Magic Eye

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When I was in grade school, one of the more popular items at our annual Book Fair were books that were called Magic Eyes.  On each page there was a picture, but if you stared at it a certain way, a different, 3-D image would seem to pop off the page.  As I say it, it doesn’t really sound that interesting, especially with the fact that you can now have virtual reality goggles.  But in elementary school in the early ‘90s, it was pretty cool.
    What God sees and what we see can be as different as the Magic Eye books.  Our view is often limited to the externals: how someone combs his hair; what kind of clothes she wears; skin and facial features; etc.  But what God sees goes much deeper than that.
    As Jesus told the parable about the Pharisee and the tax-collector (sometimes called the Publican), He is not only talking about how to pray (the publican) and how not to pray (the Pharisee), but He’s also making a point that had been made several times before in Scripture, that appearances can deceive.  The Pharisee seems to have it all together: he doesn’t commit major sins, he gives to the temple and synagogue, and he doesn’t cooperate with the pagan Romans.  The Publican, on the other hand, seems very downcast, and won’t even raise his eyes to heaven.  He simply, quietly, asks God for mercy from the back row.  And yet, it is the Publican who is justified (put into right relationship with God), not the Pharisee.
    This point had been made in the first book of Samuel, as the prophet Samuel seeks a new king of Israel to replace Saul, who had disobeyed God.  Samuel goes to the house of Jesse, and sees some studly looking men.  And yet, God does not choose any of them.  Instead, God chooses David, the youngest, not as much to behold, who is out tending the sheep, to be the new king of Israel.  Or, think back to to Book of Job.  Job does everything right, so much so, that God brags about Job.  But then Satan asks to take away Job’s prosperity, and then even his health, because Satan is convinced that Job will walk away from God if his good fortune were taken away.  God allows Satan, in the story, to do anything, other than kill Job, which Satan does.  Job loses everything, and his luck is so bad, his own wife says, “Curse God and die” (what a lovely woman!).  Job’s friends come, and try to convince him that he must have done something wrong, so he should repent, and then God will give Job good stuff and health again.  But Job maintains his innocence, all-the-while still trusting God.  In both those stories, and many more, physical strength and material blessings do not mean that God loves you more, nor does lack of goods mean that God hates you. 
    In fact, as we heard from the Book of Sirach, God “hears the cry of the oppressed…is not deaf to the wail of the orphan, nor to the widow.”  Those people seemed like God wasn’t on their side.  If you’re oppressed, you don’t have control of your own freedom.  If you are an orphan, you have no parents to take care of you, and there was no welfare state or foster homes to make sure you were taken care of properly.  If you were a widow, your husband, who made money to feed you, was dead, and you had to rely on the generosity of your children and other family.  In other words, these were all people who had very little, if anything.  And yet, God hears their cries. 
    Even St. Paul is an example of how what looks like failure can actually be success in the eyes of God.  St. Paul did found many churches, groups of believers in Jesus, but none of them were particularly large communities, and they almost always seemed to have problems.  St. Paul writes this second epistle to St. Timothy from house arrest, and is about to die for preaching the Gospel.  He references in another letter how many of his co-workers abandoned him.  And yet, he is sure that “the crown of righteousness awaits” him, because he has, “competed well;…finished the race;…kept the faith.” 
    So how do we measure success?  When do we think God favors us?  Is it when things go well?  Or is it when we have struggles?  In truth, God can favor us in either set of circumstances.  We may have come to church this morning and are on cloud nine because we just received a promotion, or our grandkids just made honor roll.  Or we may be struggling in marriage, doing everything we can to pay the bills and buy food with a meager salary.  God loves us either way.  He hears our prayers when we come to Him in humility, recognizing that whatever we have is from Him: a gift of good things; or the allowance of suffering to strengthen us and bring us closer to Him.
    How, too, do we view others?  Do we see the externals and presume that the person who appears to do well is blessed by God?  Do we presume that the dirty, homeless person must have done something wrong, and we should avoid him or her?  Or do we look deeper, trying to see Christ in every person, regardless of affluence or poverty?
    [Eric, you have chosen a beautiful time to join the Catholic Church.  Unlike decades past, we have lost a lot of clout politically.  Unlike before, what we hold as truths to be revealed by God regarding the dignity of the human person, from natural birth through natural death; the importance of work and using God’s gifts and talents for the building up of society; the definition of marriage given to us by God; that our bodies are good and tell us something factual about ourselves, which cannot be changed by desire or surgery; that the family is the building block of society and should not be infringed by the government; these things are now no longer popular or widely held.  People are leaving the Catholic Church in droves.  This is a beautiful time because God often works best when things seem to be stacked against us.  And you are choosing to witness to what God has revealed through his one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. 
    It will call for great determination to live out that faith.  It may even lead to suffering.  But again, what the world sees as failure–sticking to God when the rest of the world seems to be abandoning Him for more palatable beliefs–is often success, and what the world sees as success is often failure.  And your one voice today, professing your faith with us, will be joined the myriad voices throughout the millennia who have professed that same faith, unbroken and untarnished, though many have sought to destroy it and change it throughout its history. 
    Do not be afraid to live as a Catholic, in all that the word Catholic entails.  Do not be afraid of seeming to be a failure to others by professing an ancient faith that critiques so much of what modern man seems to hold dear.  You may not do it perfectly, none of us do, but if you persevere in doing what you can to follow Christ, no matter how your life looks from the outside, you will merit to hear the words we all hope to hear one day: “Well done, good and faithful servant.  Come, share your Master’s joy.”  

