‘He has eyes but he can’t see. Of course he can’t see and I don’t like it. I’ve complained to the bishop that Fr. Peter always closes his eyes when he’s preaching.’ The woman herself told me she’d taken this principled stand, adding that she’d told the bishop I shouldn’t be allowed to preach!
I ask myself what is there about my eyes that made the woman so anxious to see them at that special moment when I was preaching. There must be something about my I eyes that I’ve never suspected. The only thing that comes to mind is that time when a child excitedly called out, “Mummy! Come, look at the priest...he got cat eyes!” I might have to admit there’s something feline about me. Indeed, my eyes are somewhat grey-green. Like a cat’s??????”
The eyes of the preacher...our theme for today. What about Twin-eyes? You already know about mine. Isidore, my twin brother, like me, has had a woman complaining about his eyes when he was preaching. Complaining because, so she said, he stared at her with piercing eyes when he was preaching. I wonder what she had to hide or what she thought he saw in her.
I’m an innocent about such things, but it has crossed my mind closing my eyes to her made her feel inadequate, rejected. Is it possible that the one who was offended by Isidore’s staring eyes thought he was too interested in her. Little did she realise that his short-sightedness made him appear to stare. Each of them had an exaggerated sense of her importance to us! Poor preachers? Poor women? God knows which...perhaps both.
Don’t ask me why my eyes close. It’s none of my doing. It just happens. Don’t ask Isidore why his eyes fixed themselves on her when he’s preaching. He probably didn’t realize this was the case. (Wickedly I could have suggested to her that the sight of her was so overwhelming for me I simply had to close my eyes to her if I were to be able to preach my sermon! Would I have been out of place? Probably ‘Yes!’ But I’ll leave it so.)
For Isidore and for me, as preachers, it’s a matter of considerable interest that neither of our accusers expressed the slightest interest in our sermons. I wonder if they could recall a single word that either of us had uttered. Did anything either of us had said have the slightest influence on them? Any of you feel called to be a preacher!!??!! As I see it, no-one is ever going to get a preacher without mannerisms. Such men have never existed. Some will be amused by their idiosyncrasies; others, like these two women, will be irritated. Yet others couldn’t care less.
I have to say that some people just look to cause trouble. They can’t help raising objections... as Jesus found:
'We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn't dance; we sang dirges, and you wouldn't be mourners. For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He is possessed. The Son of man came, eating and drinking, and they say, "Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds,.' (Mtt.11. 17-19).
The way He handled fault-finding addicts saves me from crumbling with self-pity or from rising hot with indignation. He didn’t need anyone to tell Him He was surrounded by people who were impossible to please...always dissatisfied, forever grumbling,
He didn’t take such quibblers seriously. And neither must I. He simply got on with doing what He had to do....His Father’s business. In this He found peace. He believed in Himself. He wouldn’t let anyone discourage Him. This was His way. It must also be myway..
Now, having purged all this out of my system I’m going to take a hard look in the mirror to discover what is was that woman was missing when I closed my eyes (to her?) when I was preaching. And Isidore would do well to work out what the woman found so disconcerting in his preacher’s eyes. Not that either of us could do anything about it! Even if we wanted to!
Peter O.P.
In a fortnight Isidore will reflect on "Going with the flow."
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