Healing of the Two Blind Men Fr Ambrose Inlow

In the name of the Holy Spirit, amen. Glory be

to Jesus Christ. Glory be to God. In today's

epistle and gospel, there are probably, there

are many, and questions, but three fundamental

questions that can change our entire life. The

first one is that the epistle says that you may

be of one mind, one heart in Christ Jesus. If

we could be one mind and one heart in Christ

Jesus, that's paradise on earth. If we make that

our entire aim of our life, that would be a life

worthy to be lived. In the Gospel, the second

question is, how do I handle my own pain? This

is one of the most fundamental questions of life.

I see this every day as a priest. a drug addict

than the next hour I'm with a millionaire. And

the most common correlation between both of them,

those who don't even have $100 a month to spend

and those who have millions of dollars, the commonality

between them is pain. Everyone deals with their

own pain. And then the third question is, what

do we do with the pain of others? You notice

there was not one blind man, there were two blind

men that came to Christ. Now the answer is going

to answer all three of these main questions.

Again, if we got these three main questions,

how do we handle our own pain? How do we handle

the pain of our brothers and sisters? And how

can we be one in Christ? One heart, one mind,

one soul, one will, one body. Now, when we have

and experience our own pain, we can turn that

energy around. Now, what I mean by pain, we've

all experienced this. It's a universal language

for humanity. Pain of despondency, pain of despair,

pain of a loss of a job, pain of a loss of someone

that we love. pain of losing our job, pain of

stubbing our pinky toe in the middle of the night.

You name it, we each have experienced some kind

of pain. So what can we do with that energy of

pain so that it can be sanctified and that pain

can then turn into love? Not just for ourselves,

but for all mankind. Because remember, the aim

is to be one heart, one mind, one soul in Christ

Jesus. What about the pain of someone else that

we love? Someone that we heard of that got into

a car accident, or someone that we know of that

stubbed their pinky toe in the middle of the

night. What about someone that lost their job,

or someone that's going through a very difficult

time? We can feel that in our heart and in our

soul. Especially in the crazy times that we live

in now, the wars and the famines and the rumors

of wars, everything that's happening, we experience

this in our soul. What are we supposed to do

with this energy that we experience? What are

we supposed to do with the energy of our own

personal pain and then the energy of the pain

that we feel in the entire world? Saint Sophrony

says, the place to experience grace. par excellence.

And he says, even as great as when he was in

the desert on Manaphos, is in the divine liturgy.

The divine liturgy is the place where our own

personal pain, our own, the corporate pain that

we feel, can then be transformed into a divine

love for the entire world. And then the divine

liturgy is where we become one heart, one soul,

one mind. in Christ. There are two symbols in

the Divine Liturgy that I want to illustrate

this point. The first, and one of my favorite

parts of the Divine Liturgy, is when we'll experience

it in maybe ten minutes' time. It depends on

how slow we read the litanies. Thine own of thine

own, we offer unto thee on behalf of all and

for all. Thy known of thy known. Let's go through

this quickly. Thy known of thy known. Everything

you've given me is a gift. My nature is a gift.

My breath is a gift. My thinking is a gift. Thy

known of thy known. I am thine. Save me, as we

heard in the Psalms. Thy known of thy known.

We offer unto thee. That means, I am offering

my life on behalf of what? Let's keep going.

Thine own, of thine own, we offer unto thee for

what? On behalf of all and for all. So by you

being in the divine liturgy, by you offering

your life to Christ, especially in the divine

liturgy, you are offering your life on behalf

of the whole world. You are offering your life

on behalf of your whole family, of your neighbors,

of your aunts and uncles. And in fact, that pain

that you experience of theirs, when you offer

that to God in the Divine Liturgy, you are offering

them up to God on the Divine Altar. Now, whose

sacrifice is it? It's Christ's sacrifice. We

are just entering into His sacrifice. He is the

one that offered Himself perfectly to the Father.

We are just entering in by grace to His beautiful

paradise of offering and His resurrection. But

the Divine Liturgy is the transformation of pain

into love. Never forget this. We come in with

our struggles. We offer God our repentance. We

come in with our fears, our panics, our worries.

But God comes and on the altar sanctifies the

holy gifts and offers us His divine kingdom.

It's not a fair exchange. We offer Him a little

bit of our two minds and He gives us His entire

life in the divine liturgy, especially in the

chalice. Everything that is His, He gives to

you in the chalice. And when you partake, you

are partaking of the fullness of the Godhead.

Nothing, nothing short of that. So we offer our

personal pain and the pain of our neighbors to

God on behalf of all and for all. Therefore,

as it says in the Akathist of St. Olga of Alaska,

that her every step was an offering to God. You

see, every prayer, every breath that you make

in the Divine Liturgy and extend it out throughout

your entire life, is an offering not just for

yourself, but for your loved ones, for your brothers,

for your sisters in Christ, for your uncles,

your aunts, for anyone that's ever stubbed their

toe in the middle of the night. Whoever it is

that you bring into your heart, you bring them

to the altar in the Divine Liturgy, and not only

are you transformed, but they, by grace, are

transformed a little by little. This is why St.

Seraphim says, acquire the spirit of peace and

a thousand around you will be saved it's not

that you're a guru and you have this peace that

everyone's attracted to no the thousand people

are in your heart you see so then when you acquire

peace in your heart they too get to experience

that so you are participating in the greatest

work in the whole cosmos and that is the divine

liturgy because it's the place where we become

one in christ It's the place where we can transform,

by God's grace, our own personal pain into love

for others. And it's also the place where we

can bring our brother and sister's pain to the

divine altar. And there's a wonderful transformation

that occurs. Pain turns to joy. The cross turns

into the resurrection. So come to every divine

liturgy with expectation. that this is a cosmic

event, that this is not just you and God time,

but this is the time where God can, through you

and through all of us, to be one heart, one mind,

one soul, one body, and through the body to bless

and to share His grace to the whole world. To

Him be all glory, honor, and worship.