Christ is risen!
The old saying is “Seeing is believing.” But through the centuries wise men have concluded that sometimes “Believing is seeing!” The Blessed Augustine declared “Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that thou mayest understand.”
What is it about believing before you see that makes a life of faith possible?
Our Lord Jesus speaks plainly to us all in today’s Gospel lesson when He says “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” (John 9:39)
There are those who say believers are required to check their minds at the door of the Church and become unthinking robots. Others suggest that any belief in religion or God is mere delusion. Still others say that unless something can be “proved” by science, it is unworthy of attention.
There is a certain arrogance of mind in the modern age that feeds the ego of we humans that there is nothing that is really beyond our collective intellect. However, the consistent troubles in human behavior suggest that there are simply some challenges we humans are never going to “solve” by either technology or politics. Why ever the questions of the origin of the universe only push back the question so far. If there was a Big Bang, Who lit the fuse?
A life of faith isn’t irrational, but transrational. It is a confession that the human mind has limits. It is a humility that “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” This humility opens the eyes to see the possible rather than the mechanical limits of human reason alone.
Our Lord confronted the religious leaders of His day for their blindness in seeing beyond the limits of their own flawed understandings. He goes on to say to them that their insistence that they see clearly means they will have to answer for the flaws in their so-called “sight.”
Today, my dearest, is there room in your heart for the humble confession of your own limitations? This humble attitude opens you up to embrace a vision greater than yourself. This humility sets you free to be the eternal student of Him Who has no such limitations and boundaries. The possibilities for us all are actually limitless if we risk a life of faith and love. What you can become is greater than you are. What you were created to be is more than you now know.
A life of “believing so that I may see” means there is no limit to what your sight can become. Practicing those daily spiritual disciplines that strengthen both humility and spiritual sight moves this lofty thought from mere ideology to actual experience. Today, believe and watch as your sight grows stronger!
