A Poem for Quinquagesima

The Sightless Saw: A poem for Quinquagesima

D. N. Keane

The propers for Quinquagesima pair Luke 18.31ff – the story of Jesus healing a persistent blind beggar – with Paul's famous hymn to Love (I Cor. 13) invites us to identify with the blind beggar who encounters Jesus, the embodiment of Love, as he goes up to Jerusalem for the sacrifice. We are the blind and helpless who cry out, ‘Jesu, thou son of David, have mercy on upon us!’

The sightless saw more clearly than the rest

For he was blind to all but Christ. Oppressed

By learned scribes whose eyes could not perceive,

Blind guides who would not give the beggar leave,

Though faith had given him the light to spy

The hidden deity there passing by.

Unheeding those who neediness abhorred,

‘O Son of David, hear! Have mercy, Lord!’

The sightless souls disdain his misery;

But instantly, the blind renewed his plea.

When Jesus heard He knelt and touched his eyes

‘By faith ye see’ – His answer to the cries.

And so, by faith, the beggar saw God’s face,

Who, smiling, said much more would soon take place.

So onward to Jerusalem He tread,

Accomplishing those greater things He said

That charity with faith and hope would do,

To free those others trapped in darkness too.

The sightless, poor, rejected, and enslaved,

By his descent, were lifted up and saved.