St. Mark alone records this miracle (8:22–26). On entering Bethsaida — the village from which Peter, Andrew, and Philip came (Jn 1:44) — Christ was met by some who brought a blind man and begged Him to touch him. He took the man by the hand and led him out of the village. He spat on his eyes and laid his hands upon him, asking: 'Seest thou anything?'
The man answered: 'I see men, as it were trees, walking.' Then the Lord laid hands on his eyes a second time, and he saw clearly. Christ sent him to his house with the command: 'Go into thy house, and if thou enter into the town, tell nobody.'
This is the only miracle in the Gospels worked in two stages. Many Fathers (Sts. Augustine, Bede, Thomas Aquinas) saw in it the image of spiritual conversion: the first touch of Christ gives partial sight — the catechumen begins to perceive the truth dimly; the second touch gives full vision. The miracle prefigures the gradual illumination of the Christian soul through grace.