An important part of the spiritual renewal we are invited to embark upon during the season of Lent is to purify our spiritual lenses, as it were, so that we may come to “see” as God “sees.” We are reminded that as Christian believers our calling is to “see” in a different way, in a way that includes God, in a way that is informed and shaped by our faith-relationship with God.

The story of the anointing of the boy David as king illustrates that “God does not see as man sees: man looks at appearances but the Lord looks at the heart.” In our own dealings with people, in relating to people in our daily lives, how do we see, how do we judge? What do we focus on – their race or ethnicity, their gender, their social standing, or their moral status?

The second reading highlights the fact that in our seeing we may focus on the wrong things or on the right things. We may focus on things of darkness or on things of light. Our calling is to focus on things of light, which lead to “complete goodness and right living and truth.” What is it that we are focusing on in our daily living at this time?

The Gospel story of the blind man whose eyes were opened by Jesus teaches us something else about seeing. It illustrates that there can be, on the one hand, a narrow and self-righteous religious way of seeing – exemplified by the Pharisees. And, on the other hand, there is a way of seeing that is open and alert to God’s presence and God’s activity – however it manifests itself and whatever it turns out to be! How open are we? Is the belief system we live by open or closed?