Two Parables

Today in the Gospel Jesus gives us two parables, more like two comparisons or examples, very practical for our Christian lives. The first one is about the blind leading the blind. We all have the image of a line of blind people falling into a cliff, one after the other, oblivious of what is going to happen to them. It helps us to ask the question: What or who are we following? Is my life taking me to a safe haven? We should check from time to time our compass, to make sure we are not following a wrong path, a road that ends in a cul-de-sac, or a precipice. The one we need to follow, the person who can direct us through the maze of our modern life, is Jesus Christ.

How important our eyes are! Try to close your eyes for a while. How long would you last? We have two eyes to see. With one eye only we lose perspective, relief; it’s all flat. The more eyes the better. They say that in heaven we are going to have infinite number of eyes. Other people’s eyes can help us to see the things we fail to see. We should listen to the advice from people around us, especially from people that love us.

Holiness gives us better eyes. Holy people can see further, higher, longer; they can even see through. Once a blind man asked a priest to show him Saint Peter’s basilica. How can you show a building to a blind man? He tried his best, closing his eyes and beginning to explain it. He realised then that he had discovered a different basilica. Blind people have a sixth sense. Our spiritual life can help us a bit to see things through God’s eyes. In our technological society we have lost the ability to contemplate things with perspective. Now we see everything through flat, artificial screens. The big internet companies show us what they want us to see.

Jesus warns us not to get obsessed with the speck in people’s eyes, but to discover the log in our own eyes. We are very subjective and we look at our things differently. We normally see our imperfections reflected in others, projecting our defects on to them. An examination of conscience can help us to see things better. Like the blind man in the Gospel, we ask Jesus to let us see. Many times we don’t want to see; out of sight, out of mind. The first step to change this is to see. If we don’t see, we don’t move. Confession helps us to see things better. We all have the experience of the clear mind a good confession brings. To be more objective we should be open to correction, ready to apologise, and try to always say the truth. If we have the habit of lying, we reach a moment when we don’t know where the truth is.

In the second comparison Jesus points out how the good tree normally produces good fruit. Are we producing the fruit God wants us to produce? Maybe we are generating a lot of leaves, good foliage, but no fruit. We could be people of many words, but few deeds. It is easy to talk, especially when we have so many meetings, but we can be very passive. A good person out of the store of the goodness of his heart produces good fruit. What is important is our interior disposition.

josephpich@gmail.com