How Is Our Sight?

 Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    As I do every year, I got my eyes checked recently.  Amazingly enough, my prescription is actually getting better as I get older, which is nice to hear.  I took the opportunity of my check-up to also get new sunglasses.  I had some Ray-Ban wayfarers for a while, so I wanted to go with something a little different.  I had seen cool sunglasses with colored, reflective lenses, so I decided to go with a pair of those this time.  
    After a couple of weeks my new sunglasses came in.  My last pair just made the entire world darker (as all the sunglasses I have had do).  My new sunglasses slightly dimmed the world, but more so changed the colors as I looked through them.  It was a bit strange at first, but I have gotten used to it, and I think I can even see better with these new sunglasses.  
    When we hear today’s Gospel, we probably focus in on physical sight.  Jesus healed the blind man, Bartimaeus, so that his eyes could function again and he could see.  But the Bartimaeus’s faith, his eyes of faith, we might say, were functioning fine.  After all, Jesus tells him that his faith has saved him.  So the Bartimaeus must have been able to metaphorically see clearly with his eyes of faith that Jesus could do what the man wanted him to do.  And the Bartimaeus’s faith was rewarded with the restoration of his physical sight.  
    Through Jesus’ eyes, He could see that Bartimaeus had faith.  Probably everyone else, or at least most others, though that Bartimaeus was cursed by God, or that he must have done something wrong.  That’s what is assumed in John’s Gospel with the account of the man born blind whom Jesus heals.  But Jesus saw that Bartimaeus had faith, and was not cursed.  Jesus saw the world with different eyes than everyone else.
    Do we see with the eyes of God, or the eyes of the world?  How do we look at what is happening in our parish, our city, our State, and our world?  Do we see it only from an earthly point of view, or from a heavenly point of view?  In our first reading, the prophet Jeremiah, who had foretold the exile of the people from their land, now prophesies that God will make things better.  In the eyes of the world, the Jews were simply a weaker nation that was being conquered by a stronger nation.  But through God’s eyes, the Jews were reaping the consequences of not being faithful to Him and worshipping false gods, of not protecting the poor, the widows, and the orphans, and of putting too much trust in physical buildings.  God allowed them to go into exile so that they could understand that their false gods would not help them, and that caring for each other, especially the most vulnerable, was part and parcel of being God’s Chosen People.  
    But God wouldn’t allow their downfall forever.  Jeremiah prophesies that God will restore His people, heal the lame and the blind, and console the Chosen People as their loving Father.  Probably most nations thought that Israel would be gone forever, but God promises to bring them back and heal their wounds, which is what happened.
    In order to keep some sense of sanity, I stopped watching the TV news last year in November.  I would get so worked up by all the things that the news wanted to focus on, and I was losing my interior peace.  I still skim stories on the internet to see what is going on in the world, but I no longer tune to watch news programs.  Even with just the internet news, the world can seem like a fairly rotten place.  Our country and world seem more divided than ever; there are real struggles going on in the day-to-day life of everyday people.  Some goods are in short supply.  I recently read that the cost to heat homes could be higher than it has been in some time, and I know I’m paying more to fill up my car’s gas tank than I have paid in some time.
    That’s looking at reality with the eyes of the world.  I can see all of the external realities.  But I have to try my best to also see the world as God sees it.  What is God trying to do through all of this.  Is there a lesson that I need to learn from all that is happening now?  Maybe what seems like the end is simply the consequence of previous choices, but is also the opportunity for something new.

