March 26^th 2017. FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT

Gospel: John 9:1-41

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Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading...

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GOSPEL John 9:1-41

As Jesus went along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. He spat on the ground, made a paste with the spittle, put this over the eyes of the blind man and said to him, ‘Go and wash in the Pool of Siloam (a name that means ‘sent’).’ So the blind man went off and washed himself, and came away with his sight restored.

His neighbours and people who earlier had seen him begging said, ‘Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some said, ‘Yes, it is the same one’. Others said, ‘No, he only looks like him’. The man himself said, ‘I am the man’. 

 They brought the man who had been blind to the Pharisees. It had been a Sabbath day when Jesus made the paste and opened the man’s eyes, so when the Pharisees asked him how he had come to see, he said, ‘He put a paste on my eyes, and I washed, and I can see’. Then some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man cannot be from God: he does not keep the sabbath’. Others said, ‘How could a sinner produce signs like this?’ And there was disagreement among them. So they spoke to the blind man again, ‘What have you to say about him yourself, now that he has opened your eyes?’ ‘He is a prophet’ replied the man.

‘Are you trying to teach us,’ they replied ‘and you a sinner through and through, since you were born!’ And they drove him away.

Jesus heard they had driven him away, and when he found him he said to him, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied ‘tell me who he is so that I may believe in him.’ Jesus said, ‘You are looking at him; he is speaking to you’. The man said, ‘Lord, I believe’, and worshipped him.
Jesus said: ‘It is for judgement that I have come into this world, so that those without sight may see and those with sight turn blind’.

Hearing this, some Pharisees who were present said to him, ‘We are not blind, surely?’
Jesus replied: ‘Blind? If you were, you would not be guilty, but since you say, “We see”, your guilt remains.’

 The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . .  The Gospel this week recounts the healing of a man born blind. All of us are born blind. All of us tend to see the world in a superficial way. We have difficulty seeing beyond the external aspect of things. When we encounter misfortune or pain, we tend to try to understand these things in terms of their causes. We ask, “Why is this man suffering? Did he do something wrong that has brought misery upon him?” Jesus is the light of the world and only he can heal us of our blindness. When we live the grace of our baptism, then we are enabled to see the world as God sees it. We no longer look at things from a shallow perspective - in terms of blame and causality - but in terms of the finality of things. It is where God is leading us that counts. When we are afflicted with illness, suffering or blindness, then we must resist the worldly temptation to become desperate. Instead we must ask, where is God leading me through this difficulty trial? The disciples were fixated with the cause of the man’s blindness. But Jesus said that the more important thing is the fact that this blindness would become a way to manifest the power of God. Do you feel desperate, lonely, in pain? Like the blind man, God is calling you through this affliction. The blind man became a missionary who testified to the power of the Messiah, and so can you!

The readings for Sunday are also used in the preparation of adult candidates for baptism. As such, they have something fundamental to say to those of us who seek to live our baptism.

We are now in liturgical year “A”. The readings for Year A are linked to the course of readings used for adults who are in the last stages of preparation before being baptized. These candidates have gone through a process of formation and education and are ready to receive the sacrament. The readings used are very appropriate for their preparation. Those that occur on this fourth Sunday of Lent are the same as those that coincide with the second scrutiny before baptism. In this intense moment of prayer, the “elect” (the candidate who is near to baptism) is asked to be aware of certain things and listens to prayers of baptismal exorcism. These Sundays constitute essential points of Christian formation before baptism.

The theme of the readings this week is the importance of seeing things as God sees them.

On this fourth Sunday of Lent we hear the story of the man born blind. Jesus comes out of the Temple and heals this man, but the perspective we are given on the event goes far beyond the healing itself. The theme of the readings is what we see, the light we behold. The first reading tells us of the election of David. The prophet Samuel goes to the sons of Jesse to anoint from among them the future king of Israel. He is presented with one of the brothers who appears to be the perfect candidate. The Lord, however, rejects him and tells Samuel not to look only upon his imposing physical appearance. The Lord says,  “Take no notice of his appearance or his height for I have rejected him; God does not see as man sees; man looks at appearances but the Lord looks at the heart.” This is the theme of our readings this Sunday – the way we look at things. Things are as they are, but what can transform our lives is the way we look at those things. Sometimes the things of this world can change, but that is rare. What is more important is that we view them from a new perspective. There is a barrier that hinders us from seeing beyond the “skin” of reality. The first impression is also the final impression, unless one embarks on a journey of growth. In the first reading, the initial impression of this imposing son of Jesse is very favourable, but God sees differently.

The cause of our problems should not be our primary focus: it is where these problems can lead us that counts. If we see them with the eyes of the Lord then these misfortunes can lead us to behold the face of God.

In the Gospel, we have the tragic case of a man who is born without sight. It is a sad situation of a man whose existence has been marked in this dramatic way – one of the five means of communication is lacking. Jesus’ disciples give a superficial reaction to this reality when they ask, “Who has sinned, this man or his parents?” We look for the most banal of explanations for the problems of life; we try to identify the guilty party in the whole affair. The truth is that we can never identify the particular causes of human misfortune. What is much more important is that we see beyond the misfortune. In the full version of this Gospel reading, Jesus replies, “Neither he nor his parents have sinned. This has happened so that the works of God may be made manifest”. And then Jesus embarks on a discourse about the works of God. This is something that is urgent for each one of us. We must seek to discern the hand of God active in the things that are happening around us. It is not the cause of the blind man’s illness that is important; it is what this blindness will lead him to. The blind man becomes a prophet on account of the fact that his blindness is healed in the pool of Siloam, a word that means “sent”. And the pain that he once experienced is transformed into a mission. Gradually we discover that the enigmas of life cannot be understood in terms of the past; we move from the principle of causality to the principle of finality; things make sense because they lead us somewhere, in the final analysis they lead us to behold the countenance of God.

The grace of baptism opens our eyes and cures us of our superficial way of seeing. It helps us to look beyond the surface of events and to interpret them in terms of their eternal significance

The blind man comes to the point where he recognises that he is in the presence of the Messiah, the One who loves him and has saved him. He recognizes the work of God in the midst of tribulation. Indeed the story is a traumatic one for him. He receives his sight in the pool of Siloam and then embarks on his mission. But he is contradicted and disbelieved and abandoned by his parents (read the full version of the Gospel). He is even thrown out of the Synagogue but he has now become a different person and has his heart open to the real profundity of things. He is now in a position where he can recognize the Messiah before him. When people present themselves for baptism, it is essential that they have a sense of their own personal history; that they do not have negative or fatalistic interpretations of their own lives; that they not be desperate or discouraged, as is all too easy for any of us. How easy it is to look superficially on things and only see their desperate nature, to have a poor perspective on the future. Jesus does not look at this blind man’s past but at his future. From birth all of us have a tendency to see events in a superficial way. A person who lives his baptism is a person who, by the grace of God, has a perspective on things from the point of their future. This new vision is pure gift. As this Gospel says, no-one but God can open the eyes of a person born blind. By grace we can see where things are heading, we can see beyond the appearances, beyond the situations that cannot be explained in terms of their past causes. This Sunday, let us recognize that God is operating powerfully even in the things that we do not understand.