By Jonathan Camiolo

 

This past August I went into New York City and went to the Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” Museum.  As I walked the halls and looked the galleries and displays, it was amazing to behold.  I found myself staring in disbelief that this was reality.  Some things seemed impossible or just to crazy to be real.  I looked once, then again, and then again many times before I could even imagine or understand what I was looking at.  Have you ever had to take a second look at something?

 

Well, that is nothing new and something we find in the readings this week too.  The Old Testament prophet Samuel and the Pharisees at the time of Jesus had to take second looks as well.  To Samuel God said, “Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the LORD looks into the heart.”  Samuel would have never thought God would select David the shepherd, the baby in his family to be the next King of Israel…but that was what God wanted.  

 

In the Gospel, Jesus cures a blind man and all of a sudden he can see.  When the man tries to tell the leaders of the day, the Pharisees, they do not believe him, and call on his parents and witnesses to attest that he was ever really blind.  They cannot believe what they are hearing.  It is too hard for them to imagine that Jesus could heal a man of blindness by making clay out of dirt and spit.  Their faith is not strong enough!

 

How many times in life are we stuck in our way of thinking and understanding?  How many times do we judge people or situations prematurely?  Have we gotten so used to the way we think and live that we no longer really examine what we do, believe, think and why?  Maybe this is a week to take a second look and see what we might have missed or not understood at the first glance.  Think.  Pray.  Decide. Change.

 

GOD LOVES YOU…Have a wonderful week in Lent…we are half way to Easter!