Bishop Nicholas (Berdyuhyn)

Glory to Jesus Christ, dear brothers and sisters!

I congratulate you with the Holy Sunday, Holy Communion.

Today we have heard the Gospel (Luke XVIII:35-43), where the Lord had made one more miracle – He opened the eyes of blind man. And we heard the words of that blind man: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” He knew that Messiah from David’s family had to come. And when he found out about Jesus, he appealed to Him as far as possible. He asked Jesus to recover his sight. And the Lord said: “Your faith has made you well.” And immediately He recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God.

Dear brothers and sisters, sometimes we happen to be blind, our spiritual sight is often closed. And only Jesus Christ can make a miracle for us and recover us from spiritual blindness. If all people in the world sincerely pray, like that blind man prayed, and ask God to open their eyes, than the world would quicker become a better place.

I remember myself, when I haven’t been a priest yet and I only have been starting to visit a church like an ordinary man. At that time I asked God for help in my family things and to help my children. And the Lord helped me in that.

But later, when I had started to read the Gospel, I understood that it was only the beginning of my faith – the requests. Step by step we open our spiritual eyes, but we have to try harder.

God is a spirit and He sees everything in a different way, not like we see the world with the physical eyes. He can see everything wider. And we have a gift from God – our immortal soul. And we should ask God to get the ability to see the world as He sees it.

God had done everything that we could see. He came in this world; he preached with His disciplines and told everything. And all His words are written in the Gospel. It is enough for salvation. But we have to read the Gospel. To open our eyes we have to be with the Holy Spirit all the time, like that disciplines. Only then He opens the Gospel in full and opens our spiritual eyes. And then we are able to see the Truth. We see God’s Truth, all mistakes and wrong things.

Do you remember the story about the beginning of God’s serving on the Earth? He wrote: “People lived in the great darkness and saw huge light.” That light is the truth, which came from God through His Son.

That is why every time we come to the church and listen the sermon we should try to understand the sermon, because these are God’s words. And God’s words are like spiritual bread for our soul, it becomes stronger every time. In such way we recover our sight. And then we do everything in a right way. We try to fulfill God’s will to build His Kingdom in our soul and on the Earth around us.

Let’s work to gain this, dear brothers and sisters.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

About the miracle of healing form physical and spiritual blindness