The Gift of Darkness on St. Didymus the Blind, Patron Saint of Orthodox Christian Campus Ministries

Anonymous
Jun 13
5 min read

Written anonymously by one of our OCCM servants.

June 13, 2025, Feast of St. Didymus

“The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints”

-Ephesians 1:18

I. The Blind Who Sees

Didymus, they called him the blind. Yet he saw what emperors could not. He beheld what kings and priests ignored. He saw things which “No eye has seen nor ear heard, neither have come upon the heart of man” (1 Corinthians 2:9). A blind man who sees the invisible, a blind man who is fully sensitive to spiritual things, to spiritual darkness—sin. “For wisdom will not enter the soul that plots evil, nor will it dwell in a body involved in sin” (Wisdom 1:4). This wisdom is knocking on the door of our hearts, waiting for us to open the door for it to enter and cleanse within us. However, we live in sin. We dwell within this wretched and filthy domain that is the world allowing it to permeate us with sin and desire. To fight, we must put on our spiritual eyes and equip our νόος (nous). How can we prepare our νόος (nous) for this battle? Through the removal of distraction, the removal of senses. For when one loses his eyesight, his hearing is increased. Likewise, when the physical eyes are lost, the spiritual eyes abound. May God grant us all the spiritual eyes of St. Didymus!

"He (St. Didymus) had eyes that saw nothing, but a mind that discerned everything."

- St. Jerome (Letter to Castrutius)

II. The Cloak of Darkness

Didymus lost his eyesight at four, but it was in this early dusk that the dawn of Wisdom broke. Blindness became his crucible, transforming him into iron sharpened for the glory of God. This worldly sight of unworthiness, blindness, is as the unworthy worldly sight of the cross. Just as the thief, Demas, was deemed unworthy (and rightfully so) by those watching the Crucifixion, Didymus was deemed unworthy by society for his disability. As Demas hung on the cross, unable to move, so was Didymus unable to move on his own. Nonetheless, Christ does not look at the physical disability, but the posture of the heart. Demas was repentant at the point of death, Didymus was thirsty for knowledge of the truth. The cloak of darkness that Didymus had upon him became his greatest spiritual strength. We too can cloak ourselves in darkness, not spiritual darkness, but physical darkness… turning a blind eye towards those things which are passing away and focusing on that which is eternal. Our studies, classes, and even service, is dust in the eyes of God if not done in blindness of the world. We too, therefore, must blind our eyes. May God give us the removal of this world as He gave to St. Didymus!

"Didymus was blind physically, but his spirit saw deeply into the mysteries of Christ, deeper than those whose physical eyes were open. He is an everlasting testimony that true sight is spiritual."

- The Thrice Blessed H.H. Pope Shenouda III (Spiritual Teachings)

III. The Inner Cathedral

Didymus carved letters into wood with his fingers. He memorized Scripture not by vision, but by imprinting it into the chambers of his soul. Imagine this man, sitting in front of you… hunched over a parchment of paper, digging his fingers in and writing the Holy Scripture. The sheer determination like a cathedral scaffolding before your very own eyes, and yet as he carved into the parchment, he also carved into his soul. Words that would fade on paper, but never from the heart of this devout man. Filling his mind with the word of God. His mind was not filled with vibrant colors, beautiful images, forests, mountains, waterfalls, rainbows, or even grass— but, with the lumiνόος (nous) truths of the All-Mighty Logos. Didymus spoke with God through the utterances of his inner tongue… the tongue that only our own minds can hear, He hears. Not only does He hear, but rather He intently listens. Even we hear not everything our own heart says, but He does. How magnificent is that… Even the small, unspoken, unrealized movements of the νόος (nous) He accounts for. We too must scaffold and begin the build of our inner cathedral, as St. Didymus did. May God build cathedrals for Him in our hearts as He built for St. Didymus!

"Though blind, he attained a marvelous knowledge of the Scriptures, having them not written in books, but engraved upon his soul."

- Socrates Scholasticus (Ecclesiastical History, Book IV)

IV. Divine Imagination

Didymus saw through the veil. His imagination was not fed by the visible, but by the Infinite.

For although he was unable to see even the visible, he believed in both the visible and invisible for all was invisible to him. Yet, we who see the visible, still question the possibility of the invisible. We who experience and see Baptisms, Christmations, Communions, Confessions, Unctions of the Sick, Matrimonies, Priesthoods, miracles, healings, and Divine interventions; we are the ones who doubt the invisible realities behind these visible actions. We must believe, for to believe in the things not seen is to live in the Kingdom before its arrival. How blessed is this! As St. Paul writes in Hebrews, “Now faith is the substance (realization) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Faith is the evidence of things not seen. The sheer proof of those which are invisible, is our faith in it. "What Christ taught, the apostles preached, and the fathers kept" (St. Athanasius). This Faith is the evidence of those things which are unseen. The imagination of those Heavenly things is not reserved to those blind, like St.Didymus, but to us all. May God give us the imagination of those invisible things as He gave to St. Didymus!

"Do not grieve at the loss of sight, Didymus, for you lack eyes with which even flies and mosquitoes share, but rejoice because you have the eyes with which angels see, by which God Himself is discerned."

- St. Anthony the Great (Lausiac History, Ch. 4)

V. The Saint of Our Own Darkness

You, yes you the reader, You. You, who feel disqualified for the kingdom. You, who feel shorted of your potential. You, who feel lost in the pleasures of this world. You, who feel ashamed of your past or lack of future. You. Look to Didymus. There is no blindness that disqualifies you from Wisdom. There is no disability that disables the Spirit. There is no weakness that God cannot use as strength. There is no trial that His hand will not hold you through. There is no tribulation that His grace will not cover. There is nothing that separates you from His power and Love. Take on the spirit of Didymus. The spirit that reached out to Him when there was a trial that arose. The spirit that engraved the entire Bible onto parchments of paper and into the crevices of his heart. The spirit that taught Didymus in the Holy Scriptures is the same spirit that is within you. Do not be dismayed my brethren, for it is the same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the same Holy Spirit that came upon the Apostles on Pentecost, the same Spirit that went upon St. Didymus, St. Jerome, and St. Anthony. This Spirit is upon you! “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me” (Isaiah 61:1).

O Lord, make cathedrals in our blindness. Allow us to see as Didymus saw. Amen

“Didymus the Blind wrote many volumes, and with the eyes of his heart he perceived those things which the eyes of the flesh could not.”

- St. Jerome (Preface to Commentary on Zechariah)

Glory be to God. Amen.