Dear brothers and sisters! How precious a treasure is sincere, warm, and heartfelt prayer to the Lord. In it, we bring to the Lord our sorrows, our gratitude, and our requests. The Lord, through sincere prayer, which is offered with faith and repentance, sends us His countless blessings and miracles, bearing witness to His power and might. By our faith and God's mercy, mountains are moved—not earthly mountains, although they too obey the faithful—but the mountains of our sins, sorrows, and the temptations of the enemy. Our spiritual and physical infirmities are healed, passions and sins are conquered, and we are granted moral strength to perform righteous deeds.
In today's Gospel, we heard about the healing of two blind men and a mute by Jesus Christ. As Jesus was walking, two blind men followed Him persistently, crying out, "Have mercy on us, Son of David!"—so the evangelist Matthew tells us. "When He entered the house, the blind men approached Him. And Jesus said to them, 'Do you believe that I am able to do this?' They said to Him, 'Yes, Lord.' Then He touched their eyes, saying, 'According to your faith, let it be to you.' And their eyes were opened" (Matthew 9:28-30).
Why was the prayer of these blind men heard when they asked the Lord? To understand this, let's see how they prayed. First, they addressed Christ as "Jesus, Son of David." To call someone the Son of David in Galilee at that time was not without risk. It required great courage to confess Jesus as the Son of David, because the Pharisees and scribes understood this as recognition of Him as the Messiah-Savior. But the faith that enlightened the blind men was so strong that, though blind, they acknowledged: this man is not ordinary, He is truly the Son of God. Therefore, the Lord healed these blind men, though there were undoubtedly many other sick people around.
We often come to church with some need and deeply desire that our petition to the Lord be fulfilled. For our prayer to be fulfilled, we must ask the Lord with steadfast faith, persistently. We sometimes judge the results of our prayers hastily and incorrectly. By carefully considering the teachings of today's Gospel, let us try to understand what we need to do for our prayer to be fulfilled.
The two blind men in the Gospel asked the Lord for physical sight, which is often what we ask the Lord for—health. Blindness is a terrible condition, a heavy cross—not seeing the light of God. The blind person is deprived of all the blessings that a sighted person has in interacting with the outside world. At that time, there were many blind people in Israel, but the Lord healed these particular ones because He saw how firmly and undoubtedly they believed that He would heal them, how persistently they asked, followed the Lord, and pleaded with Him until He deemed them worthy of a miracle and healed them. It is said that when He entered the house, the blind men came to Him with a request for healing. Jesus asked them if they believed He could heal them. Receiving an affirmative answer, the Lord touched their eyes, and they were opened, saying to them: "See that no one knows of this miracle." As soon as they left, a mute man possessed by a demon was brought to Jesus. This mute man could not ask for healing himself because the demon had bound his tongue. Therefore, the Lord did not ask him about his faith but, undoubtedly discerning it in the mute man's soul, commanded the demon to leave, and the man regained the ability to speak.
How often we are spiritually weakened. And sometimes, when something is quickly granted to a person through their prayer, they become complacent, and their faith weakens. When a person is satiated with earthly blessings, when everything is going well, they sometimes forget God in their prosperity. And the Lord, knowing our human nature, corrupted by sin—ingratitude, unreliability, lack of faith, and selfishness—chastens and instructs us, allowing troubles and illnesses, which are teachings for our correction, so that we continually turn to Him.
How often a person, mired in worldly concerns and earthly affairs, thinks that this is real life, but the Lord wants to call us to another life—a spiritual, prayerful life. And so, during the trials permitted by the Lord, we first pray out of sorrow and grief, but then, seeing the fruits of prayer, we sometimes begin to pray out of joy, love, and gratitude to God. Although often, after receiving what we asked of God, we forget the past sufferings and begin to live again a carnal, sinful life. But the Lord calls us to ask for something greater and more important—spiritual sight leading to the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, He patiently waits for our requests for earthly things to turn into requests for spiritual things, for us to become so strengthened in spirit that we consider our earthly life as nothing compared to spiritual treasures. The Lord, in His mercy and wisdom, through sorrows and illnesses, raises us, who so love our flesh and earthly pleasures, to heavenly heights. For our prayer to be fulfilled, we must ask the Lord not for earthly blessings but for heavenly, spiritual ones, thanking Him for the joys and sorrows sent to us for our salvation.
To reveal the firm faith of the blind men, the Lord, as if unaware, asked them if they believed that He could heal them. They answered, "Yes, Lord!" Then the Lord said that nothing is impossible for the believer: "According to your faith, let it be to you." Therefore, the indispensable condition under which the Lord fulfills our prayers is firm, unwavering, and deep faith.
These two blind men had not yet been enlightened by holy baptism, yet they persistently followed Christ, seeking mercy from Him in their need. We, enlightened by holy baptism, having sound bodily eyes, sometimes do not follow Christ, who has shown us the example of meekness, temperance, and purity, but follow His adversary, that is, the devil, indulging our flesh, succumbing to drunkenness, debauchery, slander, envy... The example of the blind men who persistently followed Christ instructs us that in our lives we must always follow only the Lord in humility, purity, and gentleness, and then He will fulfill our prayers, enlighten our spiritual eyes so that we may see the Creator in His creations on earth, and then in the Kingdom of God.
When the Lord healed the blind men, He commanded them to remain silent about the miracle. Why did the Lord command such silence? The mystery of the miracle should bring forth the fruits of gratitude and humility: gratitude for the fact that the Lord Himself, in the miracle, drew near to us, and humility from our unworthiness in this closeness of Divine love. And if we, when the Lord grants us a miracle through our prayer to Him, do not have humility and reverence but instead boastfully speak to others about God's gifts, thinking, "This happened to me, while it doesn't happen to many others," then gradually vanity will poison our soul. Receiving what the Lord grants us by His mercy, we often forget that where sin abounds, it is precisely there, where help is most needed, where a person cannot cope on their own, that the all-powerful Divine grace acts with special strength. We forget that the Lord enters our lives with a miracle because we are sometimes so sinful and weak, so powerless and will-less. We must be careful, praising the Lord for His miracles, so that in our weakness and spiritual blindness we do not attribute His glory to ourselves, do not destroy within ourselves the humility with which we should sing His praises: "Who is so great a God as our God? You are the God who works wonders!" (Psalm 76). And if the Lord has performed a miracle for us, we must first glorify Him throughout the earth through our deeds, giving Him our entire life, living according to His laws, and not in any way attributing the work of His miracles to ourselves. For our prayer to be fulfilled, we must learn to remain silent about the Lord's mercy, to humbly consider ourselves unworthy of His blessings and miracles.
So, brothers and sisters, our Christian duty, seeing the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, is to thank Him both in word and deed. He, coming to earth, humbly walked through cities and villages, preaching the Gospel, healing every disease and sickness in people, freeing them from sins and passions, and calling them to serve one another, as the apostle said: "We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves, for even Christ did not please Himself" (Romans 15:1).
Let us persistently ask the Lord to grant us spiritual sight, to deliver us from the bondage of sin, let us ask for the eternal Kingdom, the incorruptible Kingdom of righteousness, thanksgiving, peace, love, and endless bliss, and the Lord, according to our faith, will enlighten the eyes of our souls. Let us seek first the Kingdom of Heaven, and all the rest, by God's mercy, will be added to us.