What would you do if you were totally blind from birth and God healed you? How would your life change? It goes without saying that your life would be turned upside down and inside out. Two blind men cry out to Jesus in today’s gospel for him to heal them. Jesus heals them in response to their faith in him. Can you imagine their response? Their worlds, their lives, were upended, completely changed, and nothing could possibly be the same.
We are awaiting the potential of a vaccine to protect us from this coronavirus, freeing us to return to some normalcy. We can see a “light at the end of the tunnel” getting larger and larger, even as we enter another difficult stage of higher infection rates due to holiday gatherings. It’s possible that some of our most vulnerable people will receive a vaccine within weeks!!!
Hope!!!
But the question remains: what will we do when all citizens have the opportunity of receiving the vaccine? Will we just go back to how life was lived before the pandemic? Will we grasp at retrieving the old normal that was lived before the pandemic began? These questions are extremely important since we don’t want to let go of lessons learned DURING the pandemic: never taking each other for granted; spending more time in prayer; uncluttering our lives; spending more time with family, especially children; valuing the large gatherings that bring joy; worshipping together, in person, at the Eucharist.
Our lives have hopefully been changed for the better and for good. Our inner eyes have been opened, like the two in the gospel, in “seeing” life differently, the world differently. We have been given a glimpse of how interconnected we are and how much we are alike. Our eyes have been “opened” to seeing painful truths of racism and hateful attitudes that divide us, creating violence in many forms.
As we gradually emerge from the pandemic with a new sense of freedom, may we do so by not trying to go back to the old normal, but allow our new “sight and insight” to help us to create a new and better world.
Peace,
Fr. Frank