Hi everyone. Welcome back to Daily Gospel Exegesis, and our goal here is to try to get at the literal sense of scripture.

And we do that by looking at the gospel reading from today's Mass.

And today's reading is Luke chapter 18 verses 35 to 43 that's the gospel reading at today's mass so we'll

have a read of it first and then we'll see if we can do a proper verse by verse exegesis of the text

as jesus drew near to jericho there was a blind man sitting at the side of

the road begging. When he heard the crowd going past, he asked what it was all about, and they told

him that Jesus the Nazarene was passing by. So he called out, Jesus, son of David, have pity on me. The people in front scolded him and told

him to keep quiet, but he shouted all the louder, son of David, have pity on me. Jesus stopped and

ordered them to bring the man to him, and when he came up, asked him, what do you want me to do for you?

Sir, he replied, let me see again.

Jesus said to him, receive your sight.

Your faith has saved you.

And instantly his sight returned and he followed him, praising God,

and all the people who saw it gave praise to God

for what had happened. So what's the context here? Jesus is moving from Galilee to Jerusalem. He's

getting very close to the end of his life and he's doing ministry along the way speaking to the crowds

and he's now arrived in

Judea.

He is in the state or the region where Jerusalem is, so he's getting very close to Jerusalem.

And in particular, verse 35 tells us he draws near to Jericho.

Jericho is 17 miles northeast of Jerusalem.

It's a major city at the time, and it's still there today. You can go

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