Today's Gospel with comment: February 19, 2020

From the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Mark 8,22-26.
At that time, Jesus and his disciples came to Bethsaida, where they brought a blind man asking him to touch him.
Then taking the blind man by the hand, he led him out of the village and, after putting saliva on his eyes, he laid his hands on him and asked, "See anything?"
He, looking up, said: "I see men, because I see like trees that walk."
Then he laid his hands on his eyes again and he saw us clearly and was healed and saw everything from a distance.
And sent him home saying, "Don't even enter the village."
Liturgical translation of the Bible

St. Jerome (347-420)
priest, translator of the Bible, doctor of the Church

Homilies on Mark, n. 8, 235; SC 494
"Open my eyes ... to the wonders of your law" (Ps 119,18)
"Jesus put saliva on his eyes, laid his hands on him and asked if he saw anything." Knowledge is always progressive. (…) It is at the price of long time and long learning that perfect knowledge is reached. First the impurities go away, the blindness goes away and so the light comes. The saliva of the Lord is a perfect teaching: to teach perfectly, she comes from the mouth of the Lord. The saliva of the Lord, which comes so to speak from its substance, is knowledge, just as the word that comes from his mouth is a remedy. (...)

"I see men, because I see like trees that walk"; I always see the shadow, not the truth yet. Here is the meaning of this word: I see something in the Law, but I still do not perceive the shining light of the Gospel. (...) "Then he laid his hands on his eyes again and he saw us clearly and was healed and saw everything from a distance." He saw - I say - everything we see: he saw the mystery of the Trinity, he saw all the sacred mysteries that are in the Gospel. (...) We also see them, because we believe in Christ who is the true light.