Ukrainian Catholic ChurchAustralia, New Zealand and Oceania
Homily by Fr. Zenon Racki on the Sixth Sunday after Easter
May 24, 2025
Beloved in Christ, today’s event reveals to us the mystery of our faith, as well as the mystery of patience. In the event of the healing of the blind man, we have the opportunity to get to know the risen Lord Jesus Christ better, who gives us spiritual eyes with which to look at our lives.
Christ is risen!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ!
Very often in our lives we do not understand—just like the apostles who once walked with Jesus Christ—the mystery of patience and its causes. Why do we not understand? Because our eyes are looking at life in a human way, whereas they should be turned to Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen One. The deeper we enter into the mystery of the Christian life, the better we understand the value of patience.
We can say that, together with the passion of Jesus Christ and His resurrection, every human patience takes on a new dimension. God teaches us to look with different eyes at the suffering that so often occurs on the roads of our lives. But Christ has changed the meaning of human pain and physical suffering: it is no longer a punishment and no longer a curse. Suffering is our redemption: just as the Son of God took on all our sins through His suffering and the Cross, so we are purified through our own suffering and our cross.
The sufferings that Jesus Christ went through, as well as those of the numerous martyrs of the Church and the saints, are a great mystery for us. Suffering is the path to personal salvation. We find in the risen Jesus Christ a new light that helps us pass through darkness, doubts, hopelessness, war, humiliation, death, and persecution.
St. Paul writes very beautiful words in his second letter to the Corinthians: “For as we have in us the abundance of Christ’s sufferings, so we have in us through Christ the abundance of comfort” (II Cor. 1:5). When we suffer, the world recognizes the image of Christ in us.
Indeed, some saints perceived suffering as a blessing because they always remembered their Savior Jesus Christ. For whoever loves God will carry his cross, suffer in the world, and reveal himself to God through it.
Today we read in the Holy Gospel about the healing of the blind man. First of all, this event reveals the suffering of an innocent person: a person who is blind from birth is a truly innocent person. The second important figure is Jesus Christ, the power of God’s love and mercy for the blind man.
Let’s imagine a man who was blind from birth. His life began in darkness: he could see neither his parents nor the Messiah, the Son of God, whom Israel was waiting for. Everyone who passed by sympathized with him and his weakness.
That is why this event is great. Jesus Christ smears mud on the blind man’s eyes, and he sees. And first of all, he sees Jesus Christ, sees the world, his relatives, his life in a completely different light. In the same way, we come to the Lord God and receive baptism, which washes us in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Baptism enlightens us, makes us new people, born of water and the Holy Spirit.
This is extraordinary. Our spiritual eyes are opened, we become God’s children, and we walk in imitation of Jesus Christ. Baptism is an exceptional and sacramental event in the life of everyone who receives it.
A person is born again: sins are forgiven and washed away. The fear of life disappears, because we have Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, in front of us. We are not alone: our parents, godparents, and the Lord God are with us. And we see this light of God that illuminates our life’s journey.
Beloved in Christ, today’s event reveals to us the mystery of our faith, as well as the mystery of patience. In the event of the healing of the blind man, we have the opportunity to get to know the risen Lord Jesus Christ better, who gives us spiritual eyes with which to look at our lives.
After all this, Jesus tells us to go into life with open eyes. For Jesus is the source of everything, He is the source of light that enlightens, purifies a person, and leads him along the path of life. Each of us received a great healing in the sacrament of baptism. We went through the Siloam’s baptismal font—it was our baptism. And that is why we became God’s children, children of His light. We are children of light.
So let us open our hearts to sincerely say: “I believe, Lord!” and worship Jesus with all our hearts. May the light of God illuminate our lives, and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen.
Christ is risen.
