Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today’s lesson from the Matthew’s Gospel incorporates more of Jesus’ healing work and the feeding of four thousand people.

There are multiple strands to pull from this story, but one stands out. That is, that although Jesus healed people with various illnesses, one malady had a special resonance: blindness. The Gospel reports that many blind people were healed by Jesus, often in response to their faith.

On the other hand, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus called the spiritual leaders of the day “blind guides” who led other blind people into destruction. Why did Jesus say such a harsh thing about these leaders?

These leaders were hyper-focused on the content of the law and on keeping its demands exactly while failing to recognize who Jesus was and what he came to accomplish as the true fulfillment of the law. In other words, they ended up trusting in themselves and in their “just” status, while being in the presence of one toward whom the whole structure was pointing, to the one about to destroy sin and death.

What message can we take from this passage? The primary meaning I find here is that I should find my fulfillment, my end, in Christ, by identifying with him in his death, through baptism, sustained by his presence in the sacraments. I should devote myself to spiritual progress to become more fully human, to grow into the stature of the full Man, the One in whom I have my being.

This process, if I do it with appropriate keenness, will likely look like dying, because the means for growth offered by the Church emerge from the self-emptying of Christ’s life: prayer, fasting, almsgiving. These things should bring me closer to Christ, who will put to death my sinful passions, oriented as they are toward non-being, allowing the true creature to emerge through healing and restoration.

Yours in Christ,

—Justin