Here’s Mud in Your Eye

Over the past couple of months my parish has been hosting a series of Eucharistic adoration holy hours, led by our seminarian summer intern. One of the holy hours was on “Marriage and Family Life”. As usual, my mind had been wandering during prayer until a guest speaker reminded me on the night’s theme. I spent come time praying for renewal of marriage and family life in the parish. Before long I was mentally wool-gathering again! Then a thought came to me.

I have been praying that God would use me to serve his Church in some way. I remembered that in one of the RCIA classes I taught, we looked at John 9. Here Jesus heals a man born blind. He spits on the ground, makes some mud and spreads it over the blind man’s eyes, telling him to wash it off in the pool of Siloam. When the man does this, he can see again.

What I felt the Jesus telling me was “If I can use dirt and spit to heal a blind man, I can use you! You feel like dirt sometimes, don’t you? Good! I can use dirt. I may have to spit on it, but I can use it!” This had the strange effect of comforting me. Yes. If God can use dirt, he can use me.

I once heard a speaker comment that he thought it was foolish for churches and shrines to be built in the Holy Land on places where Jesus had been or performed miracles. He said that Jesus had once spit on the ground to make mud to heal a blind man. “Why not have a Church of the Holy Spittle?”

Why not indeed? He missed the point. God spits on dirt and heals a man. God can use dirt; that should be remembered!