March 22nd 2020. Fourth Sunday of Lent

GOSPEL: Jn 9:1, 6-9, 13-17, 34-38

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

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel

GOSPEL: Jn 9:1, 6-9, 13-17, 34-38

As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth.

He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva,

and smeared the clay on his eyes,

and said to him,

“Go wash in the Pool of Siloam” — which means Sent —.

So he went and washed, and came back able to see.

His neighbours and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said,

“Isn’t this the one who used to sit and beg?”

Some said, “It is”, but others said, “No, he just looks like him.”

He said, “I am.”

They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees.

Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a sabbath.

So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see.

He said to them,

“He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.”

So some of the Pharisees said,

“This man is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath.”

But others said,

“How can a sinful man do such signs?”

And there was a division among them.

So they said to the blind man again,

“What do you have to say about him,

since he opened your eyes?”

He said, “He is a prophet.”

They answered and said to him,

“You were born totally in sin,

and are you trying to teach us?”

Then they threw him out.

When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out,

he found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

He answered and said,

“Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”

Jesus said to him,

“You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.”

He said, “I do believe, Lord,” and he worshipped him.

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

Kieran’s summary . . . The healing of the blind man in chapter nine of John’s Gospel can best be understood by reading the accounts in chapters seven and eight of Jesus’ presence in Jerusalem during the Festival of Tents (I encourage you to read below Don Fabio’s full account of this important context). During the festival, Jesus makes two pronouncements. Firstly, he invites everyone who thirsts to come to him and drink. Secondly, he declares that he is the light of the world. These two elements, water and light, were essential to the Jewish celebration of the festival, and they are combined in the healing of the blind man. Jesus anoints the man’s eyes with saliva and clay. It is impossible to speak without saliva, so the saliva of Christ clearly represents God’s word. In this image of saliva and clay, we have an unambiguous symbol of creation. In Genesis, God’s word acts on the dust of the earth to create humanity. With the healing of the blind man, Jesus shows that he is completing his creation of this person by bringing him to the light. But the healing is not completed until the man goes to bathe in the pool whose name signifies “sent”. And then the man truly becomes “sent”! He proclaims the good news of his healing and even defends Jesus to the point of being expelled from the Temple. To summarize: each one of us has painful and difficult aspects of his life, just like the man born blind. Jesus wishes to act on these very areas with his word. When we allow Christ to touch these areas, when we bathe in the waters of regeneration (in other words, allow the Holy Spirit to operate in us), then these things are transformed, they are illuminated by the light of Christ, and they become the place where we proclaim the good news of God’s love for us. We discover that the absurd areas of our lives are the very places where we learn to trust, to love. None of us can be said to be truly educated in the faith until we have made peace with the things we have not understood about our lives. We need to discover that those difficult elements in our personal existence were needed in order to encounter the Lord. These things will serve us all our lives to be instruments of the Lord, to be the way of his love, the way of his light. In this way, the “blind” find their sight, whilst whoever thinks he can see, so the Gospel passage tells us, will become blind. Those who are in love with their own interpretations of everything, those who do not accept an alternative reading of their lives, remain blind. 

The story of the healing of the blind man can only be understood properly if we consider the Festival of Tents that is mentioned in the previous chapters of John’s Gospel

On the fourth Sunday of Lent, we listen to the extraordinary story of the man born blind. One thing that is often not underlined about this text is to emphasize that it comes after the account in chapters seven and eight of John’s Gospel, which recount how Jesus behaved during the important Feast of Tents. It is in this context that the healing takes place. According to the scholars, what was basically performed in Jerusalem at the time of the Feast of the Tents was a double ritual. The first was about water. In fact, the Festival of Tents recalled the time living as nomads by the providence of God, who gave water to an entire people and quenched their thirst in the desert. The other element on which the festival was based was a ritual that involved light. During the time in the desert, the people were led by a luminous cloud that indicated the path to the people as they came out of Egypt. To commemorate this, many torches were lit on the side of the temple and from that light the city was illuminated by night. Another light was also celebrated: the light of the law, of wisdom, the light that came from the cult of the true God. The ritual of water began with the priests going to fetch water from the Silom pool using containers. This pool had its source in a spring that had been brought back inside the city walls. It was very important in the time of sieges, war, or other moments of difficulty which a city like Jerusalem was subjected several times. Consequently, the priests came up from the lower part of the city where the pool of Siloam was situated and sprinkled this water around on the ground, as a sign of abundance. We must remember that water, in an area like Israel, is very important, more valuable than gold. This ceremony of abundance, this sprinkling of water in the evening, was illuminated further by ritual of the braziers, which gave light to the whole city.

