on Seeing it Coming

I will always remember the words my sister spoke of me at my Ordination reception. She said to the gathering of my closest friends and family, "My brother has always been surrounded by a lot of friends. He would bring them over to the house while we were growing up together. Knowing that God called him to be a priest now makes sense to me, because I can see that he will continue to be surrounded by a lot of people." She was right. Whatever else one might say about the priest, he meets, and comes to know, a lot of people. After all, the priesthood is, in a sense, if you will not think me irreverent, the people business.

And after now 15 years of being with people, or, as my sister says, being "surrounded" by them, I see that so many have one particular thing in common. And it's not an easy thing. It is that so many people never see it coming.

"Never see what?" you might ask. Well, whatever it is that is happening right in front of them, but which they are unable to see. It's something different for each of us. And, yes, I include myself in this condition. In learning this about people, after all these years of counseling and hearing confessions, I also believe there are likely a number of things happening right under my own nose that I am unable to see, and which may well bring me to my knees when I discover them.

Will I see them before it's too late? That is the question. Or will these things blindside me? And if they do catch me off guard, will they crush me and ruin my life? It's a serious question, an important one. Because not seldom I have found that the man who is unable to recognize, or unwilling to look at, something happening right under his nose will indeed lose a lot of what is dear to him when it is revealed.

Still, it is not always the case. There are also those happy occasions when that man is grateful to learn of something that was in front of him all along. In discovering it, he rejoices that he saw it before it was too late to change. But, are we willing to look, so as to see it coming? "If you seek, you will find," Our Lord says. But do we want to seek? "Ask, and you will receive." But do we want to know? "Knock and the door will be opened to you," and with it all that has been going on behind that closed door.

This Sunday’s Gospel has always struck me as sounding somewhat unimaginable. Would a guy who was forgiven a great debt really turn around and imprison a man who owed him a much smaller amount? How irrational. How imperceptive. And when he was punished for it, did he really not see that coming? How could he not? Well, perhaps in the same way that we, very often, do not see it coming.

I believe that Christ is trying to help us to become more aware of what is happening around us, most especially in the hearts and minds of those with whom we live, like our spouses and children. We don't expect the children to be able to understand parents perfectly, but even they can possess a keen perception of what is happening in the home, even if we are blind to it. Indeed, those same children may yet grow to perceive more and more. The real question is whether we adults will. +