The Gospel reading for Quinquagesima Sunday, taken from Luke 18, tells of Our Lord’s healing of “a certain blind man,” a beggar somewhere “nigh to Jericho.”
What do we know about this man?
Perhaps the most noteworthy detail provided in the Gospel account is the way in which he calls out to Our Lord: “Son of David, have mercy on me.”
This alone tells us a number of interesting things.
First, it seems that the blind man not only believes that Jesus is a healer of men and a man of God, but he also believes that He is the long-awaited Messiah. By addressing Him as “Son of David,” it is clear that he is familiar with Messianic prophecy as given to us in the Hebrew Scriptures.
It also seems that the blind man, despite not being able to see the material world, has a certain holy insight, i.e., it appears that he understood what even the Apostles had yet to learn, namely, that the Messiah had come not to deliver the Jews from Roman rule, but rather to deliver men from their sins.
How can we say this?
Prior to Jesus passing by, the beggar likely heard stories about how He had healed lepers, how the lame had walked at his command, and how He even called dead men to rise and they actually rose (e.g., Lazurus, the brother of Martha and Mary [John 11] as well as the only son of a widow [Luke 7]).
Most relevant to his own situation, however, is how Jesus had given sight to the “man who was blind from his birth” as described in John 9, an event that the Church Fathers understood to have taken place well before Our Lord’s final journey toward Jerusalem for the Passover as told in Luke 18.
And yet, the blind beggar near Jericho first called out to Jesus, not for a similar kind of healing of physical sight, but rather he begged for mercy.
In the original Greek language in which the Gospels were written, the word translated as mercy is eleos, the same recorded in Luke’s account of the blind beggar. This word is distinct from the Greek splanchnizomai, which is translated as compassion or pity.
In English, all of the above translations are perceived as being entirely interchangeable. This presumption of interchangeability is evident in some Biblical translations, including even the Douay Rheims. In Greek, however, while there is another word that specifically means “to forgive,” the word eleos (unlike splanchnizomai) can denote a sense of forgiveness.
Examples of splanchnizomai (compassion/pity) in Sacred Scripture include:
- And Jesus, having compassion on the leper, stretched forth his hand and touching him saith to him: Be thou made clean. (Mark 1:41)
- And he coming forth saw a great multitude, and had compassion on them, and healed their sick. (Matthew 14:14)
- Being moved with compassion towards her, He said to her: Weep not. And he came near and touched the bier. And they that carried it stood still. And he said: Young man, I say to thee, arise. (cf Luke 7:13-14)
Interestingly, Luke uses both splanchnizomai and eleos in his telling of Our Lord’s parable of the Good Samaritan. In this account, we find a certain “lawyer tempting Jesus,” ultimately asking Him, “And who is my neighbor?” (cf Luke 10:25-29)
In answer, Jesus tells the parable of a man robbed, beaten, and left for dead, only to be ignored by a priest, as well as a Levite. Our Lord continues:
“But a certain Samaritan, being on his journey, came near him: and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn and took care of him.” (Luke 10:33-34)
Jesus eventually asks the lawyer, “Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbor to him that fell among the robbers?” (v. 36)
The lawyer answered: “He that shewed mercy to him.” (v. 37)
This small and seemingly insignificant choice of words strikes me as a clue that the Good Samaritan is meant to be understood as an image of the merciful Lord, He who moved by compassion offers forgiveness, while the inn is an image of His Church.
All of this being so, it seems to me that the word eleos as found in Luke 18 (“Son of David, have mercy on me”) is also far from insignificant, rather, it’s an indication that the blind man had enough spiritual insight to know what he, and us, need most.
The Greek eleos appears in Luke’s Gospel more than any other book of the Bible, six times in the first chapter alone where he relates the eleos of God to the forgiveness of sin:
To give knowledge of salvation to His people, unto the remission of their sins. Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high hath visited us. (Luke 1:77-78)
But what are we to make of the exchange that ensued between the blind man and Jesus?
What wilt thou that I do to thee? But he said: Lord, that I may see. (Luke 18:41)
According to the Greek, it is evident that the blind man, in the literal sense, is asking for his physical sight to be restored, i.e., that he may see once more. Note, however, what is stated in Luke 1:77 above:
Through the bowels of the mercy of our God (eleos), the Lord gives knowledge of salvation to His people.
In the spiritual sense, therefore, we might understand that the blind beggar desires to know the God who saves, i.e., he is seeking to see the Truth.
The lessons in all of this are quite obvious. A brief introductory comment to yesterday’s Gospel reading in my Baronius missal reads:
Pope St. Gregory the Great says: “The man born blind of whom the Gospel tells is surely the human race. Ever since man has been turned out of Paradise in the person of our first father, he has not known the light of heaven, and therefore has suffered through being plunged into the darkness of condemnation.”
Evidently, Pope St. Gregory was actually commenting on the “man blind from birth” (John 9, mentioned above), but his exegesis is just as applicable to Luke 18 as well.
For my part, one of the spiritual takeaways from the Gospel reading for Quinquagesima that seems worthy of consideration, in particular as we enter into the season of Lent, is that we who live in this post-conciliar age of mystery and confusion would do well to cry out to Jesus for mercy, that we may gain knowledge of the truth.
Have mercy on us Son of David, that we might see the truth about the terrible crisis through which we are presently living!
