The Blind Man

                       4th Sunday of Lent

                      A cycle

 

Since Lent began, the first reading for each Sunday has presented us with great figures from the Old Testament. First, there was the story of Adam and Eve. Then we heard the story of the calling of Abraham, the father of Israel. Last week"s reading was about Moses, the deliverer of his people from captivity. Today's reading is about David, the greatest of the kings of Israel.  

 

But David was not always a great king. Today we see him as the youngest and the least of the many sons of Jesse. Nevertheless, David is chosen over his brothers because, 

 

       Not as man sees does God see,

       because man sees the appearance

       but the Lord looks into the heart.

 

Today's gospel also deals with a nobody, the poor beggar, blind from birth. I would love to see a film depicting this incident. It would take a great comic actor to portray the role of the blind beggar. In my mind I can visualize Roberto Benigni, the greatest Italian comic actor of our time, in the role. Who can forget his exuberant performance in the Academy Award winner, Life Is Beautiful, or his even more exuberant performance at the ceremony when he won the award.

It is not hard to understand the emotional roller coaster of the blind beggar in today’s gospel.  A man he cannot even see has made a paste of clay and spittle and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. He washes and miraculously begins to see for the first time in his life. What’s the result? People can’t believe their own eyes. They can’t even believe that he is the same person. Then he is dragged into court and interrogated by officials who also refuse to believe their own eyes. 

 

The officials next question the beggar’s parents who testify that their son had indeed been blind from birth. In a way, they are also on trial since it was believed that their son’s blindness was also the result of their sin. We may think that blaming the parents for the son’s blindness is an outmoded and superstitious concept. Yet, still today many people blame their parents for what has gone wrong with their lives. Even worse, many counsellors and psychologists will encourage disturbed people to look back and blame others for their plight and not consider their own responsibility.

 

Even before he had healed the blind man, Jesus had emphatically denied that physical blindness was the result of sin. He continually insisted that sickness or accidents were not caused by sin but that sin was the result of turning away from the spiritual truth that had been implanted in all our hearts. 

 

The real sin of the Pharisees was in refusing to see what God had done for the blind man. It was as if they would have preferred him to remain in darkness instead of rejoicing at his miraculous gift of sight. Today’s readings are all about seeing and not seeing, about light and darkness. 

This was not the only time when Jesus worked a physical cure in order to show that spiritual healing was even more important. Remember when he cured the paralyzed man, he first forgave his sins and then told him to take up his pallet and walk to show that He had the power to heal our souls. He tells the Pharisees that the blind man had no sin, but that they are the ones who are spiritually blind.

Especially during the season of Lent we must put ourselves in the place of the Pharisees. Have we become spiritually blind? Are we living as St. Paul says in today’s letter to the Ephesians as “children of light” or have we succumbed to darkness? Most of us don’t take part in what he calls the “fruitless works of darkness,” things “shameful even to mention.” Nevertheless, we may, especially as we get older, become somewhat spiritually visually impaired.

I know a man who twenty years ago was told by his eye doctor that unless he had surgery, he would be blind in five years. The surgery was successful and now he can still see. There was, of course, the risk that this delicate surgery might not have succeeded and things could have even been worse. In any case it made the man think that he should try to make the most of his remaining years of sight. He should not waste his vision on trivial, stupid, unimportant, or ugly things.

Our lives are the same. No matter how much time we have left, we should make the most of it. As St. Paul says,

 Live as children of light,

For light produces every kind of goodness

And righteousness and truth

 

###

Image Note: Stained Glass window, St, Joseph's Basilica, Alameda, CA.

Reading 1. 1 Samuel 16: 1b, 6-7, 10-13a

Reading II. Ephesians 5: 8-14

Gospel. John 4: 9: 1-41 (the man born blind)

                     

The Blind Man

  

                      4th Sunday of Lent

                      A cycle

 

 

Stained Glass Window
St. Joseph's Basilica
Alameda CA.

 

Since Lent began the first reading for each Sunday has presented us with great figures from the Old Testament. First, there was the story of Adam and Eve. Then we heard the story of the calling of Abraham, the father of Israel. Last week"s reading was about Moses, the deliverer of his people from captivity. Today's reading is about David, the greatest of the kings of Israel.  

 

But David was not always a great king. Today we see him as the youngest and the least of the many sons of Jesse. Nevertheless, David is chosen over his brothers because, 

 

       Not as man sees does God see,

       because man sees the appearance

       but the Lord looks into the heart.

