One thing alone makes us reluctant to see Our Blessed Lord as he is, and ourselves as we are, and that is our pride and our self-esteem. And the only way to get rid of that is to have the humility and the honesty to recognise and admit that we fall far short of what we are meant to be, and not to pretend otherwise, either to Our Lord in our worship or to ourselves in our daily life.

If we should happen to be satisfied with ourselves as Christians, then that self-satisfaction in itself is the clearest evidence of our spiritual blindness, blotting out our vision both of our real spiritual condition and of the true character of God.

Then our prayer must be that of Bartimaeus, that other blind man in the Gospel: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (RSV, Mark 10:47). And when Our Lord asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” (RSV, Mark 10:51a) we know what to say in reply: Lord, that I may see (Mark 10:51b).