Beware of our inherent blindness

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

            WE have to realize that we have an inherent blindness due to the fact that we have to contend with spiritual and supernatural realities in our life. These realities simply can overwhelm our capacity to see things properly, let alone, understand them. To top it all, we also have to contend with the fact that in our life there is a very confusing mixture of good and evil, of truth and falsehood, etc.

And yet, we also have to realize more deeply that we have the capacity to deal with that inherent blindness properly. And that is always to go to Christ, to learn how to see things the way Christ sees them. Let’s remember that it is Christ who offers us “the way, the truth and the life.”

We need to realize that we can only see things properly and understand them properly as well when we know how to see things through the eyes of Christ. This can be lesson we can derive from that gospel episode where Christ said, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?” (cfr. Lk 6,39-42)

And indicating how not to be a blind guide, he said, “No disciple is superior to the teacher, but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher.” These words obviously tell us that we have to refer to Christ, our ultimate teacher, to be able to see and understand things properly.

Unless we see things through Christ who said that he is the light of the world (cfr Jn 9), we actually cannot see things as they ought to be seen. If we simply rely on our senses and even on our intelligence, but without Christ through the exercise of our faith, we actually are blind. This we have to acknowledge.

We need to be more aware of this predicament of ours and start to develop and use the appropriate means to correct, if not avoid, that delicate situation. We need to be humble and to always feel the need to be with God even in our most intimate thoughts, let alone, our words, deeds and public interventions.

There is actually no other way to correctly and properly understand and react to things and events in our life. We have to be wary of our tendency to rely solely on our human estimations of things, quite independent, if not contrary to the way God understands them.

In fact, not only should we be guarded against this tendency. Rather, we should also actively fight it, converting it into what is our proper way of thinking, judging and reasoning. And that is to do all these spiritual operations with God as the main guide and inspiration. The story of the man born blind (cfr. Jn 9) validates this point.

We have to be most careful when perhaps because of our education, our experience, our position, among other things, we feel that we would already have enough reason to make ourselves our own standard of what is true, good and beautiful.

To see and understand things the way Christ sees and understands them, we obviously need to study well the very life of Christ, his example and words. In this regard, we cannot overemphasize the need for us to spend time praying and meditating on the life of Christ, studying his teaching, and slowly developing the relevant attitude, practices and virtues.

            Email: roycimagala@gmail.com