ON THE NEED TO HEAL FROM SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS.
March 22 2020: Fourth Sunday of Lent - A
A Tunisian proverb says, “There is no blindness but the
blindness of the heart.” And another American proverb adds, “None are so blind
as those who refuse to see.”
Even amid the greatest sorrow, there is always a cause for
joy. From the darkest night sparks a ray of light. No obscurity last forever.
It is true that COVID-19 confines us outside the churches and plunges us into
fear and uncertainty. But the light of Christ will come forth. Life always
arises from death. Therefore, the call to rejoice and the invitation of today’s
entrance antiphon, “Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all
who were in mourning; exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast.”
We are on the 4th Sunday of Lent. Though being is this
special season of great sorrows for our sins and of call for conversion, the
liturgy is filled with joy, “Laetare Sunday”, the Latin calling of this Sunday.
That joy is because we already see, though from a narrow window, the imminence
of our salvation. We have the foretaste of the mystery we are preparing for,
that is, the passion, the death and the glorious resurrection of Christ. It is
prompted by faith that we can affirm that truth. Therefore, the one who does
not perceive it is none other than a blind man in the imminent need of a cure.
The first reading of today's Eucharistic celebration offers
us the first reason why we should rejoice. The anointing of a new king for the
people of God. This anointing nevertheless reveals certain intrinsic blindness
of the human being. Man looks outwards, he looks at the appearance, while God
sees the inside. The blind man here was Samuel himself. Filled with human
categories, the prophet was mistaken about who might be the chosen one. But the
Lord corrected him saying, “Do not judge from his appearance or his lofty
stature, because I have rejected him. Not as man sees does God see. Because man
sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart.”
Human beings, we learn from this episode, is blinded by
earthly norms. He looks, sees and judges solely based on physiognomy while the
categories of God are completely based on different perspectives. The Lord will
not choose a shepherd who will dominate his people, but one who will serve and
lead them beside restful waters and in right paths. Thus, the song of the
psalmist, “The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.” The Lord is
this shepherd who will take us from the dark valley filled with fear of evil
and bring us to the bright light of his presence and love.
St. Paul, in the second reading, speaks of that light. We
are all urged to “arise from the dead, and Christ will give us light.” For,
says the apostle, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.”
As to say, we all were once blind, living far away from Christ. But now that we
are made new creatures in him, we have it as an obligation to “Live as children
of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and
truth.”
The Christian life is a journey from darkness to light. It's
a journey from blindness to clear vision. The Gospel will be a great catechism
on this journey. We hear about Jesus healing a blind man. This excerpt from St.
John is one beautiful teaching about Christ Jesus light of the world, a light
that can give sight to all those who were previously blind and a poor acuity to
those who thought they were well-sighted, and who thus turned away voluntarily
from light.
On closer inspection, this passage is filled with irony. We
learn that the reality of things is sometimes completely different or opposed
to what they seem to be. The disciples thought they see, but the Lord will make
them understand that they are not well-sighted. Worse still, the leaders of the
people, the scribes, the Pharisees and the high priests; the very ones who
boast of their perfect sight while they are plunged into deep inner blindness.
Jesus, from today’s episode, a few weeks before his passion and death, heals us
from all our blindness. He takes us out from the obscurity of sin to bring us
into the bright light of life.
The Lord’s instruction to the blind man brings us back to
the theme of last Sunday: Jesus source of living water and purification. The
Lord commanded the man, “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam.” The water here is a
sign of restoration to perfect sight and to life. It also foreshadows the Baptism
which will cleanse us from all defilement of sin.
Sin is a reality that blinds us. When someone lives under
sin, he deprives himself to see beyond his umbilical cord. Sin curves him on
himself, making him see only his ego. Jesus, on the other hand, came to break
this bond that we maintain with evil and open ourselves to God. His next
passion, which we sniff in this liturgy, will draw those who believe in the
Lord from Darkness and bring them into the bright light, while those who refuse
to believe, will be forever imprisoned in their situation of sinners.
The worst of all blindness today is when one loses the
meaning or notion of sin. Unfortunately, our societies have fallen into this
kind of relativism concerning sin. Many people no longer grasp the gravity of
their evils. Some people live in a situation of severe adultery but think it is
the most normal thing. Others are in a couple without marriage and are
approaching the Holy Eucharist. Cases of human trafficking, child abuse,
harassment, fornication, pedophilia, homosexuality, corruption, and many other
crimes are in increase. It asks only blindness from us to not be able to see
it. We all, therefore, need light.
The question of the disciples at the beginning of the gospel
is all the more relevant for us to understand the relation between sin and
spiritual cecity, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born
blind?” Our sins, from the Lord’s answer, are an occasion for God’s merciful
love and power to be manifest. For, because we live in the darkness of sin, we
feel the need of light. So, let us not be like those Pharisees who refuse their
inner reality of sinners. For anyone who thinks that he does not need Jesus or
that he is not blind (sinner), imprisons himself in his sin and condemns
himself to live ‘ad aeternam’, into the dark valley of evilness. We, however,
will have to rejoice. Because, sinners though we are, the Lord comes to heal
and forgive us.
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