If because of deafness You, oh my God, will find a tool to write another symphony like a deaf Beethoven, so that all glory will be given to You alone; if by naivety You will find another little clueless boy with 5 loaves that save the day; if because of illiteracy You find another Bernadette to entrust a message of great value; if by fanatic zeal You find another missionary running unto his or her own death, to persons who despise her or him with a message of salvation; an unsuspecting novice, loving and befriending persons whom divine providence has made him or her not to hear the plot against him or see the despising look in their face, may You, oh God, not pass me by while You are looking for one. I beg that You exchange this  foolishness with the salvation souls; keep these feet always ready, even at the price of martyrdom. My dearest Love, Jesus Christ, if You desire at any time to remove this blindness and deafness of a Your blind lover, promise me assuredly too that every potentiality within me that could rouse resentment be eternally removed from my being. This is the only good Your servant desires: that these feet always be ready for You, with eyes blind or not.  

I weep at the unbridled scholarship that deprives You of souls, rendering many eyes unseeing. “And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell” (Matt.18:9.) And it occurs to me, dear Lord, that the blindness of Bartimeus that helped him to acknowledge You, as the Lord and King (the Son of David), is better than the enlightened eyes of the philosopher genius who says there is no God. Is it why You have said, “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength?” (I Cor,1:25) But if You, oh Lord, love this foolish messenger of Yours, please give them strength from above, open their eyes to see You, my Lord and King, their Lord and King, Jesus Christ.

Fr. Ignatius of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (cmdorg.org) TMTJ