March 15, 2026: We are all Blind

We are all Blind

As many of you know, my mom passed away this past Thanksgiving. My mom had a unique gift: she was born deaf. She also had a sister—my aunt—who was deaf as well. Some people would call that a disability.

But as a little kid, I didn’t think of it that way. I just assumed that no moms could hear. Dads could hear… moms couldn’t. I remember eating lunch at a neighbor’s house one day. My friend—about my age—called out to his mom from another room, and she answered him. I remember thinking, “Wow… your mom can hear. That’s amazing.”

Growing up, we kids used to get Mom’s attention by stomping on the floor or flicking the lights on and off—because we were usually too lazy to walk into the room where she was. Well, when I was a teenager, as we are one night at supper, the phone rang. My brother George—about ten years old at the time—answered it. It was a salesperson who asked to speak with his mother. George said, “No, she can’t talk on the phone… she’s mentally ill.” We all shouted in shock. George quickly defended himself: “Well, I don’t know what it’s called!”

Like George, we all knew that our mom was somehow different. In today’s Gospel, there is a man who is different, but the real point of the story is Jesus confronting people who don’t think they are different.

I heard the story of a blind man who visited a parish. After Mass someone asked him, “What is the hardest part about being blind?” He thought about it for a moment and said, “The hardest part is that people assume I don’t recognize things.” Then he smiled and said,” I recognize kindness better than most people who can see. I recognize kindness in voices more than most people look only with their eyes.”

In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s book THE LITTLE PRINCE, the fox says to the prince “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Most of us miss what is essential. We think we see, but we don’t. We judge, we label. We think we can see the whole of a person because of how they look or where they are from. We limit ourselves by stereotyping or labeling. Such as this past week, a Muslim man did a terrible thing and now some think all Muslims act that way. We have to look at things differently.

For example, look at this image [graphic on screen that is of an old woman and a young girl] Can you see both the older woman AND the young girl?

The truth is that every one of us has some kind of adversity. Every one of us carries some secret that we don’t want others to know about. In some way, we are all limited or hiding. My mom couldn’t hide her adversity. Everyone could see it. But there is a difference between the medical reality that she couldn’t hear and the social label that she was handicapped or “disabled.”

So with that “thing” you are trying so hard to conceal or hide, just know that it does not define you. That part of you, no matter how bad you think it is, ​it doesn't define you. It is NOT the whole of you. It is just your life situation. Your life is bigger than that. 

And when we label ourselves, or others, it robs us of the reality of knowing their wholeness. Hence, we don’t see them as God sees them . . . or hear them as God hears them. Jesus challenges the people in the gospel. Perhaps you could challenge yourself . . . with that grudge you have, or that stereotype, or the assumptions you have been making . . . where are you blind?