“Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” John 20:29
“Do we see through the eyes of faith?” That could be the question that Jesus poses today to Thomas. To see with eyes of faith isn’t like seeing with human eyes where the mind processes whatever visual stimulation it receives. No, eyes of faith uses the human heart and our experience of the risen Lord to encounter the Lord in our lives. Here, belief is the encounter or experience which we have with Christ in prayer, through the Eucharist, and the other Sacraments. It’s also a quieting of our hearts to perceive and understand the divine truths revealed by God and to seek the confidence to trust in the power of the Holy Spirit and to “see” the Spirit at work in and around us – to see God in the created world, to recognize God’s presence and his mercy in our lives, and to see the presence of Christ in those around us, especially in times of trial. Therefore, these eyes are not merely external but internal; they’re eyes that require a transformation of our hearts and mind to truly understand and believe in God’s love, mercy, and experience his presence in our lives. It means that we don’t limit our sight, but we see beyond what we perceive with our naked eye. It means that we turn to a faith – the interior help of the Holy Spirit – that illuminates our hearts through the words of God and through our experience of his love and mercy so that we could perceive the world around us and our existence, so that our hearts may be moved and converted to God by the Holy Spirit who opens the eyes of the mind and makes it easy for us to accept and believe the truth. To have “eyes of faith” means that we place our trust in a higher being – God -who’s at work in Creation and in our lives, restoring all to its proper place with him.
This week, the Church remembers Pope Saint Martin I. He was a man who refused to condone silence in the face of wrong, especially in the face of heresy. He championed the truth that Christ had both a divine and human will against those that didn’t believe in Christ’s human will, a popular heresy of the time. There was even an edict issued by the emperor banning people from discussing Jesus’ will, yet Martin believed that such falsity needed to be condemned; he needed to speak up against this heresy which eventually led to his martyrdom. His example shows us how important it is to speak our faith and to speak up against untruths or deviations from God’s revelation, something that we even face in today’s society, and though it may not necessarily be met with death like Martin, it’s confronted by either laws that ban one from speaking God’s truth or being ostracized by society. It comes to show how at times, the world still fails to see through eyes of faith. Pope Saint Martin, pray for us.
In Christ
Fr Robert