How much would you sell your eyes for?

Dear friends

Optical retail chain Specsavers has recently launched a new advertisement campaign in Australia. Specsavers is calling this campaign ‘Priceless Eyes’. The nucleus of this campaign is a short film asking real Australians how much they would sell their eyes for.

The short film (4mins) takes regular people off the street and places them in front of a fake medical research clinic, called ‘Vesper-Sacs’. These ‘subjects’ are then asked in quite a convincing manner by a fake medical officer, “How much would you sell your eyes for? $50 million? $80 million each?”

Unsurprisingly this shocks a lot of the participants who think the ‘medical officer’ is fair-dinkum and wants their eyes. A number of the participants cry in response when they are prompted further to name a price. Some responses include, “I’ve got a family... I need to see my kids dance” and “the thought of never seeing my partner’s face again and family...” brings both ladies to tears.

To say many people, take their eyesight for granted is a massive understatement. This attitude appears to be timeless because it’s also at the heart of today’s gospel. Jesus encounters a blind man named Bartimaeus. Despite his physical blindness Bartimaeus has 20/20 clarity when it comes to who Jesus is.

This begs the question, is there anything we aren’t noticing with the eyes of our hearts about ourselves, our families, our communities, our parish, our Church... our world?

God bless
Fr Thomas

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