with that eye he could, not yet see either the Father, or the Son who is equal with the Father;
but that his eye might be healed for seeing, he was to be anointed unto believing. So then
before thou seest what thou canst not now see, believe what as yet thou seest not. “Walk by
faith,” that thou mayest attain to sight. Sight will not gladden him in his home whom faith
consoleth not by the way. For so says the Apostle, “As long as we are in the body, we are in
pilgrimage from the Lord.” 2882 And he subjoins immediately why we are still “in pilgrimage,”
though we have now believed; “For we walk by faith,” He says, “not by sight.”
5. Our whole business then, Brethren, in this life is to heal this eye of the heart whereby
God may be seen. To this end are celebrated the Holy Mysteries; to this end is preached the
word of God; to this end are the moral exhortations of the Church, those, that is, that relate
to the correction of manners, to the amendment of carnal lusts, to the renouncing the world,
not in word only, but in a change of life: to this end is directed the whole aim of the Divine
and Holy Scriptures, that that inner man may be purged of that which hinders us from the
sight of God. For as the eye which is formed to see this temporal light, a light though heavenly,
yet corporeal, and manifest, not to men only, but even to the meanest animals (for for this
the eye is formed, to see this light); if anything be thrown or fall into it, whereby it is dis-
ordered, is shut out from this light; and though it encompass the eye with its presence, yet
the eye turns itself away from, and is absent from it; and through its disordered condition
is not only rendered absent from the light which is present, but the light to see which it was
formed, is even painful to it. So the eye of the heart too when it is disordered and wounded
turns away from the light of righteousness, and dares not and cannot contemplate it.
6. And what is it that disorders the eye of the heart? Evil desire, covetousness, injustice,
worldly concupiscence, these disorder, close, blind the eye of the heart. And yet when the
eye of the body is out of order, how is the physician sought out, what an absence of all delay
to open and cleanse it, that that may be healed whereby this outward light is seen! There is
running to and fro, no one is still, no one loiters, if even the smallest straw fall into the eye.
And God it must be allowed made the sun which we desire to see with sound eyes. Much
brighter assuredly is He who made it; nor is the light with which the eye of the mind is
concerned of this kind at all. That light is eternal Wisdom. God made thee, O man, after
His own image. Would He give thee wherewithal to see the sun which He made, and not
give thee wherewithal to see Him who made thee, when He made thee after His own image?
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He hath given thee this also; both hath He given thee. But much thou dost love these outward
eyes, and despisest much that interior eye; it thou dost carry about bruised and wounded.
Yea, it would be a punishment to thee, if thy Maker should wish to manifest Himself unto
thee; it would be a punishment to thine eye, before that it is cured and healed. For so Adam
in paradise sinned, and hid himself from the face of God. As long then as he had the sound
2882 2 Cor. v. 6.
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On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xx. 30, about the two blind men sitting…