From pastor’s desk on the 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year C
What is in your heart? What is in your thoughts? What is the point of reference for all your decisions and actions? Is it God and the Commandments, or opinions of other people? Or perhaps your own convenience? These questions may help us to put into context the gospel passage we hear this Sunday.
Our Lord Jesus talks about “seeing” others and He connects it to our hearts. Jesus reminds us of a deep psychological truth. Namely, our perception of others is determined by that which we are carrying in our hearts and thoughts. Whether we will perceive other people as good and desirable of our attention, or as detestable and unworthy of our attention, depends on the sentiments of our heart. But those sentiments too need to be well ordered. Hence, Jesus talks about the blind man who guides another blind man and both of them fall into a pit. Being blind in the biblical language means having no faith. It is the faith in God that is a light to our mind; it is the faith in Jesus that is the light to our path. If we have a genuine faith in God and imitate Jesus in His humility and charity, we will see others with different eyes too, for we will look at them as the children of God. Because of our faith we will see the dignity of each human person regardless of his or her socio-economic status, race, education, or even moral aptness. We will have the eyes of Jesus, not judging but loving.
This week we are going to begin the sacred season of Lent that may help us to recognize our vocation as Jesus’ disciples. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Thursday. The main theme of Lent is not only penance and repentance, but most of all the mystery of our redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the Son of God, Jesus, that should be the focus of all our efforts during Lent. Whatever we do during this sacred time we should do it in connection to our faith in Jesus, who has suffered for our sins and died on the cross. So as much as fasting, praying, and almsgiving are important dimensions of Lenten exercises, let us remember that these are only accompanying a much greater and deeper truth, that is, the mystery of the passion, death, and resurrection of our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ.
Many saints discovered that it was more beneficial to simply meditate on the Passion of Lord than to do many other works of penance. Jesus Himself emphasized this while revealing it to Sister Faustina:
Jesus told me that I please Him best by meditating on His sorrowful Passion, and by such meditation much light falls upon my soul. (Diary, 267)
You please Me most when you meditate on My Sorrowful Passion. (Diary, 1512)
The contemplation of My painful wounds is of great profit to you, and it brings Me great joy. (Diary, 369)
Much grace is poured into our hearts when we immerse ourselves into the suffering and death of Christ. For this reason, during Lent we are invited to ponder on the mysteries of our redemption while doing the spiritual reading of the Passion of the Lord in the Gospels or walking and meditating the Stations of the Cross. In effect, during Lent we should not focus on what we do to become more holy, but rather on what our Lord Jesus did for us to make us holy and fully alive in God: By his wounds you have been healed (1 Peter 2:24).
I wish you all a truly beautiful and fruitful Lent. God bless. Fr. Janusz Mocarski, pastor