It is Jesus who is the living water and the light of the world. These two signs of light and water are united together in the healing of the blind man

This background helps us to understand chapters seven and eight of John's gospel. In chapter seven, Jesus, in the middle of the feast, gets up and says: "Whoever is thirsty come to me and drink. As Scripture says, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’" (John 7, 37-38). What is the message? That the real water is him; it is he who will quench everyone's thirst. In chapter eight, reference is made to the second part of the rite. Jesus stands up and says another solemn phrase: "I am the light of the world, those who follow me will not walk in darkness but will have light of life”. And then we come to chapter nine, where these two signs are united together in the experience of the blind man from birth. This man has never known light but he will find it bathing in the water of Siloam's pool. These eyes that never before functioned are touched by the earth, combined with the saliva of Jesus. This is an image of creation, because God created man from the dust of the earth. It is as if God completed the creation of this man in Jesus. But we must remember that all this is fundamentally symbolic. Significantly, every person is enlightened in baptism. In fact, the ancient name of the baptized was the illuminati. They received the light of faith which afforded them another entire way of looking at life. After all, we are all blind from birth and we must receive light, which is received only by gift, by grace. Curiously, this man receives the light by going to wash in the pool of Siloam, which means "sent". It is interesting that he walks in the opposite direction to that of the priests when they take the water during the festival, scattering it around the city and then arriving to light up the torches in front of the temple. The blind man begins his walk from the external steps of the temple where he encounters Jesus and is “anointed” with mud and saliva.

Jesus performs an act of re-creation on this man. Using his word (saliva) and earth, he anoints the part of the man that is maimed (his eyes) and invites him to walk in faith to the waters of regeneration. Following this, the man becomes a proclaimer of the Good News. It is his very wound that becomes for him the occasion of his salvation.

The mud, as we mentioned, is a symbol of creation. The saliva of Jesus represents his word. One cannot speak without saliva. If your mouth is completely dry, you cannot speak. Man is created from earth when matter encounters the word of God. In this Gospel account, everything starts with a question from the disciples. Why was this man born blind? Who is guilty? Maybe he is to blame, or maybe his parents are to blame? Jesus replies: "Neither he has sinned, nor his parents, but in him the works of God will be made manifest”. And what follows is a clear work of God. After applying a mixture made of word (saliva) and matter (earth), Jesus sends the blind man to the pool where he receives his sight. The pool of Siloam means “the one who is sent”, that is, the one who is sent by the Father. In fact, Jesus says: "We must do the works of the one who sent me". What will this born blind man become? He will become a proclaimer of the Good News. This man is passive at the beginning, then slowly begins to take possession of what happened to him, until he becomes completely free and capable of answering the opponents who insult him. The very place where he was maimed (his eyes) become the place where he discovers that he is sent, once he immerses himself in the pool which signifies “mission”. In fact, there is a clear association of Jesus with this man. He will even be associated with the rejection of Christ, who was also driven out of the synagogue. And this connection comes about all because he made the journey that Jesus asked him to make. Christ is the one that brings light to every man. When Jesus sent him to the pool of Siloam, he was really telling him: “Walk to your mission”.

The most painful thing in my life is actually the place where the Lord wishes to heal me and show me the path of light, love and mission.

There is a lot of information here, so perhaps it is time to summarize. The Gospel this Sunday  illuminates us in showing us that the thing that seems most absurd in our life is actually a call. With the help of the word of God, the absurd and broken things in our life must be washed in the waters of Shiloam (“the one who is sent”) and be transformed into mission. We have in our daily lives, in the most incomprehensible things of life, the seed of prophecy, a ray of light on our existence. We discover that what we thought was the absurd rejection of meaning is actually the place in our lives where we begin to love, to fulfill our mission. Many times, God transforms our pain and the absurdity of our history into something that makes us love our neighbor. To make us capable of doing his own works, God manifests himself in us in the midst of what seemed absurd, wrong to us. But, in order for this to be brought to fruition, we must be immersed in this pool of Siloam. In other words, it is a work of the Holy Spirit in us. None of us can be said to be truly trained, raised, educated in the faith until he has made peace with the things he has not understood about his life. He needs to discover that those difficult elements in his personal existence were needed in order to encounter the Lord. These things will serve us all our lives to be instruments of the Lord, to be the way of his love, the way of his light. In this way, the “blind” find their sight and whoever thinks he can see, so the Gospel passage tells us, will become blind. Those who are in love with their own interpretations of everything, those who do not accept an alternative reading of their lives, remain blind. In fact, what they think they are seeing becomes increasingly opaque, increasingly irresolvable. This Sunday, we celebrate the waters of regeneration that illuminate us and lead us to completion, making us all into prophets, people who walk according to faith, people from whom life emanates and does not end.