 

Today's gospel also deals with a nobody, the poor beggar, blind from birth. I would love to see a film depicting this incident. It would take a great comic actor to portray the role of the blind beggar. In my mind I can visualize Roberto Benigni, the greatest Italian comic actor of our time, in the role. Who can forget his exuberant performance in the Academy Award winner, Life Is Beautiful, or his even more exuberant performance at the ceremony when he won the award.

It is not hard to understand the emotional roller coaster of the blind beggar in today’s gospel.  A man he cannot even see has made a paste of clay and spittle and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. He washes and miraculously begins to see for the first time in his life. What’s the result? People can’t believe their own eyes. They can’t even believe that he is the same person. Then he is dragged into court and interrogated by officials who also refuse to believe their own eyes. 

 

The officials next question the beggar’s parents who testify that their son had indeed been blind from birth. In a way, they are also on trial since it was believed that their son’s blindness was also the result of their sin. We may think that blaming the parents for the son’s blindness is an outmoded and superstitious concept. Yet, still today many people blame their parents for what has gone wrong with their lives. Even worse, many counsellors and psychologists will encourage disturbed people to look back and blame others for their plight and not consider their own responsibility.

 

Even before he had healed the blind man, Jesus had emphatically denied that physical blindness was the result of sin. He continually insisted that sickness or accidents were not caused by sin but that sin was the result of turning away from the spiritual truth that had been implanted in all our hearts. 

 

The real sin of the Pharisees was in refusing to see what God had done for the blind man. It was as if they would have preferred him to remain in darkness instead of rejoicing at his miraculous gift of sight. Today’s readings are all about seeing and not seeing, about light and darkness. As St. Paul says in the second reading,

 

Live as children of light,

For light produces every kind of goodness

And righteousness and truth

 

The Pharisees are still among us. In fact, we are all prone to see things as they did and to ignore the evidence of our own two eyes. I would like to end with a statement by Anna Jameson, a very great lady of the nineteenth century, who suffered much in her own life. She refliected on a sermon that she had heard in church by a preacher whose preaching sounded like the Pharisees.

.

He is really sublime, this man! with his faith in “the religion of pain,” and “the deification of sorrow!” But is he therefore right? What has he preached to us to-day with all the force of eloquence, all the earnestness of conviction? that “pain is the life of God as shown forth in Christ;”—“that we are to be crucified to the world and the world to us.” This perpetual presence of a crucified God between us and a pitying redeeming Christ, leads many a mourner to the belief that this world is all a Golgotha of pain, and that we are here to crucify each other. Is this the law under which we are to live and strive? 

 

Surely there is a great difference between the resignation or the endurance of a truthful, faithful, loving, hopeful spirit, and this dreadful theology of suffering as the necessary and appointed state of things! I, for one, will not accept it. Even while most miserable, I will believe in happiness; even while I do or suffer evil, I will believe in goodness; even while my eyes see not through tears, I will believe in the existence of what I do not see—that God is benign, that nature is fair, that the world is not made as a prison or a penance. While I stand lost in utter darkness, I will yet wait for the return of the unfailing dawn,—even though my soul be amazed into such a blind perplexity that I know not on which side to look for it, and ask “where is the East? and whence the dayspring?” For the East holds its wonted place, and the light is withheld only till its appointed time.

 

God so strengthen me that I may think of pain and sin only as accidental apparent discords in his great harmonious scheme of good! Then I am ready—I will take up the cross, and bear it bravely, while I must; but I will lay it down when I can, and in any case I will never lay it on another.

 

 

###

Reading 1. 1 Samuel 16: 1b, 6-7, 10-13a

Reading II. Ephesians 5: 8-14

Gospel. John 4: 9: 1-41 (the man born blind).

Healing the Blind Man

                       30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

                      B cycle

 

Today’s first reading from the book of the Prophet Jeremiah is about the Lord’s deliverance of his people from slavery. He speaks of an immense crowd finally able to return to their native land. 

 

Behold, I will bring them back

From the land of the north;

I will gather them from the ends of the world,

With the blind and the lame in their midst…

 

In today’s gospel reading from Mark we can see that the cure of one blind man by Jesus is a fulfillment of the prophecy. Bartimaeus was the blind man’s name. Actually “bar” means “son of” and so the poor beggar is only identified as the son of his father, Timaeus. Bartimaeus is begging at the entrance to Jericho when he hears that Jesus is passing by followed by a large crowd.  He raises his voice and says, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” 

 

We are told that people tried to stop his shouting but he persisted until Jesus stopped and called for him. Immediately, the man jumped up and approached Jesus who simply asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” His reply is simply, “Master, I want to see.” Mark does not bother with any details but only indicates that a few words from Jesus were enough to enable Bartimaeus to see. “Go your way, your faith has saved you.” 