   I think about St. Augustine on his death bed in the year 430, and the changes he saw in his lifetime.  The Church in North Africa had been one of the gems of the universal Church.  Alexandria in Egypt was an intellectual center for the Christian world, and the name of the city was used like we use Oxford or Cambridge now.  Cyprian, an earlier bishop of Carthage, was a great martyr and theologian.  Monastic life had thrived, and all had gone well for around a century.  
    But the Vandals started to enter Roman Africa early in the 400s, and by 430 they had basically conquered it all.  In fact, though they had besieged Hippo in 430, they left after Augustine died, only to return again and burn most of the books, except those that Augustine had reserved.  After the Vandals came the Muslims, sweeping across northern Africa and taking over.  And the Church in North Africa was never the same (in fact, Christianity is still illegal in Egypt today).  
    Augustine likely wondered what God was doing.  He had been quite faithful, and yet things still fell apart.  But, Augustine trusted in the plan of God, and knew that things would be alright.  They would not be the same, and still are not, but they would be as God would allow them to be.  The key for Augustine was remaining faithful to God, and praying to God for guidance and for mercy as much as he could.  Ironically (for this homily, anyway), St. Augustine is the patron saint of those with sore eyes.  He can be prayed to when our eyes (especially the eyes of faith) are not working as well as they should.
    Our parish, city, State, and country are not the same as they were ten, twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years ago.  We have new challenges now.  But God has a plan, and our call is to remain faithful to God, continue to turn to prayer, and ask God to see, not only with the eyes in our head, but with the eyes of faith.  St. Augustine, pray for us!

Afraid of the Dark

Fourth Sunday of Lent

Part of moving into a new house, as I did last July, is getting used to it.  A foreign house, especially if you live in it alone, can be a little scary.  Probably a few of those first weeks, as I went to bed, my heart started to beat a little faster as I heard creaks and different noises in my house.  Of course, there was nothing there, but because it was a new house, I wasn’t used to the different noises it would make at night.  What didn’t help was that Flint does not have the reputation of being the safest place in Michigan (though I have to say I have not had any problems here).  The other big issue was that, especially immediately after going to bed, the house was dark, and the fact that I couldn’t see and wasn’t familiar with the different parts of the house and how the shadows fall probably kept me alert without any real cause for concern.

Not being able to see can often change the way we approach things.  To a child, those clothes hanging in the closet or the stuff underneath the bed can seem like monsters.  But even adults, in an unknown area might try to be more attentive as they walk to their car from a restaurant.  Law enforcement is always trying to keep their eyes open, especially these days, so that they are not taken by surprise by someone trying to harm them.

