November 15, 2004

Do you think it would be more difficult to be blind or deaf? I have an aunt who eventually became so deaf that she couldn’t even hear noises. She said that this total absence of sound made her feel like she wasn’t in the real world. She recently received a mechanical hearing device (a “Cochlear implant”). She said that it took a while to re-learn to hear, because, for example, the sound of people laughing at first sounded like dogs barking.

I wonder if we value our spiritual senses as much as our physical ones. Our sense of God’s Presence can easily be drowned out by the controlling noise of the television or the pressure to be always multi-tasking. Perhaps our recognition of Jesus in the poor has never really come into clear focus. Sometimes it is only when we are stripped of the usual sense stimulation, as in a time away on retreat, that we are able to regain or improve our spiritual vision and our ability to hear the Lord speaking to us in His Word or in the moment. We are constantly re-learning to see and to hear, as my aunt had to do.

This re-learning is a way of defining repentance. We cannot heal ourselves; we can only recognize that we are spiritually blind or deaf and call out “Son of David, have pity on me!” This is a way of returning to our “first love” (see Rev. 2:4) or perhaps moving toward a clearer vision than we ever had before. At moments of profound conversion we may feel as if we never really knew Him before, as if we had always been blind or deaf.

Jesus, Son of David, save us! You know we want to see You!

Fr. Richard Roemer, CFR
Community Vicar, residing at St. Joseph Friary in Harlem
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