24 October 2021
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
We are all familiar with the song and the lyrics of Amazing Grace
Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
The story of the author’s life provides an interesting background to the text. John Newton wrote the lyrics in 1772 after a rather tumultuous life. He was pulled into service as a sailor and then later trafficked in the slave trade. His biography notes that he was infamous for his foul language among a profession that excelled in the art. In 1748 a violent storm off the coast of Donegal provided a near death experience. Not unlike the cannonball causing a traumatic change to Ignatius, there is nothing perhaps more therapeutic than a good look at one’s mortality. Of course, Newton could “see” prior to the storm. The song points to the ability not so much to see but to put things in proper order. In today’s Gospel, Jesus cures a blind man giving him the gift of sight. For the early Christians this story had the deeper meaning that the action of God in Christ gives us the ability to put things in proper order. Most of us see, but we need to constantly remind ourselves that sight is not enough, it is the proper ordering of what we see and know.