"Lord, I want to see!"

Dear Friends,

This weekend we hear the story of the healing of the man born blind from the Gospel of John. The interesting thing to me in the story is that after Jesus gave the man his sight, it was his parents and the religious leaders who then became blind. They couldn’t see that God could work such a miracle through Jesus for the man that they were used to knowing as a blind man. In fact they refused to see Jesus as God’s healer and teacher.

Blindness affects all of us in this way. I saw a story on 60 Minutes about a Marine who killed himself. He became despondent when he returned from Afghanistan and saw that Americans had no appreciation of the lives that were being sacrificed to keep our nation free. Elected officials from Washington to Frankfort to locally seem blind to the needs of the citizens that they represent, and only concerned with staying in office. Church officials worry about protecting the image of the institution and not about living the mission of Christ to heal and love those in most need around us. We sometimes only want to see justice, compassion and mercy when our own toes have been stepped upon.

Jesus comes to heal blindness in all its forms. Do we have the courage to pray, “Lord, I want to see!”

paz,
Fr. Chuck