31st Sunday after Pentecost, Tone 7; Our Venerable Father Macarius of Egypt (c. 390)
Read
1 Timothy 1:15-17; Luke 18:35-43
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
The Light came into the world to give sight to the blind and faith to those who lacked it. When he approached the blind man, he cried out and said, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” The beggar’s hand was stretched out to receive a penny from human beings and found himself receiving the gift of God! “Son of David, have mercy on me.” He correctly understood that Jesus was the Son of David, David who spared the blind and the lame of the Jebusites. What did he then answer him? “See, your faith has saved you.” Christ did not say to him, “It is your faith that has caused you to see,” in order to show that faith had first given him life and then bodily sight.
Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Tatians’s Diatessaron, 15.22