“Scratchpad Reflections are daily meditations on the scripture readings for the date noted and are written by Dominican Brother Daniel Thomas to help readers gain a deeper understanding of the daily liturgies and Masses of celebration. Here is the reflection for:

May 26, 2016 – Thursday in the 8^th Week of the Church Year

Saint for the day: Philip Neri (1515-1595)

Scripture Readings for today’s Liturgy:

1 Peter 2:2-5, 9-12     –     Psalm 100     –     Mark 10:46-52

“Jesus son of David have pity on me. Master, I want to see.” (Mark’s Gospel)

Today’s Liturgy could easily be subtitled: “Encouragement Thursday” since all of appointed scriptures are directed to give us easy access to the loving mercy of God’s desire to be a part of our lives. Try to listen attentively to the scriptures and the prayers of today’ Mass which are filled with hope given us by Jesus Christ. The scripture passage from 1^st Peter gives us a re-cap of God’s loving mercy given us through the Blood of Jesus Christ to be built into a living temple where the Lord can find a home within. Then, in case we weren’t able to know the fullness of God’s love we are given a gospel with the healing of the man born blind. There are several things that we often miss in this story that make it all the more important for all of us to know. In the first place, blindness was seen as a kind of curse which left blind people at the edge of society with little more than a life of begging alms. Jesus went by with a sizably crowd and the blind man senses that someone important is passing by. When he is told who it is he calls out, “Jesus, Son of David have pity on me!” Jesus stops and calls the man forth who jumps up and throws off his cloak. When asked what he wants he responds, “Master, I want to see!” In this story, I maintain that this blind man had more faith than many who were following Jesus. And, he must have known that he could be healed of his blindness because he throws off his cloak without a care where it landed. Anyone who has been around someone blind knows that the last thing they would ever do is just throw a possession off willy-nilly without any concern about how they would get it back. So in this Gospel passage it’s the blind who are able to “see” while the sighted often miss the point. This had to have some impact on the crowd who had their sight but couldn’t really see. In the fullness of the word, “see” all of us need to follow the lead of this man born blind so that we can eventually say, “Lord, now I can see you!” Amen!