A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Jesus used images in speaking to his disciples. He He said, Can a blind man act as guide to a blind man? Will they not both fall into the ditch? A student is not above his teacher, but every student, when he has finished his studies, will be on a par with his teacher.
Why look at the speck in your brother's eye when you miss the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother, brother, let me remove that speck from your eye, yet fail yourself to see the plank lodged in your own eye? Hypocrite, remove the plank from your own eye first, then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. In some museum, in some part of the world, I remember seeing a painting illustrating this parable of our lord or this figurative figure of speech he used of the blind man leading the blind and both falling into the ditch. Blindness takes away a certain amount of freedom, And a blind person leading a blind person enjoys no more freedom or security than the person he is trying to lead. They're both blind. And as our lord says, they both fall into the ditch.
In the opening prayer of today's mass, which is the mass of last Sunday, we've repeated it several times, we pray for freedom. We ask god to give us freedom. Now what in the world do we mean by freedom? What do we mean? I just ran across this statement.
Well, it's John Sheaver in one of his short stories. And Sheaver is not universally recognized as a great upstanding, outstanding Christian. I suppose he believed in God, I'm not sure of that. But he surely knew how to he certainly had his eye on the on the the life that he describes up in mostly around the New England area, New York, Connecticut. He has about one of his characters, he has this to say that they were prisoners of their hopes and anticipations.
Now if you're a prisoner, you're not free. If you're blind, you have lost a measure of your freedom. There are many ways in which we can be prisoners, and being a prisoner is certainly opposed to being free. Some of us recall the great statement of FDR about the four freedoms. Well, if you think about those four freedoms, you can have them all in a prison cell.
Because the one thing that he did not mention in his four freedoms was the freedom of self determination. If you don't have that, then the other four aren't going to amount to a hill of beans. Now, if there's anything can make us free, it's something that will guide us from falling into the ditch. It is something that will give us light in beside the engine coming down to destroy us. It is something which will give meaning to life.
When life is pretty dark, when it becomes confused, when we're on the verge of despair. These are all levels. And sooner or later, we put our foot on one of those ladders. Maybe some of you saw that documentary, I guess they call it, called Monastery last Sunday. And they had interviews with some of the monks there.
And one of the monks said he wasn't too sure that he believed in God. This is coming from a monk, remember. But of course, well, if you saw it, you'll know what it was. It was something like a confectionery store. But anyway, they had these interviews.
And the great problem that one of the monks had was with the evil in the world. And he gave Auschwitz and the inhumanity of man to man and all the horrors which beset human beings in this life, and they certainly are there. Nobody can deny it. And how do you reconcile that fact with a God who's supposed to be a benevolent God and omnipotent? Well, I don't want to get into that problem of evil this morning, but the point is this.
Unless you can answer that question, you're blind. Unless you can answer that question, you're not free. You are prisoner of your ignorance. You are a prisoner of your hopes. You are a prisoner of your anticipations.
What are they? You certainly are free. Who was the freest man in England when Thomas More was in the tower waiting to be beheaded or being executed for treason, which was a little bit worse than being beheaded? Remember, Henry the eighth, his dear and devoted friend, moderated the penalty to simple beheading, which was a big advantage. But it was a much better way of dying than what a man guilty of treason was.
And remember, that was the charge. He refused to take the oath of absolutism which would make the king head of the Church of England. That was the issue. That was the issue. Who was the freest man in England?
There Moore is up in that tower waiting to be executed, surrounded by walls immensely thick, with guards all around him. Was Henry the eighth freer than Moore? Because Henry the eighth could say off with his head? Who was the freest man? Who was the man who was fearless facing death?
It was Moore. Moore had no fear of dying whatsoever. As he's put, if you've read some of his writings from the Tower, he said, I'm going to die tomorrow and you're going to die next week, so what's the difference between us? You can't be free if you're a prisoner. And you are a prisoner if you're blind.
And you're blind if you're ignorant of the important issues of life, and one of them is what is it all about? What is it all about? It's so easy for us in doing our duty, which I stressed yesterday, that in putting our mind, our effort, our thinking, our planning, our prayers, our hopes, our anticipations, we we we center them all around the immediate present. And this is good. This is right.
We have to do it. A father or a mother, can they be just careless, negligent, irresponsible, not giving a darn about tomorrow, not planning for their family? You'd say, well, what kind of a father or mother is that? But you see, the problem is this. We can become immersed in it.
We can become prisoners of our hopes, our anticipations. We can be blind. We don't know where we're going. We see the immediate job to bring home enough money to support my family, to give them what they need. That's perfectly clear.
And I grapple with it. I can understand it. But you see, it's so easy to stop there and to be blind, to be a prisoner of my hopes and anticipations. It is so easy to be a blind person being led by the blind because that's what we're surrounded with. See, unless you unless you can give some answer to this question about life and its ultimate meaning, because everything you put your hand to passes, passes.
You may think that the greatest thing in God's earth is the is that your child doesn't die, that it that it comes out of this illness. Well, whether it dies or it doesn't die, life will go on and so will you to some extent. You'll be changed, but your life will go on. What is how do you meet that kind of a tragedy or the possible tragedy as if you look upon it as a tragedy? Is it a tragedy?
What is it? You've lost your child. A horrible thing for young parents. Of course, it is. But has it meaning?
Are you blind? Or or do you go to a to someone to lead you who is equally blind? Or have you an answer that removes the scum from your eyes and you see? You not that you understand. When I throw the switch on that door, I don't understand what puts those lights on up there, but I know how to use the switch.
I don't understand this problem in life. All I need to have is a guide. Then I know where I'm going. If it's a responsible guide, if it's a competent guide, if it's a guide who has his eyes opened, when I am pretty blind, when I am completely blinded, when I see no light at the end of the tunnel, when life does seem to be at the bottom of the barrel and I'm drinking the dreads. What I need is a competent guide to lead me in my blindness.
Do I have it? Of course, I have it. Jesus Christ. I am the way, the truth, and the life, said our lord. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen.