Once when I was the canonical parish leader, a very difficult situation arose, one that threw me for a loop, as they say. So I was venting exhaustively to the canonical pastor. He was a wonderful listener. When at length I finally fell silent, he said, “I think you need a different perspective.” In today’s Gospel we have the account of two disciples, walking from Jerusalem to a neighboring village just after the death of Jesus, while venting their sorrow and discouragement. A stranger joins them on the road. He listens. Then he gives them a different perspective. He uses their familiar Hebrew Scriptures to show them how what happened to Jesus was consistent with how God had always spoken to their Jewish people and revealed divinity to them. Then when the stranger blessed bread at their meal, they “recognized” him. Their eyes were opened to a new perspective.
Throughout the four Gospels there are many accounts of Jesus’ healing blindness, and also his condemning of those who will not “see” the perspective he offers. That new perspective is not just about God and the Christ. The challenging part of the perspective Jesus gives us is about our neighbors. We are asked to see them as God does, and that means we must trust in their goodness. When they break that trust, we need to see them as fallible and forgivable, and not just once but “seventy times seven” times. We must see them as capable of change through God’s grace. What would happen in our world if we really could do that? In our workplaces, in our families? Today as we begin moving through a new week, we ask for the grace to put on the glasses of Jesus’ perspective.
— Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia
The post April 19, Third Sunday of Easter, Perspective: a Sunday Scriptures blog first appeared on Sisters of the Precious Blood.