Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are just two weeks away (5 March 2025). I have further medical tests later today, checking on my bone density.
Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Mark 8: 22-26 (NRSVA):
22 They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, ‘Can you see anything?’ 24 And the man looked up and said, ‘I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.’ 25 Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 Then he sent him away to his home, saying, ‘Do not even go into the village.’
Today’s Reflection:
Today’s Gospel reading (Mark 8: 22-26) is set in Bethsaida, which is the hometown of Peter, Andrew and Philip (see John 1 : 44), and the place where, according to Saint Luke’s Gospel, is close to the place where Jesus miraculously feeds 5,000 people (see Luke 9: 10-11). It was about 6 miles (9.7 km) from Capernaum and close to the north shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Later in this Gospel, Saint Mark tells the story set in Jericho of the healing of the blind beggar Bartimaeus, a story told in all three Synoptic Gospels (see Matthew 20: 29-34; Mark 10: 46-52; Luke 18: 35-43). But Saint Mark is alone in telling the story of an unnamed blind man who is healed gradually at Bethsaida (Mark 8: 22-26).
In this healing story, Jesus once again is very tactile in his actions: he takes the blind man by the hand, leads him out of the village, puts saliva on his eyes, and lays hands on him, not once but twice.
The man has to look, and look again, to realise that his sight has been restored. It is as though he cannot believe his eyes the first time, and needs to close his eyes and squeeze them tight before he can focus them and have a second look.
Have you ever noticed that when you are trying really hard to concentrate, you sometimes close your eyes to help you to focus?
Throughout the Talmud, the blind are called sagi nahor – ‘enough of light’ or ‘full of light.’ Jewish tradition says this is so because one’s physical sight, which gazes out at the mundane and materialistic world, often contradicts and weakens one’s inner or spiritual sight.
There is a story about Rabbi Yosef Kahaneman (1886-1969), a prominent Lithuanian rabbi. After the Holocaust, he tried to find Jewish children whose parents had hid them during World War II.
Rabbi Kahaneman would walk through orphanages in Europe, reciting the beginning of the Shema. Instinctively, some of the children would cover their eyes, and cry out, ‘Mama, Mama!’
It is a universal Jewish custom to cover the eyes with the right hand when saying the first six words of the Shema. It is said that in doing this, the person who is praying is then able to concentrate properly without visual distractions.
It is also said it is even more important to have the proper intention when reciting the first verse of the Shema than when reciting other parts of prayer. As the words are said, the focus is not just on the meaning of the words, but also on accepting the yoke of heaven.
The person saying the Shema is expected to concentrate on the idea that God is the one and only true reality. This intention is so important that one who recites the words of this verse but does not think about its meaning is expected to recite it again … a second take on praying.
This custom of covering the eyes is traced back to the times of the Mishnah, when Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi (Judah the Prince) covered his eyes while reciting the first verse of the Shema.
Some early commentators, however, explain that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi covered his eyes while reciting the Shema because some other people had the custom of looking in all directions in order to accept God’s sovereignty throughout the world. Rabbi Yehuda covered his eyes, wishing to conceal his precise eye movements while reciting the Shema.
The kabbalists, especially Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, known as the Arizal, say that one is meant to use the right hand to close one’s eyes while reciting the first verse of the Shema. He connected this with an enigmatic riddle found in the Zohar.
The Zohar tells of an old man who appeared as a donkey driver met Rabbi Yossi during his travels and asked several questions. Rabbi Yossi failed to appreciate the true significance of the old man’s question.
However, his colleague Rabbi Chiya sensed that there was more to the questions than met the eye. After some reflection, they realised the old man was in fact teaching them deep mystical secrets.
The riddle that gave them the hardest time in understanding asked: ‘Who is the beautiful maiden without eyes, whose body is concealed and revealed, who comes out in the morning and disappears during the day, who is adorned with ornaments that never were?’
The Arizal offers an explanation that relates to the reading of the Shema. The ‘Maiden’ refers to the divine attribute of malchut (‘kingship’), sometimes referred to as the Shechinah, the feminine aspect of the divine. In this context, it is also referred to as ‘Rachel.’
There are four spiritual worlds in the kabbalistic formulation of the cosmos, and the world of Atzilut (‘Emanation’) is the highest of the four. In this realm, nothing has physical form or colour, and sight is non-existent.
The Kabbalists say that whoever recites the Shema is elevating the Mayin Nukvin (‘Feminine Waters’) to the world of Atzilut, setting the stage for the unification of the feminine and masculine, or the unification of the soul and the Shechinah. Since the Mayin Nukvin are entering Atzilut, a world that is higher than sight, the eyes must be closed during the first line of the Shema.
The right hand is used to do this, even when someone is left-handed. This is said to symbolise the attribute of chessed or kindness, as well as the Mayin Dechurin (‘Male Waters’), also connected to this riddle.
Our physical senses often seem to contradict the idea of God’s oneness, that God is the only true reality. We see, smell, taste and feel the world around us, while God can remain an abstract and spiritual reality.
Therefore, when the Shema is said and the oneness of God is proclaimed, this becomes an affirmation that true reality is neither what the eye sees nor what is experienced naturally and intuitively. By covering the eyes when praying, a person indicates the desire to disconnect from the physical and connect to the spiritual.
It is said that when a person recites the Shema and accepts the yoke of heaven, the Shechinah or Divine Presence rests upon his/her face. The face is covered out of respect for the Divine Presence, for, as God told Moses: ‘See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen’ (Exodus 33: 21-23, NRSVA).
The first verse of the Shema proclaims that ‘the Lord is our God; the Lord is one.’ This statement affirms belief that both God’s attribute of strength and judgment and God’s attribute of mercy are really one. Covering the eyes symbolises acceptance that what is seen with physical eyes as negative is, in truth, positive.
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 19 February 2025):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The Struggle for Indigenous Land Rights in Brazil.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Dr Rodrigo Espiúca dos Anjos Siqueira, Coordinator of the Department of Advocacy, Human, Environmental and Territorial Rights of the Anglican Diocese of Brasília. Pastor of Espírito Santo Parish, Novo Gama, Goiás.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 19 February 2025) invites us to pray:
May God, in his infinite mercy, give courage, hope and strength to the activists in favour of human, environmental and territorial rights in Brazil.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who alone can bring order
to the unruly wills and passions of sinful humanity:
give your people grace
so to love what you command
and to desire what you promise,
that, among the many changes of this world,
our hearts may surely there be fixed
where true joys are to be found;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Merciful Father,
who gave Jesus Christ to be for us the bread of life,
that those who come to him should never hunger:
draw us to the Lord in faith and love,
that we may eat and drink with him
at his table in the kingdom,
where he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
Eternal God,
whose Son went among the crowds
and brought healing with his touch:
help us to show his love,
in your Church as we gather together,
and by our lives as they are transformed
into the image of Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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