at home building up the kingdom of God by increasing our faith in all we do as a blessing coming from God. We are to be the channels of grace he desires to pour into us.
We are to pray to see with the eyes of faith the work of God in our lives. When our Protestant friends ask “have you been saved?”. Our response can be “every day I am saved”. The battle for our souls is not a “one and done” but a constant struggle of life to fight the good fight. Adam and Eve fell from grace that is going from a state of obedience to God to one of disobedience thus so can we and we do. Who can say they are 100% obedient to the will of God? This is the call to “be perfect” and we are not there yet. Yet every day we are saved from the accident of sin when we call out to God to save us.
Our sin is a separation from the grace of God and our faith will help restore our favor with God. The blind man called to Jesus with faith and Jesus not only restored his sight but he recognized his salvation. We are to work on our faith daily to receive the graces and virtues to live holy lives. We are also to know and be prepared for God’s way is not our way. Just because we pray for healing of the flesh and that healing does not happen “our way” does not mean that we lack faith or that God did not hear our prayer. God hears every word that is spoken and unspoken from the heart. Thus, even in death it may be God’s way on answering a prayer for something greater than the flesh. Did not our Lord have to suffer and die to bring about the resurrection of the body the greater good for the soul of humanity.
Do we have faith? We all have faith but our faith can be misplaced trusting only in ourselves, trusting only in science, trusting only on the eyes of the flesh. Do we have a brain? Has anyone ever seen their brain? Unlikely, yet, we all believe it is there even when we have never opened our cranium to see our brain. That is faith but there is a greater faith than the eyes of the flesh can see. There is a faith that comes from grace given freely by God to lift us up from the sorrow, pain, or agony of the flesh, or from the stain of sin, or from the despair of the soul. This faith we must seek and once we find it, we must not separate from it, become complacent with it, or fail to exercise our faith for even greater faith.
We separate from our faith in God through sin. Sin is the greatest enemy of faith because it denies us the grace to stand for what we believe. Sin not only weakens our faith but it invites death to the flesh, death to the soul, and death to faith beyond what our eyes can see. Sin will always undermine faith like a house built on sand. No sooner that the test comes to survive the storm and it collapses and is ruined.
We become complacent with faith when we only call upon it when the going gets tough and we find ourselves unable to have the control over life that we want. We believe we have faith in good times expecting it to remain ready for us. However, without the exercise of faith daily when the time comes for the “test” we are like Peter on the water, “Lord save me!”. Complacency is the slow death of faith.
We fail to exercise our faith when our prayer life becomes a ritual for compliance, or we end any prayer life in our day. An exercise of faith comes when we “go forth” with the armor of God to overcome the test of life through acts of faith. It is in the encounter with life that we discover the strength of our faith and help it grow. The exercise of faith is the connection of what we believe with what we practice. If we believe in God as we say we do then there is a practice of prayer to receive him in our daily encounter with life.
We refer to a mystery of faith to believe in God in three persons however, the evidence for God has been proven by science such as the need for a prime mover for creation to exist. The probabilities that creation is simply an “accident” is debunked. It has been proven by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus more than any of the miracles he performed. It has also been proven in our experience of faith through prayer when our faith brings about a conversion from within. We have been touched by God’s grace and we know that we know it was not us but something greater than us that we received.
We are to pray “Lord increase my faith for your salvation”. God save us from a culture of death seeking to deny God, suppress the freedom of religion, and cancel the voice of faith in the public square. God save us from the sin of the flesh when “I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want” says Romans 7:19. God save us from the blindness of our own sin when we fail to recognize evil and call it good in abortion, euthanasia, and gender neutrality. God save us from the fires of hell for our mortal sin through his mercy and love coming from our confession of faith. God save us, but he cannot save us without us. This is the day of salvation when we accept to be followers of the way he left us. This is the day to transcend ourselves and become what we were made to be, the children of God. This is the day that our faith can save us.
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