Catholic
Spirituality
Amazing grace — I was blind, but now I see
Guest Columnist
Joan Forde
“I know this much (said the man born blind): I was blind before; now I can see.”…
When Jesus heard of his expulsion (from the temple) he sought him out and asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him.” Jesus replied, “He is speaking to you now.”
“I do believe, Lord,” he said and bowed down to worship him. Then Jesus said, “I came into this world to divide it, to make the sightless see and the seeing blind.”
John 9:25, 35-39
Of all the miracles of Jesus, the story of the man born blind has a particular hold on me. I can picture the scene on the hot, crowded streets of Jerusalem. An angry crowd has just forcibly ejected Jesus from the temple. This unlikely upstart has just claimed to be the fulfillment of the promise of Abraham. The Jews who heard Him speak are infuriated. He has turned their comfortable assumptions upside down. They seethe. Their fists tighten onto rocks to throw at Him. As He slips away from the temple area, perhaps with His heart pounding, His attention falls on a hapless, begging blind man.
Blindness was quite common in biblical times, just as it is today in the developing world. Conditions like ophthalmic conjunctivitis could dry up water ducts under the eyelids and attack the eyeball. Aggravated by desert heat, sand and flies, it left its victims sightless and forever dependent on the few odd coins tossed by passersby.
For me this is not just of academic interest. I owe my vision to modern ophthalmology. Five eye surgeries, including one for a threatening retinal detachment, have turned me from a high myopic to someone who can actually see. So the idea of blindness can bring me a quick shudder — I never take sight for granted.
It would never occur to anyone to blame a blind person for his loss of sight today. But that was exactly the presumption of the society in which Jesus lived. It must be the beggar’s fault, or at least his parents.’ The blind, the lame, the lepers have obviously done something to earn God’s disfavor. What a convenience to have blameworthy persons to look down upon. Human nature has not changed very much.
What is worse, Jesus is working to heal the blind man on the Sabbath, mixing mud and saliva with His own hands — forbidden!
But as Jesus calmly applies the mixture to the man’s eyes, it is the spiritual and moral blindness of the members of the crowd that He identifies as the real problem. They are smug, accusing, self-righteous. They are anxious to heap blame on both the blind man and Jesus. They are bereft of compassion. Scorn rises up in them like a whip.
I remember a college assignment that set me identifying images of light and darkness in Shakespeare’s King Lear. Lear’s blindness is profound, although it is not physical. His conceit and superficiality keep him unaware of the goodness of his own daughter, Cordelia, and his faithful servant, Kent. Isolating himself in his pride, Lear loses the touchstone of divine truth, and with it the ability to recognize the cracked vision of his own soul.
Since self-imposed lack of perception is such a persistent human trait, what could be identified as blindness in our present day? It occurred to me, as I lingered over this Gospel of John, that in a sense every person has only to look as far as the bathroom mirror to find a similar story.
What relationship, family, or marriage has no element of even the subtlest self-righteousness? And who among us does not have blind spots when it comes to identifying with the needs of the poor, or recognizing the goodness of those who look different, speak differently, or worship differently? Can we open our eyes and see the face of Christ in those we blame, scorn, dismiss, or forward hate-filled e-mails about?
And how few of us — and this might be the greatest blindness of all — remember that God’s loving light surrounds each of us constantly, illuminating even the darkest corners of, in the poet Mary Oliver’s words, this “one, wild, precious life?”
Hear, O Lord, the sound of my call; Have pity on me and answer me.
Of You my heart speaks; You my glance seeks;
Your presence, O Lord I seek.
Hide not Your face from me; Do not in anger repel Your servant.
You are my helper: cast me not off; Forsake me not, O God my savior.
Though my father and mother forsake me,
Yet will the Lord receive me.
Joan Forde is a writer and member of Our Mother of Consolation Parish.