Every effect demands a cause. We want the effect of a smile or laugh from a little one and so we tickle the little child and enjoy the delightful effect. God wishes something from each of us and so He must send a cause our way. Blessed Henry Suso was wondering at the way of God dealing with his soul for he was suffering day in and day out. He questioned the good Lord concerning this suffering and God gave him an answer through a dog. There in the monastery was a collie playing with a rag. The dog would take up the rag and shake it from side to side, growl at it and then leave it alone for another day. Contemplating the dog gave Blessed Henry the light of faith and he knew that his suffering was nothing more than God playing with him. He was being tickled. Today we are delving into the tickle of God in our lives as we approach another Lenten season of grace.
In the passage from St. Luke Jesus is instructing His apostles concerning the plan of the Father in which the Son would enter Jerusalem and accept the bitter hatred of the Jew. That hatred would express itself in mockery, spitting, scourging and crucifixion. This would bring about a divine response: His Resurrection. Now the apostles could not grasp what He meant. They had witnessed Jesus raising the son of the widow of Naim, the centurion’s daughter and even Lazarus but could someone die and raise himself. This was beyond understanding.
Wondering they began their movement toward the city but when they came to Jericho large numbers came forward to meet Him. It was quite a scene for Jesus to tickle the whole lot with a significant miracle. A blind man hearing all the chatter asked what was happening? They responded that Jesus of “Nazareth” was passing by. The divine is always on the move for in the eternal life not to go forward is to go backward. When the blind man heard that Jesus was passing by he cried out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” Son of David, the title caused the Jews to cry out against such blasphemy. The blind man cried all the louder “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” A blind man who had never read the prophets, never studied the patriarchs was now proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God. This is why the Jews failed to close his mouth. He had a mission to tickle the whole world with the truth that a blind man actually knew and proclaimed Jesus as God.
Jesus stopped and stood upright and called for the man to come forward. When the blind man stood in front of Jesus, the Lord asked him, “What do you wish Me to do for you?” A simple man gives a simple answer: “Lord, that I might see.” In reality he saw better than all the rest for he saw below the surface into the depth of Jesus’ divine presence. The divine is all around us and we fail to see the obvious. We have a new day of life to praise and glorify God…that’s a miracle. We eat and digestion takes place and that’s another miracle. We can see, we can hear, we can speak…all miracles. To recognize the divine presence and to know His power we must give Him the coin which purchases new vision. We must pay the coin of faith as this blind beggar did.
Perhaps the Lord will say to us: “Receive your sight, thy faith has made thee whole.” Faith is the coin of salvation which we must exercise these days more than ever. We walk on a dangerous ocean of liberalism, socialism, pantheism, modernism, feminism, ecologism. All is summed up with the author of every -ism (i.e. Satanism). It is on the rise to destroy the world’s faith in the Lord of all life. As the perfidious Jews will seek to mock, beat and kill the Lord Who gave them their very being so today we are petitioning states, schools and libraries to cut out the promotion of the demonic. We have a means to beat back the evil one and it is through prayer, penance, fasting and almsgiving. We have the forty days of Lent to increase our prayer life in union with Our Lady of Good Success. We can study the life of a saint and become more acquainted with the heavenly home which beckons us. We can knock off the sweets, the drinks, the in-between snacks. We can seek to perform one of the corporal acts of mercy and one of the spiritual acts of mercy. In other words we can make a suitable plan of reparation for the sins of our society especially the sin of abortion.
If we do this in faith, then our coin will tickle the heart of God and please Him and perhaps He will show us mercy. We can never give up on any soul and we can always find ways to pray and make sacrifices for the good of our neighbor. Imagine if during this Lent you are able to save a soul then your faith will abound with joy. Take time today to prepare your plan and offer it to the Father through our beloved Mother Mary. God love you all.
In the hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Fr. Richard Voigt
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