Friday of the 11th week of Ordinary Time, St. Joe.
When did you last have
your vision checked? I don’t mean by an
eye-doctor; I mean by Jesus. In today’s
gospel, Jesus tells us that the quality of our vision will determine the health
of our entire self. Our Holy Cross Constitutions tell us that “for the kingdom to come, disciples need the
competence to see and the courage to act.”
The world looks different through eyes of faith, through kingdom-focused
eyes, through compassionate eyes, through courageous eyes.
Godly
vision doesn’t make the world looked rose-tinted; it doesn’t look nicer in a
cheap way. The priest Jehoiada in our
first reading had the keen vision to see more clearly the injustice of Athaliah’s
power-hungry reign. He also had the courageous vision to see this as injustice
he must right, and we just heard how he managed to preserve an heir, depose
Athaliah, destroy the site of Ba’al worship, and bring calm to Judah.
SS. John Fisher
and Thomas More also had the God-given vision for injustice to see how Henry
VIII was acting irreverently towards the Pope, wickedly towards his first wife,
Catherine of Aragorn, and hubristically towards God by claiming the power to
annul his own marriage. They also had
the courageous vision to see these wrongs as wrongs they must try to
address. They failed. They were put to death and Henry abandoned
Catherine and the Catholic Church.
But we celebrate
their feast day today. Why would we
celebrate failures? To see them as
failures is to see them with clouded eyes.
Godly eyes do not let their death blot out the rest of reality. Godly eyes see two men who loved: who loved
their queen, loved England, loved the Church, loved justice, loved God… who
loved enough to die for love.
No comments:
Post a Comment