PHYSICLAL AND SPIRITUAL SIGHT


WEDNESDAY, SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Gen 8:6-13,20-22; Ps 116:12-15,18-19; Mk 8:22-26

Physical and Spiritual Blindness

The flood came as threatened and allowed by God to cleanse the earth of evil people, their deeds, and their consequences. The sacred author presents the flood as God’s punishment for sinners. Still, to those who perished in the flood, it appeared as a natural disaster that we can explain through scientific inquiry and interpretation of natural facts. Our understanding of the word of God and its creative effects on earth helps us to see that the two explanations are not mutually exclusive. Everything scientifically explicable we can also understand by faith to be from God. Hence, the sinners who lack faith in the word of God, see accidents and natural disasters, which are physical evils seemingly outside human control. But the faithful know the hand of God in whatever happens and understand the result of every event, natural, human, social, or political, as divinely ordained or permitted for the fulfilment of God’s will. Thus, the sacred author writes of the sacrifice offered to God by Noah after the flood in thanksgiving. Noah understood the purpose of the flood as divine and thanked God for sparing him and his family. “The Lord smelt the appeasing fragrance and said to himself, ‘Never again will I curse the earth because of man, because his heart contrives evil from infancy. Never again will I strike down every living thing as I have done.’”

The lesson we learn from the story, which corresponds with the whole of scriptural truths, is that the material creation is the work of God, made to support the life of man on earth. Thus, our disobedience to God’s word thwarts the purpose of God’s creation and may sometimes set off a chaotic disequilibrium among other creatures. We are stewards of God’s creation; we must work with God for the good of the universe and man's salvation. The Church teaches that the material universe will attain its end through man's submission and worship of God. We must use the natural resources with gratitude to God and as a means to reach God the creator. When nature and its forces fail to work for our interest, we must reconsider our ways and examine our consciences to know how we have offended God. The curse God placed on the soil because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience and the ban on productivity placed on the ground against Cain all point to the truth that creation respects and responds to our needs when we obey God’s word and worship him in sincerity of heart. We must be grateful to God, as the Psalmist teaches us. “How can I repay the Lord for his goodness to me? The cup of salvation I will raise; I will call on the Lord’s name.”

Greed for gain usually blinds us to the presence of God in his creation. Blinded thus, we scramble for the good things in the world without reference to God’s will and design. A great number of people live with such blindness.  As Christians, we bring the blinded humanity to Jesus Christ, the incarnate wisdom, for mercy and healing. It is true that life follows the natural path and can be understood and explicated through scientific inquiry and research. But science can only reveal and explain an aspect of the whole picture. Science cannot understand the teleology and purpose behind events of life. The scientific truths are also part of divine truth, but to put the scientific truths in perspective, we must appeal to faith. The scientific sight is similar to the incomplete sight Jesus granted to the blind man at first. “He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. Then putting spittle on his eyes and laying his hands on him, he asked, ‘Can you see anything?’ The man, who was beginning to see, replied, ‘I can see people; they look like trees to me, but they are walking about.’ Then he laid his hands on the man’s eyes again and he saw clearly; he was cured, and he could see everything clearly and distinctly.” Faith in Jesus Christ restores meaning and purpose to our lives so that we can understand God’s plan in our lives clearly and praise his goodness.

Let us pray: O God, who calls and corrects us, in our blind pursuit of material goods, through the natural, moral, and social failures, grant that awakened by our sufferings of these failures we may come to you who gives us your word to heal us. Through our Lord Jesus, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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