Our readings today remind us of the importance of seeing correctly.  In our first reading, even one of the great prophets, Samuel, does not see as God sees when trying to find the next king of Israel among the sons of Jesse.  Samuel was looking at outward appearances; God was looking at the heart.  

And St. Paul in the second reading reminded us to take advantage of the light of Christ, since we are children of the light, not of darkness.  We do not belong to the night or the darkness, no matter what Pat Benatar sings.  In baptism, we were given the light of Christ, and Christ always gives us the light of His grace to help us know right from wrong.  He does that through our conscience, but even our conscience has to be formed by the light that the Church gives us.  Especially living in an age which, in many ways, are contrary to the teachings of Jesus, our conscience is not always a sure guide for the choices we should make.  

The Gospel we heard, about the man born blind, is one we hear maybe every year, but definitely every three years.  Ironically, in this passage, the person who sees the best (besides Jesus) is the Blind Man.  Neither the Pharisees, nor even the disciples, see as Christ sees.  The disciples think the man is blind because of some sin.  Christ corrects them and says that it’s so that God may be glorified and His works be more visible.  The Pharisees cannot see that Jesus is displaying His divinity in healing the man.  They do not accept Jesus’ miracles, and therefore do not accept Jesus Himself.  Even the man, now formerly blind, exclaims, “‘This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes.  […] It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind.  If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything.”

But, if we are honest, sometimes we do not see as God sees.  We do not let the light of Christ illumine our lives.  We have a type of spiritual glaucoma, and no marijuana, medical or not, will cure our spiritual glaucoma.  Only Christ can heal us; only he can restore our sight.

Throughout the history of the Church we have examples of people who saw with the light of Christ.  They had 20/20 spiritual vision.  We call them saints, and we should strive to follow their example in our own lives.  I’ll mention just a few.

St. Martin of Tours, who lived in the fourth century, was a soldier, and later became a bishop.  But one of the stories about him mentions that, as a soldier, he was riding a horse in the cold.  He saw a poor man on the side of the road, with very little clothing.  St. Martin cut his cloak in half, and gave half to the man.  That night, Martin had a dream where Jesus was wearing his cloak.  St. Martin did not simply see a poor man, but saw Jesus, and tried to help him.

St. Francis of Assisi needs almost no introduction.  But how many of you have heard the story of how St. Francis, who had started to give up his father’s wealth, saw a leper, whose skin was rotting away from his body, but dismounted from his horse, gave him money to help, and even kissed his hand.  As hard as it was, Francis saw past his fear of contracting leprosy, and dared to touch, and even kiss, the lepers as a sign of his love for Jesus.

In our own more recent times, St. Teresa of Calcutta is someone who saw with the eyes of Jesus.  In the streets of Calcutta, Mother Teresa would see the “untouchables,” those whom society had rejected, literally rotting away in the streets as they died, flies likely laying their eggs in the putrid flesh, and Mother would care for them and show them the respect and love that she had for Jesus.  I worked in Rome with the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s order, not so much with the dying, but with the poor and neglected of the Eternal City.  I will admit: I struggled to see Jesus.  But for me I knew that my sight was not quite right, and that I need the healing of Jesus not to be blind to Him in the least of His brothers and sisters.  I’m sure I’m not there yet.  I still pray that I can see.  How is your spiritual sight?

How's Your Sight?

Fourth Sunday of Lent—Second Scrutiny

            I remember the night pretty clearly: I was driving back to Sacred Heart Major Seminary from St. John the Evangelist parish in Fenton, where I was assigned as a transitional deacon.  It was dark out, and a steady rain began as I merged onto MI-10, the Lodge.  I suddenly noticed that, even just driving 57 miles per hour (with everyone flying by me, I might add) I couldn’t see the lines that separated each lane.  I didn’t want to slow down and get run over, but I certainly wanted to stay in my own lane so I didn’t cause or get in an accident. 

