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Open Bible
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Be confident, He is calling you
During Lent of 2001, in the Paris diocese, the baptized-to-be
for the eve of Easter received a scarf with the words" Be
confident, He is calling you" taken from Marc, 10, v.49.
Getting out from Jericho, Jesus was walking with his disciples
when one can hear several calls responding to each other. A call
from a blind man to Jesus, "Son of David, have pity on
me!" A call from Jesus to the crowd: "Bring
him forth!" A call from the crowd to the blind:"
Be confident, he is calling you".
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This chain of calls is necessary for the blind man to come
close to the Master. |
Without the cry of the poor man, nothing would have happened,
nor without Jesus carefully listening, also without the stimulating
action of the crowd: "Confidence!" Between Jesus
and us, the message goes through unsuspected intervening persons,
sometimes anonymous: "One is calling" "One
said to him" These humble links between Jesus and us
are a mystery but they lead to an essential meeting. Sometimes
every thing seems to depend on very little.
The two following calls, like question-answer, are rather
astonishing despite their apparent obviousness: "What
do you want me to do for you?" "Rabbi, let it be that
I see" Of course can he be interested by something else?
However the question of Jesus is useful, he knows that he is
going to bring this man into a totally new universe, the universe
of vision, impossible for him to figure out because he has never
had images in his human experience.
This universe has its marvelous sides but also a dark side
where there are things we would have preferred not to see. It
is why Jesus is insisting, do you really want to go into this
unknown universe, and will you be able to bear it? To enter in
a new world, to acquire a fifth or a sixth sense, to say "let
it be that I can see", all these represent the risk
of an unprecedented emotional shock, the risk to have to reconsider
one's limited understanding of the reality, the risk to have
to correct the meaning we give to things and to history
That means that we have to look further and more profoundly,
and not imagine that all is known in science, in the spiritual
life, in the Gospel, in the Church. Now we have to correct each
time our understanding, to accept, if need be, the different
knowledge and understanding of our brothers and sisters.
The courage to see is only possible if the call of Christ
awakes us and if we answer him with a confidence greater than
our fears. Like the blind man who stands up and leaves his coat
behind, we have also to leave behind our doubts that paralyze
us and then we can proceed. Seeing the truth becomes the fruit
of an act of faith, the expression of a more profound thought:
" Yes, Lord, I am confident in You who call me to see" |