In today’s Gospel from Mark, Jesus healed a blind man. Like the healing of the deaf man (cf. Mk 7:31-37), Jesus again used his own saliva in the healing process showing the intimacy and closeness of each encounter. The difference this time is that this man does not receive a full and complete healing the first time. Jesus laid hands on the man’s eyes a second time and he saw clearly; his sight was restored and he could see everything distinctly (Mk 8:25).
Often with Jesus, there are instant healings, as well as healing by his word alone. What might be happening with this need for a double healing? Maybe it is because Jesus meets each person where they are at. He invites us into the process of healing and each person has a different response, even to the point of saying no to the invitation to heal. Remember how Jesus was only able to heal a few people while in his own home town of Nazareth?
We need to read the two miraculous healings of the deaf and blind men deeper than the literal physical healings. Each of us suffers from both spiritual deafness and blindness to some degree. Jesus revealed this with his disciples on the boat ride over to Bethsaida when they did not understand his teaching on the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod. We come to hear and see God’s will for us gradually.
As I shared a few days ago if we knew God’s intention for us early on, we might be crushed with the weight of our own doubt! If someone had told me when I was in high school that I would be a teacher, later a deacon, and now a priest, teaching and preaching coherently, I would have quietly retreated to a stand of white birch across from the old oak tree in the field behind my parent’s house until that idea passed.
Yet, Jesus met me on my level. Sometime around my junior of high school, he invited me through an interim pastor to teach Sunday school to a class of three. About a year later I gave a children’s sermon to the youth and the small congregation. The summer after my freshman year of college, I began to work second shift as a certified nurse’s aide and during my sophomore year of college, after following the urge to take a search in education course, I switched my major from psychology to elementary education. After graduation, my first teaching position was not in the four walls of a classroom, but six hundred eighty acres at the Sharon Audubon Center as an environmental education specialist.
I began to interact with people, Jesus drew me out of my own self-centered posture, and I began to grow and mature. I would eventually enter the classroom when we moved to Florida in 1997 to teach, first in public school for five years and then through JoAnn’s guidance, I applied for a substitute position at Rosarian Academy in WPB, where I would spend the next eight years teaching middle school religion. While at Rosarian, I also entered the permanent deacon program and was ordained a deacon in 2013 and then would go on to teach at Cardinal Newman HS for nine more years.
Each of these experiences of saying yes to Jesus was my willingness to be healed and lead gently. Certainly, with the loss of JoAnn, my foundation had been shaken, but Jesus continued to lead me and helped me to discern my next step which was returning to seminary for two years and then fortunate to be ordained this past May as a priest and I’m blessed to be serving now and typing these words from my office at Holy Cross Catholic Church.
The journey continues for each of us, and we are invited to trust in Jesus and be led by his guidance into healing and service. As he has guided me, I trust that he will do the same for each of you. We just need to have our eyes and ears open for his healing touch. He is not done with any of us yet!
Photo: Full moon rising during Rosary walk back in November.
Spiritual Stepping Stones 