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March 2, 2025; Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)
Jesus told his disciples a parable, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher.” Luke 6:39–40
In many cultures, the children have the practice of learning the trades of their parents. A child whose father is a car mechanic learns by watching his father and getting educated by his father to become like him. In our modern society, it is no longer the same because most parents do not mentor their children or they allow them to choose what is appealing to them.
Again, in the present generation, many young parents find it difficult to advise their children because they discover that what they ask their children not to do is the same thing they themselves do.
There is s saying that the kid goat learns from the mother how to chew cuds. This is true about parenting. Often a greater percentage of a child behavior is from the parents and other members of the family.
Are you a parent? Are you a trained teacher? Are you “fully trained?” What does it mean to be fully trained? Jesus makes it clear that those who are fully trained will be like their teacher. What message is Jesus giving us? Of course, we must become like our Lord, who is the one and only Teacher. So are you like Him in every way?
Being fully trained as a Christian is different than being fully trained in an occupation. For example, a doctor is fully trained when all the necessary lessons are learned and the practical aspects of medicine are put into practice. That is why that person becomes a doctor, just like the doctors who were their teachers.
But the Christian life is not something we master by learning many teachings of the faith so that, by our expertise, we can then put them into practice using our natural talents. For a Christian to be fully trained, it is necessary that the Divine Physician fully possess them, live within them, and act through them. Thus, Christian training is the practice of allowing God to become one with you so that it is God Who acts in and through you.
This form of “training” first takes on the goal of freeing us from spiritual blindness. We must see Christ and come to know Him. Again, this is not a matter of simply learning various truths about God in an intellectual way. It’s a matter of coming to know the Truth Himself. We must see and know the Person Who is Christ Jesus. This is true sight. Blindness, however, can always set in again when we take the eyes of our soul off the Savior.
Seeing Christ, however, is not enough. Seeing must be followed by doing. That is why our Lord goes on to say in today’s Gospel that “every tree is known by its own fruit” and that a “good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good.” Seeing Christ Himself, within your soul, will produce that “store of goodness,” and this will make you more “fully trained.” Only then can you produce good fruit, for it will be Christ Himself producing the good fruit in and through you.
So back to our original question: “Are you fully trained?” Do you daily keep your eyes on a Person, Jesus Himself? And if so, do You allow Him to act in your life and, through you, in the lives of others? If you cannot answer these questions with a confident “Yes,” then you might have more blindness in the spiritual life than you realize.
As followers of Jesus, we must look unto him as a mentor. We must make effort to follow his path to life.
Jesus said that if you abide in him and he in you, then you can ask the father anything in His name and He will grant them to you.
We pray that we may begin to live like Jesus who has taught us what it means to follow him.
May Almighty God bless us and protect us from all evil through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen
Have a wonderful and blessed Sunday.
Continue to enjoy the new month of March.
* Rev. Fr. Ambrose Onyeka Anene SDB, is the Parish Priest of Church of the Archangels, Gaduwa, Abuja.
