“I Thirst ...”

Strangers and Foreigners
 

“Great crowds came to him, having with them the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute.”  (St. Matthew 15.30)

Most often, the crowds that came to Jesus did not come for salvation; nor for enlightenment, edification, or spiritual direction.

They came to Jesus because He healed.

They came, not always for their own healing — although many did — but bearing to Him those they loved to be healed by Him.

Healed! Imagine the scene! The man a moment ago lame, now walking with the vigor of a youth. The blind — literally in the blink of an eye — see! The deformed, limbs contorted, bodies bent and contorted ... in an instant made straight and whole! The deaf suddenly hear ... and the very first sound entering their lives are the words of Jesus.

And these things occur before our very eyes!

 

How quickly we forget the utter goodness and love of God!

We are made well through our supplications — and go our way.

Ten lepers are healed. Only one returns ... and he is a foreigner. We recover our sight, our bodies, our lives ... and go on as though nothing had ever been broken — and restored.

Where were the formerly blind, the erstwhile crippled, the once dead, the maimed made whole ... when Christ hung on the Cross and simply said, "I thirst ..."?

It was a foreigner again, a Roman soldier, one who had sought nothing from Christ before he nailed Him to the Cross ... who was moved with pity and dipped a sponge into sour wine to slake His thirst ...

We think ourselves sons and daughters of the Living God ...

Would that we were so much as foreigners and strangers to Him ...

We got what we wanted.

Did Christ?

If you are pondering the answering to this question — and do not realize that the answer is you — then go to Holy Confession and tell the priest that you do not know Christ ... and ask him why.

Geoffrey K. Mondello
for the Boston Catholic Journal

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