 

Jesus said that it was the faith of Bartimaeus that saved him and allowed him to see. But Bartimaeus could not see until he encountered Jesus on the road to Jericho. How do we encounter Jesus today in our ordinary lives? If we have faith, we will encounter Jesus at every Mass. Our faith tells us that Jesus is really presence in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Moreover, we also believe that at the Consecration of the Mass, the actual priest is Jesus himself who offers Himself for us in the same way that he offered Himself on Calvary. 

 

If we think about it, we can also encounter Jesus throughout the Mass. So many prayers are directed to him, and we have his own words and deeds in the gospel reading. After the Second Vatican Council the Church revived the Kiss of Peace, an ancient practice that had largely gone out of use. In past times the priest would bow and kiss the altar. The altar represented Jesus and it was understood that the priest was actually being kissed by Jesus. The priest would then turn to a deacon and pass the kiss of Jesus to him while saying, “Peace be with you.” The deacon would then go into the congregation and ask them to pass the kiss of Jesus on to their neighbor. 

 

If we could only see today that when someone offers us the Kiss of Peace or even a handshake, it is actually Jesus offering his hand to us. The Kiss of Peace is a blessing and we are being asked to bless our neighbor. For all we know, that neighbor could be a real saint, or at least someone doing the Lord’s work in their own little way. On the other hand, we might be passing the blessing to someone who needs the healing of Jesus as much as Bartimaeus did

 

Today, many people like to think of Jesus as a good man and a fine teacher. Despite the accounts of miracles like the one above, they find it hard to see that Jesus is something else. Such was not the case with the people who witnessed these miraculous healings as well as with the early followers of Jesus. In our second reading today, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews calls Jesus a High Priest, a priest who by offering Himself enabled us all to be healed. 

 

Whether we realize it or not, we are all at Mass for a reason. We all have problems and need help. Jesus asked Bartimaeus, “what do you want me to do for you?” He wanted to see. We are told that on receiving his sight, Bartimaeus followed Jesus on the way. We can encounter Jesus in the Mass but we can also follow on his way by caring for those entrusted to our care. 

 

 ### 

Note: Image of a stained glass window in St. Joseph's Basilica, Alameda, CA. is by Richard DeMarco.

Reading 1.  Jeremiah 31: 7-9

Reading II. Hebrews 5: 1-6

Gospel. Mark 1Mark 10: 46-52 (Bartimaeus, a blind man)

Healing the Blind Man

                                    4th Sunday of Lent

                               

Stained Glass Window
St. Joseph's Basilica
Alameda, CA*

Since Lent began the first reading for each Sunday has presented us with great figures from the Old Testament. First, there was the story of Adam and Eve. Then we heard the story of the calling of Abraham, the father of Israel. Last week"s reading was about Moses, the deliverer of his people from captivity. Today's reading is about David, the greatest of the kings of Israel.  

But David was not always a great king. Today we see him as the youngest and the least of the many sons of Jesse. Nevertheless, David is chosen over his brothers because, 

            Not as man sees does God see,

            because man sees the appearance

            but the Lord looks into the heart.

Today's gospel also deals with a nobody, the poor beggar, blind from birth. I would love to see a film depicting this incident. It would take a great comic actor to portray the role of the blind beggar. In my mind I can visualize Roberto Benigni, the greatest Italian comic actor of our time, in the role. Who can forget his exuberant performance in the Academy Award winner, Life Is Beautiful, or his even more exuberant performance at the ceremony when he won the award.

It is not hard to understand the emotional roller coaster of the blind beggar in today’s gospel.  A man he cannot even see has made a paste of clay and spittle and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. He washes and miraculously begins to see for the first time in his life. What’s the result? People can’t believe their own eyes. They can’t even believe that he is the same person. Then he is dragged into court and interrogated by officials who also refuse to believe their own eyes. 

