One heart at a time

Here is the reflection I prepared for the celebrations of the Eucharist this weekend: some thoughts inspired by the encounter Jesus had with the man who was blind from birth (John 9:1-41).

With sight restored

I have to be careful about how I say what I have to say today.  You see, there are times in our lives when we hear someone speaking, and even in a world where we are bombarded with sound, the words that are spoken seem to ring true in our ears and in our hearts.  Words carefully chosen can captivate someone’s attention; words carefully chosen can convey a message; words carefully chosen are seldom forgotten.

Good storytellers have a gift for using words in this way.  Good leaders also have a gift for capturing our attention.  Jesus was a good teacher: one who had a message to share; one whose words and actions were and are seldom forgotten.

Take for example the encounter that is described in today’s gospel.  As Jesus walked along (presumably accompanied by his disciples), he saw a man blind from birth (John 9:1).  Saint John tells us that he had been blind all his life.  I always tend to picture Jesus walking along, among vast crowds, and yet the gospel says that he sees this man.  When John uses the verb to see, he is already telling us something special: Jesus sees not only with the eyes in his head, but with the eyes of his heart.  In this case, there is no mention of the man himself asking to be healed, and yet Jesus spreads mud on his eyes and says: Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.  It does not appear as though this man asked for any special gift, and yet he was chosen by Jesus, and Jesus asked him to do a very simple thing: Go, wash in the pool … (John 9:7).  It’s important to note that the name of this pool – Siloam – means Sent.  This man is cured of his blindness and then sent to proclaim the good news that he himself has witnessed so that others will come to believe and that’s exactly what happens to us too.

We are not all washed – physically - in the pool of Siloam, but we are all washed in the waters of baptism.  The Church teaches that through the waters of baptism, we are washed clean of Original Sin.  From that pool, we are sent out into the world to tell others about the person of Jesus, about the ways that he has been present in our lives and about all the wonders he has done.  Witnessing the presence of Jesus begins with what other people see.  In the case of the man in the gospel, when he went back to his home, his neighbours and those who had known him before began to ask whether he was the same man they had known (cf John 9:8-9), and he told them: I am the same man.  Perhaps his friends didn't believe him at first, so they took him to the Pharisees, and they too questioned him about what had happened to him (cf John 9:13-17); again he did not shy away from an opportunity to explain it to them, to tell them plain and straight: He is a prophet.

Have people ever questioned you about your faith?  How have you responded?  It isn’t easy to speak about faith in Jesus when we are afraid of being judged, but this is what disciples must do.  We have all been sent, so we need to speak about Jesus.  We need to tell others in our families about him.  We need to tell our colleagues and our friends about what we have seen and heard about him and about what we have come to believe about him.

We do not choose to be disciples of Jesus.  It is Jesus himself who seeks us out, who chooses us, like he chose Samuel and sent him to the house of Jesse in search of David (cf 1 Sam 16:1-13) who He had also chosen.  We do not choose the ways in which God will work in our lives; it is He himself who calls us out of darkness and makes us children of light (cf Ephesians 5:8).  

Be careful about what you say and about how you say it.  Be aware of what you do and of those who witness the things you accomplish. God uses our voices in order to speak his word, and he uses our hands to do the work of constantly molding this world of ours so that it will slowly be transformed – one heart at a time.