On April 7, 2018, Colorado Vincentian Volunteers had the pleasure of hosting The Blind Café Experience for about 70 of our incredible #CVVAlum and current volunteers. It was a powerful evening of dinner in the dark, rich conversation, an active music listening experience, and of course, lots of companionship. It was all held entirely in 100% darkness with no blindfolds and facilitated by the Blind Ambassadors.

We hope you enjoy reading a few reflections, including the reflection offered by Katie Cassady (CVV 12 and former CVV staff member), from the night of this unique and unforgettable experience.

Good evening. I’m really excited to be gathered with this group tonight—or any night. I’m looking forward to experiencing this event together as we all put ourselves out there a little bit, into a place of vulnerability and solidarity. I’m feeling a little vulnerable myself right now, because I’m completely off-script tonight which is not my comfort zone. I’d also add that it’s an odd exchange when Mary Frances calls and says they’re looking for a person to speak to spiritual blindness and, Katie, you came to mind!

So, I’m calling on the name of Providence tonight to guide this conversation and my bumbling thoughts on how our limited spiritual sight can perhaps illuminate our vision.

I’ve got to tell you that this year has been a poignant one when it comes to lessons of sight. Close family friends have learned that their two oldest children are going blind from a genetic disorder. I attended my first Blind Café experience in Boulder in March. I thought of Snowmass and trekking to vigils at 4am. My eyes spent a good part of the evening scouring the room for light, which I couldn’t find. But, how telling that even in our darkness, our instinct is to seek out the Light?

I have listened to the Easter readings with a new awareness of our shared and universal experiences of spiritual blindness—those times when our own parameters, or perhaps God’s timing, actually prevent us from seeing what is directly before us.

Mary Magdalene—so stricken with grief in the garden that she believes the Risen Christ to be the gardener until he calls her by name.
The disciples didn’t trust their vision of the Risen Lord. They feared that they were seeing a ghost, until Jesus had breakfast with them.
On the road to Emmaus when the disciples meet Jesus, they are walking with him, but do not physically recognize him until the breaking of the bread. Only then do they remember: ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road?”
The Gospel this weekend is the one of the ‘Doubting Thomas’, in which Thomas cannot believe just his eyes but instead must physically touch the wounds and scars Christ suffered in order to believe. Jesus says to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen? Blessed are those who have not seen and believed.”
If there is something to be gleaned from these Easter readings, it might be that although we engage the world easily with our sight, perhaps it is not how we best engage the Risen Christ.

Certainly my attention has been on these themes because of this event at the Blind Café, and due to the experience of our family friends; but I think this language from Luke’s Gospel calls us back in a particular way to our volunteer years, too. “Were not our hearts burning within us?!”

Were not our hearts burning within us?

When we recognized the names read at the homeless memorial vigil that Christmas?

Were not our hearts burning within us?

When we helped an intoxicated man find clean pants after he’d soiled himself in the shelter?

Were our hearts not burning within us?

When we listened to the vision of a woman in Juarez and the love for the children she serves?

Were our hearts not burning within us?

When we witnessed that first step toward self-confidence in our client, our community member, ourselves?

The Good News/The Easter message I am hearing this year is one that seems to be taken in with nearly all of the senses but sight (alone).

This seems fitting at a time when we’re sitting here in the dark, eyes struggling to adjust. But I think it’s telling, too, that even at our time of greatest joy and reassurance, there is evidence that our eyes may deceive us. As St. Paul instructs: “I pray that they eyes of your hearts may be opened.”

Let us make that our prayer this evening, May the eyes of our hearts be opened.

by Katie Cassady, CVV 12 and former CVV staff member.