Pastor's Spiritual Reflections

By Fr. Leo Schneider (3/22/2009)

Dear People of Holy Name,

As the blind man comes to see in today’s gospel, he sees Jesus first as a man, then as a prophet, then as the Son of God. While he comes to see, the Pharisees become more and more adamant in their refusal to recognize Jesus for who he really is. As the man-once-blind proclaims Jesus a prophet, they call him a sinner. When he argues that God does not listen to sinners, they lose any reason in their inquiry and have to throw the man out. The Pharisees couldn’t listen; they had their minds already made up so they could not come to see Jesus as God’s son, sent to redeem the world.

A common denial of truth is anger. Anger also masks any attempt to truly listen and dialogue with another. In the March 5th issue of The Wanderer Thomas Roeser took on a recent rating of the presidents from best to worst. He was certain George Washington should be ranked before Abraham Lincoln. While he made some good points, he lost his argument by all the anger in his words. Making statements like, “Some of them are clearly educated beyond their intelligence,” referring to the Ivy League professors who made the original list. The article revealed a very conservative viewpoint that was blinding Roeser’s ability to truly listen and dialogue with other people. I personally was quite surprised that such an anti-Christian style of writing would be found in a Catholic paper.

Unfortunately dialogue that isn’t genuine isn’t restricted to discussions of politics and religion. There are times when anger is the product of our conversations with one another at home and in the work place. To enter into true dialogue we must be willing to listen to others and be open to admitting they may have a truth we need to hear. We don’t have to make it an issue of our ego. We all have truths to tell, but we need to truly be able to hear another’s as well. We tend to be defensive when our voice isn’t heard or validated.

But we can validate each other in real dialogue. Here is where the ego of the Pharisees blinded them to Jesus. To see Jesus for who he was they would have had to change their thinking and their ways. They also saw Jesus as a threat to their power. They preferred using threats of excommunication to control people, rather than to build up the community in Truth.

Opposite of the Pharisees, Jesus came to serve and not to be served. Jesus is willing to work with us as he worked with the bind man in his process of coming to see. It doesn’t always happen all at once. Over time, Jesus heals us and helps us see, if we are willing to let him touch us and if we are willing to believe in him as God’s Son.

Let us ask the Lord to heal our blindness that his truth may be ours. Let us also pray for those who constantly deny Christ because he does not seem reasonable to them; for those who look with the eye of science at everything and not with the eye of the poet and the artist, for there are realities that can not be seen, but by faith alone. As we come to see our faith will help us know beyond a doubt the truth of Christ’s resurrection from the dead, his Easter gift to all peoples.

May we come to Easter with full vision, to know the fullness of Joy that Christ give to us in his promised resurrection.

In Christ’s peace, Fr. Leo