Hope, being connected to trust is
essential in the healing of blindness….Jesus told St.
Faustina “Tell souls that from this fount of mercy souls
draw graces solely with the vessel of trust. If there trust
is great, there is no limit to my generosity”[1].
We must hope and trust…even when it seems that we are hoping
against all odds…hope must remain…becoming the wick where
upon the fire of Divine Love burns…changing darkness to
light.
St. Bonaventure writes of the Blind beggar: “For in hope he
calls out ‘Jesus’, i.e., Savior; because ‘In this hope we
are saved’ (Rom, 8, 24)”[2].
What are your hopes? Your deepest desires? To love, to live
your vocation, to know that you are loved not for what you do
but who you are…we are speaking of desires a little bit
deeper than being first in line for breakfast, or for a
short homily, or winning the upcoming football game…maybe,
to be healed of shadows and blindness… ‘Lord, please let me
see’”[3].
To see what? To see who? To see His love, His Sacred Heart
aflame with love for us; to “Behold the Pierced One”[4], as
Cardinal Ratzinger put it. To experience the power of our
spiritual sight flowing from our reception of His Love
revealed on the cross.
St Cyprian understood the effects of original sin as
“wounds”[5]. Redemption, he saw as the healing of our
wounds[6].
The wounds that exist deep within, even to the depths of the
subconscious can be healed through the union of our hope and
the Love of God. What the world needs now are men and women
coming before Jesus as beggars; knowing we deserve nothing,
yet still, with hope in Him who is Love, asking, “Lord,
please let me see”.
These spiritual truths may be counter intuitive, or less
obvious to us today who are influenced by the modern milieu.
Love now and love alone can heal our disordered perceptions,
our blindness. Love alone can let us see.
I received an e-mail from a Jesuit before I went on a 30 day
retreat. His advice was simple…go as a beggar. At first I
thought this was simply a pious thought…but after one week
of meditating on my sins in the first week of the
exercises….I was begging. I realized I was blind and deeply
wounded, had wounded others and the remedy lay beyond my
power. I had to rise from the darkness of sin and be before
the Lord as a beggar and experience Jesus’ Love, rejoice in
His Mercy and live in His Light.
To see Jesus our hearts must be courageously vulnerable
enough to hope in His Love as the blind beggar; to know we
depend on Him…even for our very existence.
My brothers and sisters, Arise! Love is calling us… by running to him
who restores sight; who heals and orders…who transforms
blindness to vision…we then are given the Merciful gaze of
Jesus to gaze upon our brothers, families, friends, selves,
and our society. We then can see, and do our part in the
construction of the Civilization of Love, longed for by Paul
VI, formed by John Paul II, and being implemented by
Benedict XVI. Arise my brothers, let us be on our
way[7]…leaving all sin and blindness…a great work awaits
us…Arise…and come to Him who calls, forms and gives vision
through His Love.
As we approach the Eucharist in vulnerability to His Love,
in faith and in hope…may we be so favored as to hear Jesus
when he says… “Behold…SEE, experience, know, my Heart which
loves you so much.
[1] St. Faustina. Diary. #1448.
[2] St. Bonaventure Commentary on Luke in: Reist, Thomas,
Saint Bonaventure as a Biblical Commentator. New York:
University Press, 1985, p. 99.
[3] Lk 18, 41.
[4] Ref. to the title: Ratzinger, Joseph, Behold the Pierced
One.
[5] Ad Fortun. 6; de op. et eleem. 2; 26.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ref to the title: John Paul II, Rise, Let Us Be On Our
Way. New York: Warner, 2004.
