In the Gospel for today we hear the story of the man born blind. Now, I don’t see that well. But I wasn’t born blind. To be born blind, that takes blindness to a whole new leel.
Yet, I’ll admit, my eyes aren’t that good. I was out west skiing with my family. The first day out m on a chair lift with my nephews. I look out at the view before me. “Wow, we’re so high up it looks like you can see forever.” Just then my nephew says, “Look at that skier way over there going through the powder!” And I’m thinking, “What skier? I don’t see anything!”
Then later that afternoon driving down the mountain back to where we were staying my other nephew who’s in the back seat with me says, “Wow! Did you see that moose by the side of the road?” And I’m thinking “What moose? I don’t see any moose!”
That’s when it occurred to me. “I thought I was seeing all of reality but there’s a lot more of reality out there that I’m not seeing.” Maybe that’s how it’s going to be in heaven. We’ll see for the first time a reality that we hadn’t seen before.
We’ll see God as God really is. And we’ll see ourselves as we really are. We’ll see ourselves as God sees us. We’ll see the goodness in ourselves and others that we hadn’t seen before, but was there all the time. And so, for the man born blind, he encounters Jesus and suddenly he can see. What he now sees is his new reality, a reality that he’s never seen before.
Now here’s where the story gets interesting. When the religious authorities hear that it’s Jesus who has cured the man born blind, they boil with jealousy. “This man is not of God because he does not keep the sabbath.”
So, they haul the man born blind in to interrogate him. “What do you have to say for yourself?” “All I know is that I was blind and now I can see.” The Pharisees then try to bully the man into silence, but he holds his ground. So, they throw the man out of the temple. When Jesus gets word of this, he seeks the man out. In his encounter with Jesus the man born blind comes to faith and Jesus sends him out to be his disciple.
Notice the progression in coming to faith. First, there’s the encounter with Jesus. Then, the man born blind comes to faith in Jesus. And then the man born blind is sent out by Jesus, to be his disciple.
And so, it is for us in Eucharist. We encounter Jesus in the Word proclaimed and in the sharing of his body and blood. In that encounter if we’re open our hearts catch fire and we go out as his disciples to be the face and hands of Jesus.
Like the man born blind may our encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist open our eyes to see reality in a new way. To see the goodness that is there in ourselves and in others. Maybe it’s a goodness that we hadn’t seen before. Think of it, to see the goodness that is there in ourselves and others, that in itself just might be enough to change the way we live.
