The Temptation of Sight

What happened recently in my District Kannur, in north Kerala was the Eucharistic miracle. This happened in Christ the King parish, Vilakannur on the 15^th of November, 2013. My mother went and saw and told me that it is real. Many people thronged to see the unspeakable light spreading from the Eucharistic host and the face of Jesus imprinted on it. The diocesan (diocese of Tellicherry) investigating team is doing their part to verify it. 

The first thing that came to my mind was quite disturbing – how many would change their ways when God appears? Would the crowd who see the Lord merely end at sight rather than a strengthened belief in the real presence of Jesus and the resolve to live a qualitatively different life? It is sad that many end up like that. When something unbelievable happens, the temptation to have a direct look at that propels people to move. So they run to the place of the event, see it and there begins a series of questioning, interpretations and the practical implications of it. Now the temptation is the temptation of mere sight which does not lead to belief.

The first temptation in the Garden of Eden is about rejecting faith and trust in favour of knowledge, rejecting belief in favour of sight. This finds a parallel in the Emmaus Episode where the dejected disciples could not just understand why such thing would happen to Jesus. They thought of Jesus as an all powerful, a magician who could get off the difficulties on the wink of an eye. They were utopian in their thinking. But now Jesus joins them on the way. Jesus opens their eyes on the way. Jesus brings to them an authentic understanding of the human realities by explaining to them the prophets, the scriptures. The invitation of the Serpent in the Garden of Eden was to eat the forbidden tree to attain knowledge. Jesus now invites them to eat, not with the promise of knowledge, but with an assurance of solidarity. The disciples’ eyes are open with a new grasp of reality. They are given a glimpse of the risen lord- but it was a fleeting glimpse. Sight once more had to give way to belief.

When the other disciples said to Thomas that they had seen the Lord, he doubted. He said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (Jn 20:25).

What is the actual connection between sight and belief? The object of belief/faith is concretized in a visible reality. The person of Jesus is beyond the visible dimensions of reality. He is the transcendent immanent at his incarnation. His divinity is hidden in his humanity. 

We often hear the phrase, “out of sight, out of mind.” This is a human reality that we want to hold on to permanence but the real fact is that change is the accompanying invader. Yet the eternal truth remains that we have been touched by grace, we have been seized by God, we have been bought at a price. But the constant temptation is to substitute belief for sight. Curiosity often ends at sight.

Jesus really knew our malady. This is the reason why he said to Thomas “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” (Jn 20: 29).

May God lead us to belief. May He lead us all from doubt to certainty, from disbelief to belief, from a passing curiosity which ends at sight to a lasting presence which makes us captives of his love.