Week 23 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Corinthians 9.16-19, 22-27; Psalm 83; Luke 6.39-42

So two steps are needed if we are to see clearly. One is to accept that there is a beam in my eye which prevents me from seeing clearly. This may not be obvious and it may be difficult for me to accept. The second is to do whatever is needed to remove any such beam so as to see clearly.

What will convince me that there is a beam distorting my vision? Other people pointing it out to me will not work by itself. I can easily find motives for their criticisms (unless the comment is coming from a friend who we know really loves us). Perhaps people are moved by envy, or by some political manoeuvre on their part. In any case are they not subject to the same requirement, to take out of their own eye any beam that may be distorting how they see me?

So what will convince me? It seems I have to walk into a wall or fall down a hole before I will accept that there is some problem with my seeing. Figuratively speaking of course, on a spiritual level. Physically there are many other ways in which we become aware of problems with our eyesight.

But in how we see others, how we see life, how we see things generally, in the world and in the Church - for that kind of sight we need to be awakened somehow if a beam is distorting our vision. And who can do that for us in a way that we will accept? We need a fully trained disciple to show us the way and perhaps often this is how it happens. We are against a wall, or stuck in a hole, and we reach out for help. The wall and the hole are arranged by God's providence and so too is the fully trained disciple if such a one comes our way. We might wonder, with good reason, whether there is any such person apart from the Master himself, Jesus, our only Teacher.

Let's say we have reached the point, by whatever means, of accepting that we have a beam-in-the-eye problem. We must then face into the second stage of gaining clear vision, which is to remove the offending beam from our eye. Where the first stage is a matter of knowledge and understanding, this second stage is a matter of desire and will. Not just intelligence or insight but virtue and initiative. If I need docility above all to accept the first stage of healing, I need humility above all to accept the second stage.

It is why the gospel stories about blindness are so many and so pertinent. Not so bad to know you are blind, Jesus says in the Gospel of John, but much worse to think you can see when you cannot (John 9.39-41). The eye is the lamp of the body, he says elsewhere, but if that lamp is in darkness then you are comprehensively blind (Luke 11.34).

Let us think about these two steps towards seeing clearly. Let us ask God to help us to realise and accept the ways in which we are blind. And then to give us the grace and virtues we need to remove the beams that distort our vision so that we might see clearly what is there.