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Do We See Clearly?
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July 1, 2020“Christianity is above all else a new way of seeing. Everything circles around and flows through a change of vision. Christians simply see differently and that is why our prayers, worship and actions have a distinctive accent and flavor.” Bishop Barron in book And Now I see.”
What do you see when you sit on a beach and stare across the sea? How about the expanse of the night sky?
What do you think about when you see the perplexity of nature?
I, of course see the ocean and the luminescence of distant stars. I smile in amusement at the display of nature but I see more. I see the kingdom of God unfold right before my eyes.
When I was a younger man I had a very powerful awakening and since that moment I have simply seen things differently. Indeed, Barron is quite right. Christians don’t see things the way others do.
In the strange and strikingly beautiful account of the healing of the man born blind in John’s Gospel, we find an iconic representation of this coming to see. Jesus spits on the ground and makes a mud paste which he then rubs onto the man’s eyes. When the man washes his eyes in the pool of Siloam as Jesus had instructed him, his sight was restored. The crowds were amazed, but the Pharisees accuse him of being naïve and the one who healed him of being a sinner, with disarming simplicity the visionary responds: “All I know is I was blind and now I see.” This is precisely what all Christians say when they have encountered Christ.
I for one cannot understand what happened to me at age 19. I can only say I’ve been radically different ever since.
St Augustine saw the making of the mud paste as some sort of healing balm and when this balm is applied onto our eyes which have been blinded by sin we come to see again!
Interestingly enough on another occasion Jesus healed another blind man and told him not to return to the village. For it is in the village of this world that we pick up all kinds of notions and ideas that are often at odds with the vision God seeks to give us.
Learn to nurture this change of vision in your life and you will be amazed at what you begin to see!