We Gain Our Sight Only In Stages

Mark 8: 22-26.

Throughout the gospels we hear stories about Jesus healing the deaf and giving sight to the blind. But Mark is the only gospel writer who tells this particular story. In today’s gospel Jesus puts spittle on the eyes of a blind man and he is able to see only outlines of people walking around. Then laying his hands on the man’s eyes a second time he could see everything distinctly. This miracle is unique. It is the only one which can be said to have happened gradually. All of Jesus’ other miracles generally happen suddenly and completely. In this one, the blind man’s sight comes back in stages.

There is a major symbolic truth that Mark imparts to us in this miracle, that no one sees all of God’s truth at once. Very few of us have one defining moment in our life that we can point to where we can say “I fully knew God from that moment on.” We aren’t just suddenly born again. I can think of only one person who was knocked off a horse by lightening (actually scripture says there was a flash from the sky and there was no horse mentioned) and had an instant transformation that changed the rest of his life – St. Paul. There may be others of us who can point to one moment in time that change their life but I would venture to say that there are very few us.

And yet, we can usually point to defining moments in our faith journey that do change our lives. In my life I would count our wedding at the moment we said “I do”, the birth of our children, Marriage Encounter, Cursillo, and my Ordination. Those were major conversion times I will never forget. At those times I strongly felt the Holy Spirit present in my life. They were powerful life-changing events.

But then there are all the daily conversions – a series of conversions with small realizations and fresh insights. They are new and sometimes renewed awareness of God in my life. They represent further and deeper revelations my relationship with God.



In my career as a pilot I did not become one overnight. It took many months of training. In fact it took years of training. I was always learning something new as long as I worked at it. The first flight was only the beginning.

The same can be said about conversions. We have to keep working at them, searching them out, trying to become closer to God. When are open to those conversions we begin to have a series of transformations. When the catechumens are baptized at the Easter Vigil they do not suddenly know everything there is to know about God. It is just a beginning for them. In fact, they are called neophytes. It is the start of their journey of faith for them.

If we lived a hundred or more years we would still have something more to learn about our relationship to God. We slowly gain sight of His truths and grow in His grace. The riches and truths which Christ reveals to us are inexhaustible. I imagine sudden conversion is a possibility. But it is even more true that every day we should be open to the conversions that occur in our lives. Every day we need to ask “Who is Jesus to me today.”

Deacon Greg Beckel