The officials next question the beggar’s parents who testify that their son had indeed been blind from birth. In a way, they are also on trial since it was believed that their son’s blindness was also the result of their sin. We may think that blaming the parents for the son’s blindness is an outmoded and superstitious concept. Yet, still today many people blame their parents for what has gone wrong with their lives. Even worse, many counsellors and psychologists will encourage disturbed people to look back and blame others for their plight and not consider their own responsibility.

Even before he had healed the blind man, Jesus had emphatically denied that physical blindness was the result of sin. He continually insisted that sickness or accidents were not caused by sin but that sin was the result of turning away from the spiritual truth that had been implanted in all our hearts. Wherever he went, Jesus was a healer.

The real sin of the Pharisees was in refusing to see what God had done for the blind man. It was as if they would have preferred him to remain in darkness instead of rejoicing at his miraculous gift of sight. Today’s readings are all about seeing and not seeing, about light and darkness. As St. Paul says in the second reading,

Live as children of light,

For light produces every kind of goodness

And righteousness and truth

The Pharisees are still among us. In fact, we are all prone to see things as they did and to ignore the evidence of our own two eyes. I would like to end with a statement by Anna Jameson, a very great lady of the nineteenth century, who suffered much in her own life. She refliected on a sermon that she had heard in church by a preacher whose preaching sounded like the Pharisees.

.

He is really sublime, this man! with his faith in “the religion of pain,” and “the deification of sorrow!” But is he therefore right? What has he preached to us to-day with all the force of eloquence, all the earnestness of conviction? that “pain is the life of God as shown forth in Christ;”—“that we are to be crucified to the world and the world to us.” This perpetual presence of a crucified God between us and a pitying redeeming Christ, leads many a mourner to the belief that this world is all a Golgotha of pain, and that we are here to crucify each other. Is this the law under which we are to live and strive? 

Surely there is a great difference between the resignation or the endurance of a truthful, faithful, loving, hopeful spirit, and this dreadful theology of suffering as the necessary and appointed state of things! I, for one, will not accept it. Even while most miserable, I will believe in happiness; even while I do or suffer evil, I will believe in goodness; even while my eyes see not through tears, I will believe in the existence of what I do not see—that God is benign, that nature is fair, that the world is not made as a prison or a penance. While I stand lost in utter darkness, I will yet wait for the return of the unfailing dawn,—even though my soul be amazed into such a blind perplexity that I know not on which side to look for it, and ask “where is the East? and whence the dayspring?” For the East holds its wonted place, and the light is withheld only till its appointed time.

God so strengthen me that I may think of pain and sin only as accidental apparent discords in his great harmonious scheme of good! Then I am ready—I will take up the cross, and bear it bravely, while I must; but I will lay it down when I can, and in any case I will never lay it on another.

###

*Image by Richard DeMarco. Click on image to enlarge.

Reading 1. 1 Samuel 16: 1b, 6-7, 10-13a

Reading II. Ephesians 5: 8-14

Gospel. John 4: 9: 1-41 (the man born blind).

Lent: the Man born Blind

                                    4th Sunday of Lent

                                    

Since Lent began the first reading for each Sunday has presented us with great figures from the Old Testament. First, there was the story of Adam and Eve. Then we heard the story of the calling of Abraham, the father of Israel. Last week"s reading was about Moses, the deliverer of his people from captivity. Today's reading is about David, the greatest of the kings of Israel. 

But David was not always a great king. Today we see him as the youngest and the least of the many sons of Jesse. Nevertheless, David is chosen over his brothers because,

            Not as man sees does God see,

            because man sees the appearance

            but the Lord looks into the heart.

Today's gospel also deals with a nobody, the poor beggar, blind from birth. I would love to see a film depicting this incident. It would take a great comic actor to portray the role of the blind beggar. In my mind I can visualize Roberto Benigni, the greatest Italian comic actor of our time, in the role. Who can forget his exuberant performance in the Academy Award winner, Life Is Beautiful, or his even more exuberant performance at the ceremony when he won the award.

It is not hard to understand the emotional roller coaster of the blind beggar in today’s gospel.  A man he cannot even see has made a paste of clay and spittle and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. He washes and miraculously begins to see for the first time in his life. What’s the result? People can’t believe their own eyes. They can’t even believe that he is the same person. Then he is dragged into court and interrogated by officials who also refuse to believe their own eyes.

The officials next question the beggar’s parents who testify that their son had indeed been blind from birth. In a way, they are also on trial since it was believed that their son’s blindness was also the result of their sin. We may think that blaming the parents for the son’s blindness is an outmoded and superstitious concept. Yet, still today many people blame their parents for what has gone wrong with their lives. Even worse, many counsellors and psychologists will encourage disturbed people to look back and blame others for their plight and not consider their own responsibility.

