.

I’m not sure what I was thinking when I decided to take French as a third form option all those years ago. It was a disaster.

While I seemed to have a good ear for dictation every other assignment and especially the exams were spectacular failures.

The daily now-we-will-do-verbs call of our teacher filled me with fear. Learning by rote didn’t work for me: — I see you see he sees she sees we see they see — a daily ritual that as much as I tried I never saw at all.

A few weeks ago reflecting on Jesus giving sight to the man born blind I commented that for this man receiving physical sight was not the best thing that happened to him that day. Instead meeting God was the encounter that changed his life forever.

Meeting Jesus again a few hours after the healing, when his life had become very difficult because of his interaction with Jesus, he professes directly to Jesus: “Lord, I believe.”  (Jn 9:38)

I believe — another way of saying I can truly see, not simply that my eyes are now working but instead that my being is now truly awake and the vision of my heart is now fully engaged so yes, I see, I really really see.

The best that this blind man could have hoped for that morning when he got out of bed was that some new doctor would arrive in town and solve his physical sight problem. It’s likely that such a hope had now, given that he had been blind from birth, grown dim in him,

While all about town the news was about this man’s new sight, when he him put his head on the pillow that night and closed his eyes to sleep he was rejoicing that even with his eyes closed he could see. He could now really see.

Today’s gospel reading shares one of the great encounters with Jesus — Mary Magdalen meeting Jesus at the tomb, seeing him but not recognising him (thinking he was the gardener), then really really seeing Jesus leading her to announce to the other disciples: “I have seen the Lord!”

Your prayer requests for these days continue to flow in and are welcome. Click on the image below to enlarge, and send me an email to add initials john@fff.org.nz

Our invitation this week is to set five minutes, a couple of times each day, simply to be still and silent, to invite Jesus risen and present to speak to us, to heal us, to renew us. In our prayer we are united with all whose initials appear below.

That each one of us, everyone listed below, might SEE, truly SEE and recognise Jesus risen and present, and so come to believe.