Category: QUOTES on EDUCATION

One Minute Reflection – 19 February – Wednesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year A, Readings: James 1:19-27, Psalm 15:2-5,Mark 8:22-26 and the Memorial of St Conrad of Piacenza TOSF (c 1290-1351)

And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village….Then again he laid his hands upon his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored and saw everything clearly.   And he sent him away to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”...Mark 8:22,25-26

REFLECTION – “Jesus put spittle on his eyes, placed his hands on him and asked him whether he could see anything.   Knowledge always comes by degrees (…).   It is only after a great deal of time and a long apprenticeship that we are able to attain perfect knowledge.   First the impurities are removed, blindness goes and thus light enters.   The Lord’s spittle is perfect teaching – to teach perfectly it comes from the Lord’s mouth.   The Lord’s spittle, which comes forth, so to speak, from His substance, is understanding, just as the word coming forth from His mouth is a cure. (…)

“I see people looking like trees and walking” – I still see the shadow but not yet the truth. The meaning of these words is – I can see something in the Law but as yet I don’t perceive the blazing light of the Gospel. (…)   “Then he laid hands on his eyes a second time and he saw clearly.”   He could see, I say, everything that we can see – he saw the mystery of the Trinity and he saw all the holy mysteries contained in the Gospel. (…)   And we, too, see them since we believe in Christ, the true light.” … Saint Jerome (347-420) Priest, Translator of the Bible, Doctor of the Church – Homilies on Saint Mark’s Gospel, no. 8, 235

PRAYER – Heavenly Father, just as St Conrad of Pieacenza, was chosen to be a messenger of Your love and forgiveness, grant we pray, that by his prayers, we too maybe bearers of Your gracious love.   We pray for the assistance of our holy Mother, during our journey to the eternal glory of the kingdom, help us to become like little children and in that new purity, shine with the Light of our Lord and Saviour.   Through Jesus our Lord, with the Holy Spirit, one God forever, amen.