An excerpt from the work of St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor
Steadfastness in Prayer
Our Redeemer foreseeing that the minds of His Disciples would be troubled because of His passion, foretold to them from afar both the humiliation of His passion and the glory of His resurrection: so that when they would behold Him dying, as He had predicted, they would not doubt He would also rise again. But since His Disciples, still carnal men, could not grasp the meaning of the words of the mystery, He wrought a miracle. Before their eyes a blind man receives sight, so that they who could not grasp the words of the heavenly mystery, would be strengthened in faith through heavenly deeds. But the miracles of Our Lord and Saviour, Dearly Beloved Brethren, are so to be received, that they are believed as true, and that they teach us something by a similitude. His works proclaim one thing by their power, another in their mystery.
For who this blind man was as regards his personal history we know not, yet whom he mystically represents we do know. For this blind man is truly humanity, which driven out from the joys of paradise in our first parent, not knowing the brightness of eternal light, suffers the darkness of its own condemnation: but through the presence of the Redeemer it is given sight, so that it may behold in desire the joy of the inward light, and set its steps in the way of a life of good works. (Ps. Ixxxiv. 14).