Stubborn and Blind

THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for Monday of the Third Week of Lent, March 9th, 2015

Liturgical texts here

IN truth, we are surrounded by the miraculous. You have to be blind—spiritually blind—not to see it. But our modern world has become so skeptical, so cynical, so stubborn that not only do we doubt that supernatural miracles are possible, but when they do happen, we still doubt!

Take for instance the miracle at Fatima witnessed by upwards of 80,000 people, including atheists. Today, it stands as truly one of the great unexplained miracles of our time (see Debunking the Sun Miracle Skeptics). So desperate is our generation not to believe in God and to only trust that which can be reproduced in a laboratory, that the obvious becomes mysteriously elusive.

Like the king of Israel in today’s first reading, the hyper-rational mind of “modern” man can scarcely dare to believe in the supernatural (of course, vampires, zombies, and witches are fair game). Like Naaman, we hesitate, rationalize, debate, doubt, and ultimately dismiss what we cannot explain. Take the origin of the universe. Something was created out of nothing. And yet, our generation of scientists, unlike their predecessors, simple cannot face the obvious. Then there’s the physical healings: limbs straightening, eyesight returning, cancer disappearing, mute ears hearing, and bodies being raised from the dead (not to mention the incorruptible bodies of saints, some who have been dead for decades—and they look better than me after burning the candle at both ends).

Ho hum. Another day, another miracle.

In the first reading, when Naaman the leper finally humbled himself enough to trust the Lord’s word through a “little girl”, he entered the waters and washed seven times. When he emerged,

His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

Yes, our hearts need to become “like the flesh of a little child” again. But this generation is too busy erasing the footprints of the supernatural and throwing the evidence of God over the cliff—like they tried to do with Jesus in the Gospel today—instead of becoming spiritual children. Humble children. I mean, we think we’re pretty smart. We can make big screen TV’s, LED watches, and land on space rocks. We can even grow aborted baby’s organs in a pig. ^[1]cf. wnd.com, March 7th, 2015 Wow, we’re really something. In truth, without the mystical, our generation is more dull than the surface of Mars.

I find it interesting that St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the Church’s most brilliant theologians, after having a powerful encounter with God, wanted to burn his books. In fact, he never finished his famous Summa, so humbled was he in the face of the Divine. Ah, the world needs a God-moment like that! And not only the world, but the Church, because the past five decades have produced some clergy and theologians whom themselves have been infected by rationalism, sometimes ceasing to believe in the miraculous. 

The problem is, these miraculous moments are happening all the time. It’s just that we no longer have eyes that can see and ears that can hear, so stubborn have we become. If you want to see spiritual realities, then you need to come to the Creator of the heavens and the earth on His terms:

Because he is found by those who do not test him, and manifests himself to those who do not disbelieve him. (Wis 1:2)

The Psalmist asks today, “When shall I go and behold the face of God?” And Jesus answers:

…for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. (Matt 11:25)