By Fr. Roy Cimagala
WE need to realize that we can only see things properly and understand them properly as well when we know how to see things through the eyes of Christ. This can be lesson we can derive from that gospel episode where Christ said, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?” (cfr. Lk 6,39-42)
And indicating how not to be a blind guide, he said, “No disciple is superior to the teacher, but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher.” These words obviously tell us that we have to refer to Christ, our ultimate teacher, to be able to see and understand things properly.
Unless we see things through Christ who said that he is the light of the world (cfr Jn 9), we actually cannot see things as they ought to be seen. If we simply rely on our senses and even on our intelligence, but without Christ through the exercise of our faith, we actually are blind. This we have to acknowledge.
We need to be more aware of this predicament of ours and start to develop and use the appropriate means to correct, if not avoid, that delicate situation. We need to be humble and to always feel the need to be with God even in our most intimate thoughts, let alone, our words, deeds and public interventions.
There is actually no other way to correctly and properly understand and react to things and events in our life. We have to be wary of our tendency to rely solely on our human estimations of things, quite independent, if not contrary to the way God understands them.
In fact, not only should we be guarded against this tendency. Rather, we should also actively fight it, converting it into what is our proper way of thinking, judging and reasoning. And that is to do all these spiritual operations with God as the main guide and inspiration. The story of the man born blind (cfr. Jn 9) validates this point.
We have to be most careful when because perhaps of our education, our experience, our position, among other things, we feel that we would already have enough reason to make ourselves our own standard of what is true, good and beautiful.
We always need to be like the man born blind, and resist the attitude of the Pharisees mentioned in the gospel. That’s simply because it’s when we acknowledge our blindness, deficiency and inadequacy to tackle our temporal affairs that we attract God’s grace, his light, his wisdom, his strength.
We need to be more aware that nowadays there is a strong tendency to base our knowledge of things mainly on the material and sensible realities alone, let alone, the many social phenomena that can be interpreted in any which way, depending on one’s spirit. That’s why we have these disturbing phenomena of materialism, commercialism and socialism comprising our mainstream world of knowledge and understanding.
We have to correct this tendency because that simply is not the whole of reality. Our senses can only have a limited view of things. And what is worse, that limited condition is aggravated by the effects and consequences of our sins that not only limit but also distort reality.
We need to do everything to acquire the spirit of Christ so that we can see things the way he sees them.
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
