Parable 19 - Seeing is Believing

One day Johnny came home with three apples.

His sister asked him where he got these perfect apples.

He told her, “I was walking through the woods on our usual path, and when I got to the apple tree, there was an old woman standing there. She asked me if I wanted some apples. I told her yes, and she gave me these three apples.”

His sister washed them and cut them up. They were so delicious that she told her friends about the old woman. The next day, his sister and a half-dozen kids went into the woods, down the path to the apple tree. There was no one there, and the only apples were too high up in the tree to pick. The ones on the ground were rotting.

“I guess she’s not here today,” Johnny said.

His sister was embarrassed because she had brought her friends and they came away empty-handed. She challenged her brother: “Or maybe you just made the whole thing up, and you found the apples on the ground, and there really isn’t a nice old woman who gives out apples.”

The following day Johnny was walking home from school through the woods, and there was the old woman, who gave him three new apples.

“No one believes me that you gave me the apples. They think I found them on the ground.”

“I’ll be here tomorrow evening. Bring your friends and everybody will get an apple.”

The next day Johnny, his sister, and another seven kids walked the path through the woods to the old apple tree. There they all met the old woman.

“My name is Rhea,” she said. “You know, my father planted this tree when I was just a girl. I lived in the farmhouse across the highway. Of course, back then there was no highway. The city bought this land from my parents, but I come here from time to time to pick apples.”

Rhea had a long pole with a clipper on the end. She picked it up and cut apples for all the kids, and a couple for herself.

With their apples in hand and smiles on their faces, they thanked Rhea and headed home. They now believed Johnny’s story about where he got the apples.

Meditation

Seeing for ourselves certainly helps us to believe. Today’s scripture is the finishing moment of the story of the Samaritan woman, who had five husbands. She had brought members of her town out to meet Jesus. After they listened to him, many of them came to believe in him. It was quite a task to get Samaritans to believe that Jesus, a Jew, was the Savior of the World and was in their midst.

We sometimes say things like, “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I never would have believed it.” Our experiences shape our beliefs. Although we can’t come to the well and listen to Jesus speak to us in person, in the flesh, face to face, we can have an experience with him.

As we enter the middle of Lent, we can recognize the value of prayer in our lives. The things we pray about have relevance to our very existence. Our prayer is connecting with God. We can take note of how we feel while we pray and how we feel afterward. Time and time again we can come to God, share what is going on in our lives, and listen to how the Holy Spirit is guiding us.

This form of prayer is different from saying an Our Father or Hail Mary, or the Rosary, or blessing our food before we eat it. Those are valuable prayers—essential even—but we must also share what is going on in our lives with God, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, and then listen to what response comes to us. We don’t need to talk to do this. We can imagine God with us, perhaps in an empty chair or standing next to us, and then we silently share what is going on in our lives with our Lord.

If you haven’t been praying this way, give it a try. Open your eyes in a new way. Look for God in your very midst. In this prayer, you will find that seeing is indeed believing.

Water the seed and ask yourself...

What have I seen that strengthens me to believe in God?