1. When John the Baptist heard in prison about the deeds of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another? "And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see."The signs appear: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them ( Mt 11, 5 ). Today also faith´s experience has these signs. The best thing that can ever happen to someone who is searching is find himself with a sign that atracts him to faith.

2. One of the signs is this: the blind receive their sight. What Isaiah the prophet says is fulfilled, " Out of their gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see." ( Is 29, 18 ). Without discarding the physical healing, the symbolism of blindness and the light run through the whole Gospel and also the whole Bible. For example, Saint Paul says "For it is God himself who said, let light shine out of darkness, has made the light shine in our hearts. (2 Co 4, 6 ).

3. The light shows the glory of God. One sings in the psalm 104, " The light covered yourself as a garment. And the psalm 67 , "May the Lord be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us. It is written, "God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all "(1Jn 1,5 ). In his light we see light ( Ps 36,10 ). His Word is true light ( Jn 1,9 ) that enlightens our way, "The unfolding of your Words gives light, it imparts understanding to the simple".

4. The evangelization of Jesus starts in Galilee, in a land enslaved, in darkness, in need of redemption, " The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light (Mt 4, 16 ). Jesus is the servant destined to be a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from prison, from the jail those who sit in darkness ( Is 42, 6-7). He is the light of the world. He who does not see this light is blind (Jn 9 ). He who follows Jesus will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life (Jn 8, 12 ).

5. If we do the will of God (to let the oppressed go free, to share our bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into your house), then shall your light break forth like the dawn ( Is 58, 8 ). If we do evil we stumble in darkness, " We look for light and behold darkness, and for brightness but we walk in gloom. We grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among those in full vigor we are like dead men (Is 59, 9-10 ).

6. Jesus said it, " You are the light of the world ( Mt 5, 14 ). God who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 P 2,9) invite us to live as sons of the light:The fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true (Ep 5, 9-11 ). A fundamental criteria is brotherly love, " he who loves his brother abides in the light (1 Jn, 2, 10 ). Another criteria is given to Nicodemus by Jesus, " Everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true, comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been done according to God (Jn 3, 20-21 ).

7. Jesus announces to the crowd the Word with many parables, but gives to his disciples a special teaching , "To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything is in parables; so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; lest they should turn again to be forgiven" (Mk 4, 11-12 ). According to the parable of the sower, the different kind of soils where the seed of the word falls corresponds with the different kind of people . Especially the rejection of the Word is carried out by those whose economic, political or religious power determines them to be blind or deaf. As an old proverb says, there is no worse blind person than he who does not want to see, nor worse deaf person than he who does not want to hear.

8. The scribes and pharisees are blind and moreover they have the responsability of guiding many people, "they are blind who are leading the blind"(Mt 15,14 ); they consider more important the gold of the temple than the temple itself (23, 24 ); they strain out a gnat and swallow a camel ( 23,24 ); they cleanse the outside of the cup and plate, but inside they are full of extortion and rapacity (23,25 ); they are blind who do not recognize their blindness (Jn 9, 41 ).

9. In the episode of the transfiguration, Peter, James and John see beforehand the glory of Jesus, clothed by the light of the resurrection, "his face shone like the sun and his garments became white as light (Mt 17,2 ). Travellers of Emmaus recognize Jesus resurrected when their eyes were opened (Lk 24, 31 ). Saint Paul sees on the way to Damascus a great light from heaven that shines on him and blinds him, just until - through the mediation of Ananias - he recovers his sight ( Ac 22, 6-13 ). In the new world according to Revelation, night shall be no more, because the Lord will be our light (Ac 22,5 ).

10. The first Christians call enlightenment the initiation in the light which supposes the experience of the Gospel. In the poem of Dark Night, St. John of the Cross sings of the light that guides him, "that which guides me more securely than the light of noon." In our time the Second Vatican Council desires to enlighten mankind with the light of Christ that shines from the face of the Church. (LG 1).

11. If one reads the passage of Jericho’s blind (Mk 10, 46-52) as a scheme of evangelization, we can see where we are. The context is this: The disciples go with Jesus towards Jerusalem. They are really quite blind. Some of them, the sons of Zebedee, do not know what they are asking: they ask to sit at Jesus’s side (10, 38); the other ten were indignant )10, 41). Many of them who followed him were afraid (10, 32).

12. When he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and with a sizeable crowd, a blind man who sat by the roadside begging began to cry out and say, "Son of David have pity on me!". Son of David! The cry of the Messiah! Many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more,"Son of David, have pity on me!". Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." So they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take courage; get up, he is calling you." He threw aside his cloak, sprang up and came to Jesus and he said to him, "What do you want me to do?" The blind man replied to him, " Master I want to see." Jesus told him, " Go your way, your faith has saved you ." Inmediatly he received his sight and followed him on the way.

* We can review, How do we stand in front of Jesus ?

- as a blind person in the roadside
- crying out
- we have been called
- we can already see
- we follow him on the way