“Master, I want to see.”
(Mark 10:51)
I wear bi-focals.
The top half of my lenses helps me see the faces of the crowd at Mass. The bottom half helps me read the words in the Missal on the altar. I have a separate pair of glasses when I am working at the computer, like now. I don’t need to see in the distance, but I can’t quite see clearly enough up close without help.
Our faith helps us to see things both far away and up close.
But sometimes we get cynical, and try to “see through” things. We stop taking things at face value, and wonder about the ulterior motive in things. To a point, that is helpful. But taken too far, that can make us blind in a different way. C.S. Lewis describes this in his book, “The Abolition of Man”:
“You cannot go on ‘explaining away’ forever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it….If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”
This week we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints. The saints show us that the deepest meaning of our day-to-day lives is to make God’s love visible in our love for one another. And our ultimate destiny is to share fully in God’s love in its perfection with all the saints in heaven. What is real up close and far away is the same thing – God’s unfailing love. There is no other reason for our existence now, and there is nothing further that can add to our ultimate happiness.
Lord, give us a faith like Bartimaeus in the Gospel today (Mark 10:46-52). Help us, like him, to see with the eyes of faith, and follow you along the way.
-Fr. Tom
