Dear Friends,
Lent began last Wednesday. Perhaps you are already immersed in your own way of focusing these six weeks so that they are spiritually uplifting and deepening to you. The facts of life in these United States and in our world at this time may already give you more than enough to keep you prayerful and disciplined. But another framework could be useful. For this, let me invite you to turn to Jesus as he appears in Mark 8. 22-26.
Jesus came to Bethsaida, where the locals brought Him a blind man. “They begged Him to touch him. Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. Putting spittle on his eyes, Jesus laid His hand on him and asked, ‘Do you see anything?’ Looking up he replied, ’I see people looking like trees and walking.’ Then He laid hands on his eyes a second time and he could see clearly; his sight was restored and he could see everything distinctly. Then He sent the man home and said, ’Do not even go into the village.’”
Jesus took the man by his hand. This Lent, will you allow Jesus to take you by the hand and walk out of the town – out of the world – you have been living in? In this world you have known, are there some things you have clung to and been blind to? Only in daring to walk hand in hand with Jesus will you be able to see how to be faithful to God in your daily life as you go forward. Jesus does not berate you for not seeing. He walks with you to a new place and freshens your eyes and heart. God is faithful to you.
I see people looking like trees and walking. Clarity of vision does not come all at once. Shapes and meaning and focus come only with trusting Jesus to repeat the process with you until you can see what is truly present. God sustains us in the process.
Do not even go back into the village. That sounds like a throwaway line, except, that for him, what did the village represent? Was it where he was born blind? Became blind? The place where people took his blindness for granted and thought he did not have the capacity or desire for clear vision? All around us – in our workplace, neighborhood, recreation areas, are people who do not see, by choice or by happenstance. Maybe here we ourselves chose to fit in and not see. Go instead to a place where you are welcomed, loved, accepted. Where you can grow. And see anew.
These three things: to take Jesus’ hand which He offers us, to be patient with the work of seeing anew, and not go back when we have been living a blind life. Together, these make up an effective way of approaching this season as we prepare for our Easter Lord who comes to us beyond the boundaries we have allowed between us.
~ Sister Joan Sobala
