I don’t have great eyesight. As a teen I would go to shows and think it was normal to not see everything. I watched the Phantom of the Opera downtown and since we were in the nosebleeds I couldn’t recognize any of the characters.
I was at the mall once in my twenties waiting for my mom in the food court. I saw her coming and pointed her out to Scott. He looked at me oddly and said, “That’s not your mom. That’s a man. And he’s Chinese.” So I finally got glasses.
I have an obnoxious sense of smell on the other hand. It’s like a superpower. It started when I was pregnant with Andrew, and never fully disappeared. I could smell everything. Certain flowers and women’s perfume would kill me. Even now walking by the candle section of a store or past certain artificially scented soap stores makes me feel ill.
Such is life, I suppose. The joys of seasonal allergies give a small reprieve.
The imbalance of our senses is just a part of our broken nature, the fall from grace. Adam and Eve lived in harmony with the world around them, able to fully participate and enjoy not only the beauty of Eden but their communion with God. All their senses were fully alive … but not obnoxiously alive, I’m guessing.
I read a meditation recently by Saint Jerome in the 400s. In it he associates the parable of the five talents with the engagement of the five senses. So each of the servants – we – are given a different number of talents, “meeting the capacity of the receivers.”
It wasn’t an insult to receive less. The man who received two was equally favoured by the master; he simply was only capable of handling two. The man who received five was no more loved than the others, but he was capable – his five senses were fully open and engaged – to receive and experience more.
All five of that servant’s senses were awakened: his sight, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting, in fullness, and he used them to know his master’s will and do his master’s work.
The blessing he received for his faithfulness was another five talents, or “a greater capacity” to receive the gifts of God and, in turn, joy. “Come and share your master’s happiness!”
The man who received two talents did the same. He used his senses, though less attuned, as fully as he could, and in turn was blessed with a greater communion. Perhaps he could feel the presence of God and hear his word, but his other senses were lacking. He did all that he could with what he had. He too is told, “Come and share your master’s happiness!”
He is now nearly equal with the man who was originally given five, and it is assumed that as he invests these new coins, his senses, to the work of God, he will continue to grow and his capacity to receive will increase.
St. Jerome says they were looked upon with “equal favour by the Master, who looks not to the largeness of their profit, but to the disposition of their will.”
The man who was given one talent was equally loved but only able at that time to manage the smaller gift, dug a hole and buried the coin. He closed himself off from the love and experience of God, his master.
Imagine that the coin is a symbol of his sight. Instead of looking for God in creation or in the actions of worship, he closed his eyes or, more likely, chose to look at something, or someone else. He disconnected from the work of God and was now incapable of receiving the good gifts God wanted to give him. In his blindness he inevitably was “cast into the outer darkness.”
So what is the disposition of our wills? Are we intentionally using the gift of our senses to whatever degree they are attuned to fully seek and experience God and his holy will? Do we work to see him in the world around us and in our neighbour? (Look at something beautiful and give thanks to God for it.)
Do we work to hear him in his holy Scriptures and in the depths of our hearts? (An essential ingredient to hearing God is finding silence every day, and absolutely in our churches.)
Do we smell his presence? Are our daily lives a soothing aroma to God? The Scriptures speak a surprisingly large number of times about the sense of smell, a sweet-smelling, or “soothing aroma to the Lord.” (When the altar is incensed, as it should be, breathe it in and offer yourself along with it as it rises to the heavens. When we smell the beeswax of the Paschal candle, compare your works with those of the bees giving their greatest treasure to his altar.)
Can you taste and see? When we receive Our Lord in the Eucharist are our mouths engaged? What a strange thought. When I started receiving our Lord on the tongue instead of the hand, it added such a different appreciation for the sanctity of receiving him. I became much more aware of Christ as “food,” in my mouth, feeding me. I taste God.
Finally, do we feel God? I don’t mean goosebumps and fire. And I don’t not mean goosebumps and fire, warmth and wind, and the flesh of my child as he hugs me. But on a day-to-day basis do I feel a sense of purpose as a child of the heavenly Father?
Imagine the gifts God seeks to give us. If we are at a place where we have only the capacity to sense God in small ways, but we persist in doing it, he promises to increase us, to swell our hearts and souls to a place where we can receive more joy, more of him.
As St. Jerome says, “What greater thing can be given to a faithful servant than to be with his Lord, and to see his Lord’s joy?”
St. Jerome, pray for us.
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