When was the last time you looked at yourself in a carnival mirror? The distortion we see comes from the physics of sight.The all-knowing internet explains that we see a person in the light that s/he reflects back to us. Obviously, this process depends on our eye as well as the light coming from the other. I have astigmatism: my corneas are shaped differently, thus my uncorrected vision is distorted.

This junior-scientist information might illumine today's Liturgy of the Word.

As Jesus and his disciples were walking along, Jesus asked what they thought of him. Perhaps his question came from his need to understand what they felt about him. It might also have been a setup for teaching: get the students to struggle to express their own answer and then draw them into dialogue.

Both of these possibilities merit meditation. The first portrays Jesus as a vulnerable human being seeking assurance from his friends. We've rarely been encouraged to think of Jesus, the Father or the Spirit as desirous of our love, but this incident seems to reveal something unexpected about our relationship with God.

To wit, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2623-2649) describes prayer (communication in this relationship) as blessing/adoration, petition, intercession, thanksgiving and praise. What's missing? Love! 

How often in prayer do we simply express our love? Sure, all the above-mentioned types of prayer spring from love, but they don't articulate it directly. We aren't saying, "O my God, I do love you!"

One of our Eucharistic Prefaces says, "You have no need of our praise." Thinking in human terms (like Jesus would have), we realize that humble people often feel embarrassed or even put off by praise or adulation.

It's OK to thank them, to ask forgiveness or to ask for a favor for another. Those all contribute to a living, growing relationship. But our most basic emotional need is for love; admiration can emphasize the differences between us.

Think about the possibility that Jesus may have been revealing a divine desire for love when he asked, "Who do you say that I am?"

Another possibility is that Jesus was inviting the women and men who walked with him to go into their own depths and explore what they really believed. To ask, "What do you think of me?", draws both the questioner and the questioned into vulnerability and intimacy. Seen in that light, Jesus' question may have been an invitation to grow in their relationship with him.

When Peter responded, "You are the Christ," he was speaking from his own point of view; he based his perception of Jesus on his own hopes and expectations.

If we were to describe Peter's answer in terms of the above-listed types of prayer, he might have been blessing, proclaiming his faith or expressing thanksgiving or praise. But he didn't say, "You are the one we love and follow." Peter recognized the greatness before him, but his expectations distorted his perception of who Jesus was and was becoming.

Peter's next response led Jesus to turn to order him, "Get behind me! You are the follower in this situation. Don't try to tempt me into being something I am not!" 

Saying that, and warning the disciples about coming events, reveals how deeply Jesus was rooted in the attitude described by Isaiah in today's first reading, the Third Song of the Suffering Servant. Jesus exemplified what the servant said: "The Lord opens my ear that I may hear; and I have not rebelled."

Jesus rooted his identity in his relationship with the Father, and thus he was in line for all the rejection that humanity directs to God.

Peter and the gang didn't want to understand this — even though Jesus said it at least three times (Mark 8:31, 9:31-32, 10:32-34). They imagined and preferred a Messiah/liberator who would vanquish their enemies, looking like the strongest and most powerful.

According to Jesus, their vision was distorted. Their hearts were not seeing the light Jesus reflected, but their own circus-mirror image of who they wanted him to be.

Jesus filled all of the roles they had in mind, just not in the way they had in mind. His example could liberate others from fear — every kind of fear. He revealed his victory, his strength and power by demonstrating that no assault against his reputation or even his life could make him turn back or shame him.

The Gospel message always aims to alter our perceptions. Discipleship carries no insurance policy. Following Jesus is a risky proposition. It turns everything upside down and offers us the costly freedom to learn to love God as God is: all powerful in love and life-giving creativity.

As we love and see Christ more clearly, we'll learn to follow him rather than our illusions.

One of my dear friends was an elementary teacher for some 45 years. She loved to march her second graders around the neighborhood like a pied piper. She knew how to calm the wildest child, attend to the frightened and help the dyslexic read.

One day, a little guy in third grade had gone wild — to the point of trying to throw a desk. The teacher brought him to the office and called for Sister Mary Kay. When she appeared at the office door, the little fellow looked at her with wide eyes and started imploring, "Please, Sister, NO! Don't do it! PLEASE!"

In spite of his tearful pleading, she looked him straight in the eyes and slowly walked toward him. She took his head firmly in both hands and kissed him on the forehead. With that, the child began to weep, and she held him until he calmed down. He had known that the minute she reminded him of how much he was loved, his fury would fizzle.

Today, Isaiah tells us that God comes with vindication. What a word! It sounds like God will smite the evildoers and trounce the oppressors. 

But, no, Isaiah tells us that God the vindicator looks more like Sister Mary Kay than like a warrior. God's recompense heals rather than being destructive. When God is reigning, the blind will see, the deaf hear, the lame will dance and the mute will sing (probably in four-part harmony). Drought will be history and deserts will flower.

Today's Gospel lets us watch Jesus attend to a deaf man. How did this man's friends let him know that they wanted to bring him to Jesus? Their own language was useless because the man could neither hear nor speak.

Over time, he and his friends must have worked out a system of signs, ways to turn their thoughts into gestures that both sides could understand. In essence, when faced with very significant differences, they had to invent a new language that both could understand. The deaf man had to enter the world of symbolic communication and the hearing had to go beyond their accustomed ways of relating to others.

Seeing all that had already happened among them, Jesus took the man aside and finished the job. He opened the man's ears. Now that he could hear others, he could imitate their pronunciation and communicate like they did. The man and his friends were now bilingual, able to connect in different ways.

Our reading from the Letter of St. James reflects on this process. Knowing that his community could be impressed by showiness, he warns them not to fall for the apparent value of glitz and power lest they lose touch with God and their divine mission. 

God is thoroughly unimpressed by academic degrees, bank accounts or any other kind of stardom. Those who overvalue those things have planted their feet at the very edges of the circle of God's love — a love no one can earn. Unlike the deaf man's friends who stood in solidarity, they are likely to thank God for not being frail without realizing that their distorted value system is a more debilitating impairment than that of those from whom they stand apart (Luke 18:9-14).

These readings are uniquely appropriate right now. We are living amid divisions in our country unlike anything our society has seen during the past 150 years. At the same time, our church is moving toward the second session of the synod on synodality. If we are looking for divine recompense, our responsibility to bring it about could hardly be more obvious.

The synodal way offers a difficult and effective antidote to our divisiveness. Imitating the deaf man and his friends, synodality invites us to learn new ways of communicating — ways that allow everyone to have their say.

The synod invites us to escape our deafness through contemplative dialogue — a way of listening that genuinely expects to learn something new, listening that opens us to broader ways of thinking. It's a way of listening that avoids debate and the false belief that there is only one way to understand the truth.

Synodality would delight St. James for its respect for each point of view, realizing that the woman who cleans the office, the monsignor, the plumber, the academic and the executive all have much to offer one another.

Our world is in desperate need of listeners, of people who can approach the violent with a kiss and who can receive revelation from very different points of view. God has instigated a plan to open our ears and to form us as agents of divine recompense. Are we willing, like Jesus and the deaf man's friends, to lead our world toward the healing we need?