Leprosy and blindness and deafness — oh, my. The disabilities cured by Jesus in his public ministry really are quite something, aren’t they? Vividly symbolic and rich food for reflection. It just wouldn’t be the same if Jesus had cured eczema or athlete’s foot or compulsive nail-biting.

Blind Bartimaeus, sitting by the side of the road, in particular captures my imagination. Because I have a confession to make, sometimes, I like to sit in the darkness, even though I know it isn’t very good for me.

I thought it often in my first year as a mother, when I was every day discovering what this new life of parenthood looked and felt like: doing anything with kids is a hundred times harder than doing it without kids. But it’s a thousand times better. From eating dinner to going to Mass to taking a walk around the block — every single outing, even the simplest ones, had an extra level of logistical complexity.

This week we hear of the man who inquires of Jesus how to obtain eternal life. He rejects Jesus’ invitation to sell his goods, give to the poor, and follow Jesus. Mark tells us this devastatingly sad line, “At this saying, his countenance fell and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions” (Mark 10:22).

As a young pastor years ago, I met with a middle-aged couple who had been divorced and civilly remarried. They were frustrated that an annulment had to precede a Church marriage. Sympathizing with their plight, I promised to walk with them along their journey. Once as we sat in my office, the man said to me, “Why is the Church so difficult on marriage?” I replied, “Actually, Jesus’ teaching is what’s difficult.” He furrowed his brow and asked what I meant.

If you show up to the gates of heaven completely whole, I kind of doubt you’ll be let inside.

I know that sounds pretty awful, because what kind of God doesn’t want all of you, exactly as you are? “Be yourself,” we tell our kids. “If someone expects you to change to be their friend, you don’t want to be that person’s friend.”

I am fascinated by minor Gospel characters. These people — the rich young man, the adulterous woman, the teachers at the temple — share the stage with Jesus only briefly. They bear passing but powerful witness to crucial moments of his earthly ministry. They breathe the air he breathes. They hear the sound of his voice. Some of them feel the touch of his skin. And then they go on with their lives and disappear into obscurity. They become just another one of us.

When I’m interviewing people for my job as a staff writer at an archdiocesan newspaper, I like to ask them this question: at the end of your life, when you meet God, what do you want to hear Him say?

I’ve gotten a lot of interesting answers.

One of the most touching YouTube videos I’ve ever seen is one in which a deaf woman receives new technology to heal her hearing. She hears her husband's voice for the first time — and her own, too — and bursts into tears of overwhelming joy. It must have been like an immovable wall between her and her loved ones came tumbling down.

On November 28, 1981, Alphonsine Mumureke was in the dining room at her high school in Kibeho, a small village in southwestern Rwanda. She heard a voice. It was a woman, veiled and beautiful. Alphonsine asked her who she was. “I am the Mother of the Word,” answered the woman.

It was the first appearance of Our Lady of Kibeho, who would return to visit Alphonsine and two of her schoolmates over the course of the next eight years. She left with them an urgent call for repentance, along with a prophecy of the Rwandan genocide that would come to fruition in the next decade.

A friend of mine, who is a far better Christian than I can ever hope to be, once shared with me that her family sneers at her belief system and lifestyle. She believes in fairy tales they tell her. She’s looking for simple solutions from a kind-faced man in the sky because she doesn’t want to grapple with complicated answers to complicated problems.

Religion, they argue, is the easy way out. As she spoke about this, her voice became unsteady. Not with anger, but with emotion. “I would never call this life easy,” she said. “If I was looking for something that was easy, I wouldn’t choose Catholicism.”

A priest I know was asked by a door-to-door evangelist, “Do you believe in Jesus?” He answered, “Yes, I do. But if I may ask you,” he continued, “Where do you experience Jesus’ body and blood?” His interlocutor responded somewhat confusedly, “I don’t. I just believe in him. That’s all that is needed.” Later my priest friend would relate to me, “The more I thought about it, that response struck me as totally inadequate. As human beings, we need to encounter Jesus’ body and blood, not just hear about him and mentally believe. Otherwise, Jesus is just a ghost.”

This week we hear Jesus say, “He that believes in me, has eternal life” (John 6:47). These straightforward words, uttered by human lips, sound — how to put this? — insane. Who could possibly say such a thing? Jesus says things that are so high, so demanding, so beyond our capacity to fathom, we hardly know what to do with them and (if you’re like me), they usually go in one ear and out the other. So, let us ask: how can believing in him lead to eternal life?

Since my college days I’ve loved a song called “Dance with You” by the rock band Live. It touches on the deep mystical hunger of our heart: “I’ve tasted all the wines/ a half a billion times/ came sickened to your shore/ you showed me what this life is for.” These lines resonate with anyone who has feasted on the good things of this world only to be left spiritually hungover and unsatisfied.