Seeing Requires Looking

November 17: Monday of Week 33 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Revelation 1:1-4, 2:1-5; Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4, 6; Luke 18:35-43

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

Thoughts to help us take responsibility as stewards of the kingship of Christ.

(To support  Reaching Jesus: 5 Steps to a Fuller Life ... Step Five )

Seeing Requires Looking

“Lord, please let me see” (Luke 18:41).

There are different ways to be blind. The most common may be selective seeing, based on selective looking. Pope John Paul II, for example, would not let even bishops look at some questions—contraception, married priests, ordination of women—and discuss them freely. Even saints are not perfect. Perhaps God said to him, as he said to the “angel” of the Church in Ephesus, “I know you cannot tolerate the wicked… you have endurance and have suffered for my name… Yet I hold this against you…”

Pope Francis invites the whole Church to discuss anything that is not defined dogma. Bishops are divided over how to treat homosexual and divorced Catholics. But the issues are being looked at. Through dialogue and discernment, those in error can avoid the “temptation to hostile inflexibility… not allowing oneself to be surprised by the God of surprises… wanting to close oneself within the certitude of what we know [instead of being open to] what we still need to learn and to achieve” (Francis’ concluding speech at the Synod).

Because Francis believes Jesus saying, “I am the light of the world; whoever follows me—wherever I lead—will have the light of life” (Alleluia verse), and has faith in an unfettered Church’s ability to recognize the Holy Spirit’s voice, Jesus can say to the Church he leads, “Receive your sight; his faith has saved you.”

PRAY: “Lord, please let me see.”

PRACTICE: Keep looking.