Ubi Amor,
Ibi Oculus (Where Love is, There is the Eye): thoughts on blind spots and seeing more clearly Ubi Amor, Ibi
Oculus (Where Love is, There is the Eye): thoughts on blind spots and seeing more clearly Ubi Amor, Ibi Oculus
(Where Love is, There is the Eye): thoughts on blind spots and seeing more clearly

Ubi Amor, Ibi Oculus (Where Love is, There is the Eye): thoughts on blind spots and seeing more clearly

It has been a busy week here (Catholic School Inspection), so I have kind of cheated a little bit this week, adapting for a wider readership of Beaulieu stakeholders a little reflection that began its life as something offered to Year 13 yesterday.  These are just a few thoughts rooted in this coming Sunday’s gospel.

In that Gospel, a man has been blind since birth and Jesus makes mud out of dust and spit, puts it on the man’s eyes, and tells him to go wash in a pool. The man goes, washes and can see!  But that’s the beginning of a load of hassle for him.  People start questioning him. They doubt his version of events and the goodness of the man who helped him. They give him a hard time about who Jesus is and what really happened. Everyone seems convinced they know the truth.  In the middle of all that noise, he simply says, in effect: “Look, I ain’t the sharpest tool in the drawer,  I’m not clever.  I’m not religious.  I don’t know everything. But I do know this: I was blind, and now I can see.”

That’s a powerful line.  Because this story isn’t just about physical sight. I mean, of course it IS about physical sight.  But it’s also all about learning to see life as a whole more clearly.  Having better eyesight, a better outlook on life, and understanding life better.  I have only one eye, as many people know, because I lost it 9 years ago.  (I am going to the UK again next month for a conversation about surgery to restore sight in it because they have said there is vision potential on the retina.  Prayers, please, if you are a praying person!  And a big “Aw, hope it goes well, mate!” if you’re not a praying person!)  If we are honest, most of us have blind spots in life.  Most of us are partially sighted or vision-impaired.

Perhaps some of us do not fully see our own potential. We convince ourselves we’re not good enough, not clever enough, not capable enough, nor pretty enough.  We all have something we would change (As a kid, because I had a broken nose from sparring in the gym, I was desperate to get a nose job!  My Dad just laughed, told me to stop being a wuss and get on with it!  I am glad I didn't now - it makes me look more rugged and my face more lived-in!)  Sometimes we are blind to other people. We can walk past someone every day without noticing that they might be struggling, that they are not coping very well.  Sometimes we’re also blind to the bigger picture cos we are obsessed with the problems we face.  When you’re in Year 13, there’s so much pressure about the next step - grades, university, jobs, sixth form expectations - that it can feel like your whole future depends on a few letters on a piece of paper.  And that is perfectly understandable; those letters do matter and you need to do your very best.  But take it from an old man, life is always bigger than letters or numbers on an exam print-out.  The sky does not fall when we make a mistake or fail.  There is always a broader perspective.  Christ had a bigger future for this blind man, and he has a bigger picture, a broader horizon for each of us when we can’t see properly because of our suffering, failure, pain, when we can’t see the bigger picture.  He is blending the smudge into a broader canvas than the one we see right now. 

At the very end of this gospel scene, Jesus says something interesting. He says he has come so that those who cannot see may start to see - and so that those who think they see very clearly may realise that they don’t see everything.  In other words, the real danger is not that we don’t know everything. None of us does.  The real danger is thinking we already know everything, already see perfectly… because that will be a serious obstacle to learning.  Those who think they know it all are preventing their own learning and growth.  I have taught in Higher Education in Liverpool, London and in Rome.  London and Liverpool were full of teachers/lecturers/professors who thought they knew everything.  Massive egos, always bragging about the many degrees they had, letters after their names, books they had written.  For some clever people, life is all about showing off how clever they are.  The Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome was full of priests, sisters and other people who thought their life was just about serving God by helping other people through their gifts and intelligence.  Yes, they were really clever, but they didn’t show off - they were really modest, really humble, truly wise.  And they knew they didn’t have all the answers, no matter how clever they were.  There is always more to learn in this big mystery called life, and the really clever people know that.

Growing up, being a real human being, being a great human being, isn’t about having all the answers.  Maybe it’s about learning to see more clearly:

(1) Learning to see your own worth, even when you doubt it, or others doubt it.  You have dignity, a dignity we neither earn nor lose when we fail because it is given to us by God (this dignity is part of what we call Catholic Social Teaching).  It underpins the UN’s Declaration of Universal Human Rights.  Learn to see that you have dignity, a role to play while you are here, and that you have gifts and qualities that nobody else has in the way you have them.  God wants you to make a difference for as long as he gives you on this planet.  If you don’t believe in God, that’s okay - God believes in you.

(2) And learning to see, then, that your life has meaning beyond just achievements or success.  Yes, achievements, exams and success are fantastic things and can help you in life. Do your best to do well and grow in those areas.  But life has deeper meaning than that. Saint John of the Cross (Juan de la Cruz for those of you doing Spanish) said, “In the evening of life we will be examined on love.”  Out of all the exams we ever do in life, the most important one is the one that comes at the end.  It only has one question on it, put to us by God: Did you love?  Did you use your time on this planet to make the world a better place? Using all your gifts, qualities and time to love?  If you get money, use it to love people (you can do a lot of loving with money: paying for a great family holiday, home or car for loved ones, a party for friends).  If you get any power in your life or your job, use it to do good, to love others.  Do you have intelligence?  Great!  Do good with it, use your brains to contribute to society!  Don’t love things and use people!  Use things to love people!  In the evening of life we will be examined on love.  So that means that love is the correct way of seeing life.  “Ubi amor, ibi oculus” said Richard of St. Victor - which can be translated idiomatically as, “Love is the eye through which to look at the world.”  Or, as our Sisters say, life is Toute de charité.