[media presentation below] GospelThink Sunday, October 2, 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time LUKE 17:5-10 I give you my idea of being a servant to all. Prayerthoughts a. The Lord often refers to our faith. I obviously believe in the Lord. Is it clear that my belief guides my life? Perhaps this is a time to pray a prayer to increase my faith. b. The Lord spends some time with the idea of being a servant, a person who waits on others. As I interact with others, do I interact with them as with the thought that I am their servant? c. As I think of the calling to be a servant, what are three main characteristics that a true servant should have? (This is the task of the meditation.) d. Do I honestly feel that those around me are more important than I am? e. How does pride enter into my life right now? f. My prayerthoughts… Today, I will carry out letter c. Some Thoughts on the Liturgy THE VISION OF SERVICE            One of the more famous quotations about sight is from a woman who was blind and also deaf, the famous Helen Keller. Her words: “The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.”            Her story is an interesting one. It begins not with her, but with another nearly blind person. That person had lost the majority of her sight at the age of five and by teenage years was practically blind and homeless. With the help of some friends, and a couple primitive operations on her eyes, she regained enough sight to be able to read for short periods of time, but she could not get a job due to her poor eyesight. She was close to despair when she got a job offer to help Helen Keller. As a result, Anne Sullivan, the nearly blind teacher enabled Helen Keller, the completely blind and totally deaf person, to become one of the most inspirational people this country has ever seen. Both Anne and Helen had vision even though their sight was non-existent.            That idea of “vision,” I believe, is one of the best definitions of faith that we have. A vision is an overall goal that guides everything one does. In the readings today, God tells Habakkuk (Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4)—write down the vision and the vision will direct you. Paul tells Timothy (2 Timothy 1:6-8) that the spirit—a paraphrase of the word “vision”—is no cowardly spirit. Faith is the topic of Jesus in the Gospel. If you possess this vision, this faith, you will be able to do anything. We Christians call that vision the vision of Jesus Christ.            The vision of Jesus Christ—faith—has many specific characteristics. This Gospel adds one for us to learn from—the person imbued with the vision of Jesus Christ—another way of saying “the person who has faith in Jesus”—will act as a servant to others.            Not only is faith the placing of trust in what Jesus said and did which we hear throughout the Scriptures, but faith has a characteristic of service to others as part of it. We must be servants for God. The context of the Gospel is that the Apostles were probably a little bit proud of the fact that they were with Jesus and had the faith that they were supposed to have. Jesus reminds them that if they are going to be people of faith in him, they must understand what it means to be a servant. They are not something special—they are servants for God, period. He reminds them that they as people of faith must say:           We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.            Interestingly enough, the title “Servant of God” is the first stage for a person who is under consideration for sainthood in the Roman Catholic tradition. But it is a title that Jesus says should be the description of our faith—to be a servant of or for God. What does it mean?            Obviously, we will serve our God—worshiping God at Mass, and worshiping God in prayer in the privacy of our own lives as well. But, it will also mean—and this is the difficult part, one that not too many Christian people buy into—it means that we must become servants to others. At home, as a servant means that we will do the things that no one else wants to do, that we do the things that are necessary for a happy family. At work, where we are paid, it means that we decide to work in an atmosphere in which the ones that we work with are more important than we are. We approach life with the attitude that others are more important than we are, and therefore we will do certain things on their behalf. Actually it is the attitude of people like Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan.            When faith is viewed as the vision of Jesus Christ with the characteristic of being a servant, faith takes on a whole new dimension. Not only is it a way of life that will guide us for our salvation, but it will mean that we will try to help others for their salvation. MEDIA PRESENTATION Movie: “The Water Man” — beginning session HOPE LEADS TO FAITH The Gospel MATTHEW 9:27-31a As Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying out, “Son of David, have pity on us!” When he entered the house, the blind men approached him and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I can do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they said to him. Then he touched their eyes and said, “Let it be done for you according to your faith”; and their eyes were opened.

Gospelthink: I wanted the blind men to say that they knew that I could heal them. Do I thank the Lord as often as I should for all the graces he has given me?

Having only moved to Pine Mills, Oregon, 11 year old Gunner Boone had no friends. He spent his time working on a novel with pictures that he drew, riding his electric scooter, and visiting a bookstore to borrow detective stories as he was researching his novel. His father was in the military who found it difficult to communicate with his son, and his mother had leukemia. Gunner wished more than anything to cure his mother, and spent some of his time researching the causes of cancer. While exploring his neighborhood, he met a girl by the name of Jo who was neglected by her parents, who told him about the Water Man who had the secret to immortality. Looking up the local undertaker, he discovered that the undertaker believed that the Water Man was real. Using the information that he acquired, Gunner and Jo set out to find the Water Man.

It is interesting to get into the minds of the blind men in Matthew’s Gospel. They looked upon Jesus as the chance for them to recover their sight, believing that Jesus could do it. Jesus even made them say it.  He phrased his healing in that light: “Let it be done according to your faith.” It was their belief that gave them hope. As with most of the miracles he performed, it was the faith of the people involved that was the determining factor. The central thought for Gunner Boone in the movie “The Water Man” is the faith that gave him hope. Put into general terms, he was hoping for happiness, namely the cure of his mother’s cancer, and he put his faith in the possibility of obtaining a cure from someone that he believed could supply it. He discovered eventually that he was wrong, but his simple act of faith enabled him to accept his mother’s fate. The movie does not present Gunner’s disappointment at not experiencing the means to bring about his mother’s cure, but we can easily sense that it was faith that caused him to do what he felt was necessary, and that it helped his living. It is an example of how faith in God works for a believer. The person looks at the situation at hand, wanting happiness of some sort for the life that he/she possesses. Discovering that the happiness desired will come from faith in God, and for a Christian, faith in Jesus Christ, the person adopts such a faith. It is hope for the happiness that causes the person to believe–as the blind men in the Gospel. Those of us who have chosen to follow a belief system that accepts a God who is in charge of our lives know in our hearts that such a God will give us happiness both here on earth and in an eternal life to come. We call it eternal happiness. It begins with hope. We hope for such happiness and we find it in our faith.

PRAYER Good and gracious God, we believe that you exist. We believe it because we are all hoping for happiness in some way. Give us the grace to not only accept that faith, but to live it out in our lives.  Be with us, we pray.

+++++ GUIDE FOR CLASSROOM PRESENTATION AND PERSONAL ENRICHMENT Theme: Hoping for happiness, we choose a faith that gives it to us.   DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: (session: approximately 41 minutes) 1. What scene during this session of the movie was most striking to you? Why? 2. In what ways are we “blind” to the presence of God in our lives? 3. What is the Christian response to a disease that is incurable? 4. What is your definition of “Christian hope”? 5. What is your definition of “Christian faith”? 6.  In your opinion, do all Christians live their faith in Jesus Christ? 7. What is your definition of “eternal happiness”?