            At that time of my life, I was the only one of my parents and my two sisters who didn’t have corrective lenses.  But, when I finally made it safely home, I knew that I needed to at least get my eyes checked.  When I went to the optometrist, and she started to put those different lenses over my eyes for the reading chart, I suddenly realized how fuzzy the world had been, and how I hadn’t really been able to see.

            Our first reading and Gospel today give us an insight as to how God sees.  When Samuel goes to anoint a new king, after Saul had disobeyed the Lord, Samuel is directed to Jesse’s sons.  Samuel sees Eliab, the one he is sure is supposed to be king.  But the Spirit of God tells him that Eliab is not God’s choice.  And then Samuel goes through seven sons, but God does not choose any of them.  Finally, the youngest, David, is called in from the fields and is anointed as the new king of Israel (though he doesn’t formally become king for quite a while).  When Samuel wants to know why it was not Eliab, and likely why it was not the other sons, God tells Samuel, “‘Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance, but the LORD looks into the heart.’”

            In our Gospel today, there’s a lot of seeing going on, but not all of it is true sight.  We begin with the disciples who see a man blind from birth.  When they look at him, they see a sinner, or at least the son of sinners.  But then Jesus looks at the man, and sees, not sinfulness, but a man whose cure of blindness at the hands of Jesus will make manifest the work of God.  Then the Pharisees see the man born blind, and they ask him about Jesus, whom they had also seen before.  The Pharisees see the man, now cured, and still see a sinner.  They look at Jesus as a horrible sinner who does work on the Sabbath.  And the man himself, though his sight is given to him at once, gradually sees who Jesus is, as he first calls Jesus a man, and then a prophet, and then the Son of Man and Lord.

            How easy it is to look upon failure or a lack of something as a curse.  As Catholics we’re particularly proficient at seeing something bad happen and figure that God is somehow punishing us.  Whether its an illness like cancer, or the loss of a job, or a troubled marriage, or whatever curse we feel we’re under, it’s easier to assume that God is, for one reason or another, punishing us for something we did, even if it was a long time ago. 

            And while there are sometimes bad consequences that follow from our bad choices, Jesus reminds us that what seems like a curse can truly be a way for the glory of God to shine forth.  For years the man born blind and maybe his parents assumed they had done something wrong; many people saw it that way, including the Pharisees.  But Jesus says that the man’s blindness was there so that he could be healed by Jesus and give glory to God.  Sometimes, our maladies or negative circumstances are ways that we can draw closer to God and reorder our lives properly.  Ironically, sometimes the bad stuff that happens can actually be a great blessing.

            These elect that we have with us today: those who will be baptized, confirmed, and make their first Holy Communion, have been on a path from spiritual blindness to sight, a pilgrimage we’re all on in different ways, but a path for them which is leading to be able to see with the eyes of God.  They began by inquiring about the faith, learning more about this man Jesus and His Body the Church, and why so many have joy who know Him.  Then they were accepted as catechumens, those who are seeking to be joined to Jesus in a certain way, and to know and love Him better as they open the Word and see it active in their lives as Jesus who is The Prophet speaks for God as His Word.  Then Bishop Boyea, in the name of Christ, chose them for the Easter Sacraments.  As they  continue today through the scrutinies where they are prayed for in a special way in these last weeks before Easter, they come to the sacraments so that they can profess Jesus as Lord, as God.  They are like the man born blind who, after he was healed, spoke about Jesus as a man; who when questioned by the Pharisees called Jesus a prophet; and when asked by Jesus, professed Him as Lord, which is the title used for God. 

            These Elect challenge us to see with the eyes of God, as they are growing to do.  They challenge us to approach the world with the sight of God, rather than putting people in the boxes that make us most comfortable and either accepting or rejecting them based on our criteria.  What a tragedy and a true scandal it would be for those who have been baptized, who have been enlightened by Christ, to not see with the eyes of faith that we received in baptism.  Look at other people, work, relaxation, and world situations with the eyes of God, so that we can look at what the world considers darkness, and bring the light of Christ.