Saturday of the Twenty-Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s readings are about seeing and hearing. Jesus often speaks of having eyes to see and ears to hear, usually in the context of people who lack them. The gospel passage does mention prophets and kings in that context, but the focus of the readings is on those who actually did see and hear and on the joy that it gave them.

What does it mean to have eyes that see and ears that hear? It’s not about physical sight and hearing, although Jesus does play around with those sensory metaphors sometimes when healing the blind and the deaf. The psalm offers the key: “Give me discernment, Lord, that I may know your decrees. The revelation of your words sheds light, giving understanding to the simple.” The decrees are encoded in laws both juridical and moral. But their basis is the mind and heart of God. When Israel’s prophets tell the people “thus says the Lord . . . ” they are revealing God’s understanding and often his desired course of action in specific situations. In the sermon on the mount the Lord himself, incarnate in Jesus, shares his decrees, that is, his own mind and heart, with the people. Discernment, a word much used in Ignatian spirituality, is the capacity to see beneath the articulated commandments, precepts, and laws to the love-infused stance of justice and mercy that reveals God.

John tells us that God is love. Paul tell us that love never ends although its various earthly manifestations will. We now see dimly as in a mirror but will come to see God face to face. The decree, the direct apprehension of God’s loving desire for us in a given moment, is a glimpse of the face of God. This was the experience of Job. He wrestled with his friends who were stuck on the codes of the Law. But codes are always partial. Lawyers then and now have expanded the legal canon by bringing new interpretations of existing laws to bear on new situations. Job’s breakthrough was not a new interpretation. It was his recognition that God’s understanding was greater than he could ever grasp but that he could trust God’s wisdom in any situation, impenetrable as it might seem, because he had come to know God:“I had heard of you by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you.”

The disciples in the passage from Luke saw God through their capacity to heal. They knew that it was not they who caused the healing. They were surprised by what they were able to do. Like Job, they realized their understanding was inadequate, but they experienced themselves as channels of God’s grace: “the demons are subject to us because of your name.” Jesus reinforces this understanding: “do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” In other words, don’t focus on your power but on your closeness to God.”

We too can have moments when we see God through a graced choice that we made. When I was a hospice volunteer, I was once assigned to a woman of great faith who was expected to die within a month. Let’s call her Sadie. Almost a year later, Sadie was still with us—to her own distress. She was ready to go to God and had declined several times but then rallied. It was clear something was holding her back. The hospice team discussed it and suggested I talk to her.  “Me?” I said. I had no idea what to say, but neither did anyone else. This was a Friday and my next visit was on Monday. I spent the weekend anxiously praying and reflecting, trying to discern the words through which God might reach Sadie. As I did, an image came to my mind of the big watch she always wore. I had never asked about it, but it had struck me on my very first visit that though she was bedridden and unable to see very well, she kept wearing the watch. It was clearly important to her. On Monday I started out by acknowledging Sadie’s disappointment that God hadn’t taken her to himself yet and assuring her that she had fulfilled all her responsibilities in this life. And then I told her, “It’s time to go.” At that her whole body gave a little jump and then relaxed. Within a few days she began to decline again and died peacefully.

An alternate translation of the psalm is “The unfolding of your words gives light.” That’s what I experienced. I was able to discern the words that unfolded to reveal the light of Christ calling Sadie home to the Lord. And it gave us both joy.
—Christine Szczepanowski  

The readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.