with His Heart
A Reflection on Luke 18:35-43
There's something we might easily miss in today’s gospel if we read it too
quickly. A man sitting by the roadside in complete darkness somehow recognized
who was passing by. He couldn't see Jesus with his eyes, yet he called out to
Him with a title that revealed the deepest truth: "Son of David", the
Messiah, the long-awaited One. Those who could see Him walking among them often
missed who He really was. But this beggar, with nothing but his need and his
faith, saw clearly. It makes you wonder about the nature of seeing itself.
Perhaps real sight has less to do with our eyes and more to do with our hearts.
Perhaps sometimes it's our very emptiness, our awareness of how desperately we
need mercy, that opens us to recognizing God when He draws near. The beggar
teaches us that faith often begins not with understanding everything, but with
crying out from wherever we find ourselves, trusting that Jesus is listening.
What strikes me most is the crowd's response. These were followers of Jesus,
people who had chosen to walk with Him, yet they tried to silence this
desperate cry for mercy. It's a sobering mirror for our own souls. How often do
we find ourselves irritated by another's suffering, impatient with someone
else's need? How easily we can walk alongside Jesus yet somehow miss His very
heart. The beggar's persistence in the face of opposition reveals something
essential about prayer; it requires a holy boldness, a refusal to be silenced
when we know we're crying out to the One who can heal us. His faith didn't wait
for permission or approval. It simply reached out with everything it had.
The Rosary teaches us this same persistence. When we pray the mysteries,
especially the Luminous ones, where we contemplate Jesus' public ministry,
we're walking that same road to Jericho. Each Hail Mary becomes our own cry:
"Have mercy on me, now and at the hour of my death." There's a
beautiful humility in repeating these beautiful prayers, in joining our voice to
countless souls across time who have knelt in the same posture of need. The
Rosary doesn't demand eloquence or originality; it asks for presence, for
faithfulness, for the willingness to keep calling out even when the repetition
feels like begging. Because that's exactly what it is. We are all beggars
before God, and the Rosary reminds us of this truth with tender insistence.
And if the Rosary teaches us to persist in calling out for mercy, the Chaplet
of Divine Mercy teaches us to trust in the answer. "Jesus, I trust in
You", these words echo the blind beggar's faith when he heard Jesus
calling him forward. The beggar could have doubted, could have thought himself
unworthy, could have let the crowd's rejection silence him forever. But he
threw off his cloak, his only possession, and came to Jesus with empty hands
and a trusting heart. When we pray "For the sake of His sorrowful Passion,
have mercy on us and on the whole world," we're standing in that same
posture of radical trust. We're not just asking for ourselves; we're crying out
for everyone sitting in their own darkness by their own roadsides. The Chaplet
reminds us that mercy isn’t earned or deserved; it's the very nature of God's
heart toward us. Like the beggar, we simply have to trust enough to cry out, to
keep crying out, and to believe that Jesus always stops when He hears that cry.
But here's what moves me most deeply: when Jesus restores his sight, the man
doesn't simply celebrate his miracle and return to his former life. He follows
Jesus "along the road", and if we know the Gospel, we know that road
leads to Jerusalem, to suffering, to the cross. When we truly receive mercy,
when we experience that moment of grace where God touches our deepest wounds,
something shifts in us. We can't just walk away unchanged. The beggar didn't
suddenly become important or special; he remained who he was, but now he walked
behind Jesus, learning what it meant to be loved and healed. This is the quiet
transformation mercy works in us: we simply want to stay close to the One who
saw us when we were invisible to everyone else. We follow not because we have
it all figured out, but because we've been found. The man who sat in darkness
now walks in the light, not his own light, but the light of Jesus Christ who stopped
for him. And perhaps that's all any of us can do: keep our eyes on Jesus, stay
on the road, and let mercy teach us how to live.
©2025 James Dacey, Jr., OFS
