According to Your Faith: Trust Before Sight
A Reflection on the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Beloved in Christ,
There is a question from this Sunday’s Gospel that ought to linger long in the heart, especially in these latter days when so much around us grows dim.
Two blind men have followed Christ as best they could. They could not see the road. They could not see the pressing crowds. They could not even see the One they sought. Yet they cried out persistently behind Him: “Have mercy on us, O Son of David!”
Only when they had come inside the house did the Lord turn to them and ask: “Believe ye that I am able to do this?”
It is a striking and merciful question.
He does not ask whether they deserve healing; He asks only whether they believe that He is able.
Their answer is wonderfully simple and direct: “Yea, Lord.”
Then follows one of the most comforting words in all the Holy Gospels: “According to your faith be it unto you.”
In our confused age, faith is too often dismissed as mere wishful thinking: a blind leap, a subjective feeling, or emotional self-deception. The faith of these blind men was nothing of the sort. It was not confidence in their own powers, nor a vague hope that “everything would work out,” nor even a demand that healing come precisely as they imagined.
Their faith had an Object. It was directed toward a Person. It was focused on the promised Son of David, the Messias. They placed themselves entirely into His hands. Christian faith is never merely believing that something is possible. It is believing in Whom we have approached. The strength of such faith rests not in the intensity of our feelings, but in the power and compassion of Christ Himself.
Here lies a beautiful and recurring irony in the Scriptures. The blind men believed before they saw. Only afterward were their eyes opened.
This is the divine order. God asks for trust before He grants full understanding. Abraham set out from his father’s house without knowing the destination. The Apostles left their nets before they beheld the Cross or the Resurrection. Faith does not abolish mystery; it enables us to walk faithfully through it, in obedience and love.
We moderns often wish it were otherwise. We imagine we could trust more easily if every question were first answered, every sorrow explained, every uncertainty erased. Yet our Lord gently teaches the opposite way. Trust opens the eyes of the heart. It does not wait for sight before it begins to follow.
How encouraging is the simplicity of the blind men’s cry: “Have mercy on us.” No arguments. No bargaining. No attempt to prove their worthiness. Only a humble confession of need.
This remains the prayer of the Church across the ages, the prayer whispered on the lips of countless faithful, the repeated “Lord, have mercy” of the Divine Liturgy, the cry of every soul that knows salvation is a gift, not a wage earned by human effort. In every generation, Christians have drawn near to God not by displaying accomplishments, but by acknowledging their poverty and sin.
The blind men possessed little that the world esteems. They had no influence, no wealth, no social standing. They had only faith. And that was enough to bring them to Christ.
These words of the Lord must not be twisted. He is not teaching that faith is some spiritual force by which we bend God to our will, nor is it a lesson in “positive thinking” or the power of self-confidence. Such notions belong to the spirit of our age, not to the Gospel.
Faith is rather the open hand that receives what God freely gives. The stronger the trust, the more completely the soul abandons itself to His care. Even when the answer comes differently than we hoped, true faith does not accuse God of failing us. It knows His wisdom surpasses our own, and that His ultimate purpose is always our salvation and healing, though often by ways we could not have foreseen.
This is why faith remains possible even in the midst of suffering. It rests not upon favorable circumstances, but upon Christ Himself.
Most of us are not physically blind. Yet every soul knows seasons when the road ahead is obscured: illness, the loss of work, family trials, loneliness, unanswered prayers, uncertainties about the future of our communities and the Church, or the path of our own vocation.
In such times we stand near to those two blind men. We cannot yet see clearly. But we can still follow the voice of Christ. The Christian life has never promised that every path would become immediately plain. It gives instead the sure assurance that the One who leads us is worthy of complete trust.
Long before we behold Him face to face, faith teaches us to recognize His voice. And in that recognition begins the true sight, the sight that endures unto the age to come.
May the Lord strengthen our weak faith, grant us the humility of those who cried for mercy, and according to our faith grant us all that is needful for our salvation. Amen.
19 July 2026