Even before he had healed the blind man, Jesus had emphatically denied that physical blindness was the result of sin. He continually insisted that sickness or accidents were not caused by sin but that sin was the result of turning away from the spiritual truth that had been implanted in all our hearts.

The real sin of the Pharisees was in refusing to see what God had done for the blind man. It was as if they would have preferred him to remain in darkness instead of rejoicing at his miraculous gift of sight. Today’s readings are all about seeing and not seeing, about light and darkness. As St. Paul says in the second reading,

Live as children of light,For light produces every kind of goodnessAnd righteousness and truth

The Pharisees are still among us. In fact, we are all prone to see things as they did and to ignore the evidence of our own two eyes. I would like to end with a statement by Anna Jameson, a very great lady of the nineteenth century, who suffered much in her own life. She refliected on a sermon that she had heard in church by a preacher whose preaching sounded like the Pharisees.

.

He is really sublime, this man! with his faith in “the religion of pain,” and “the deification of sorrow!” But is he therefore right? What has he preached to us to-day with all the force of eloquence, all the earnestness of conviction? that “pain is the life of God as shown forth in Christ;”—“that we are to be crucified to the world and the world to us.” This perpetual presence of a crucified God between us and a pitying redeeming Christ, leads many a mourner to the belief that this world is all a Golgotha of pain, and that we are here to crucify each other. Is this the law under which we are to live and strive?
 Surely there is a great difference between the resignation or the endurance of a truthful, faithful, loving, hopeful spirit, and this dreadful theology of suffering as the necessary and appointed state of things! I, for one, will not accept it. Even while most miserable, I will believe in happiness; even while I do or suffer evil, I will believe in goodness; even while my eyes see not through tears, I will believe in the existence of what I do not see—that God is benign, that nature is fair, that the world is not made as a prison or a penance. While I stand lost in utter darkness, I will yet wait for the return of the unfailing dawn,—even though my soul be amazed into such a blind perplexity that I know not on which side to look for it, and ask “where is the East? and whence the dayspring?” For the East holds its wonted place, and the light is withheld only till its appointed time. God so strengthen me that I may think of pain and sin only as accidental apparent discords in his great harmonious scheme of good! Then I am ready—I will take up the cross, and bear it bravely, while I must; but I will lay it down when I can, and in any case I will never lay it on another.

Anyone who can read the gospels can see that Jesus was a healer who came to cure both physical and spiritual suffering. His sacrifice on the Cross showed us the extent we should go to heal the pain and suffering of those entrusted to our care. While we take up our cross, we must never lay it on another.

###

Jesus and the Man Born Blind

                                    4th Sunday of Lent

                                    

 Since Lent began the first reading for each Sunday has presented us with great figures from the Old Testament. First, there was the story of Adam and Eve. Then we heard the story of the calling of Abraham, the father of Israel. Last week"s reading was about Moses, the deliverer of his people from captivity. Today's reading is about David, the greatest of the kings of Israel. 

But David was not always a great king. Today we see him as the youngest and the least of the many sons of Jesse. Nevertheless, David is chosen over his brothers because,

            Not as man sees does God see,

            because man sees the appearance

            but the Lord looks into the heart.

Today's gospel also deals with a nobody, the poor beggar, blind from birth. I would love to see a film depicting this incident. It would take a great comic actor to portray the role of the blind beggar. In my mind I can visualize Roberto Benigni, the greatest Italian comic actor of our time, in the role. Who can forget his exuberant performance in the Academy Award winner, Life Is Beautiful, or his even more exuberant performance at the ceremony when he won the award.

Roberto Benigni

It is not hard to understand the emotional roller coaster of the blind beggar in today’s gospel.  A man he cannot even see has made a paste of clay and spittle and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. He washes and miraculously begins to see for the first time in his life. What’s the result? People can’t believe their own eyes. They can’t even believe that he is the same person. Then he is dragged into court and interrogated by officials who also refuse to believe their own eyes.

The officials next question the beggar’s parents who testify that their son had indeed been blind from birth In a way, they are also on trial since it was believed that their son’s blindness was also the result of their sin. We may think that blaming the parents for the son’s blindness is an outmoded and superstitious concept. Yet, still today many people blame their parents for what has gone wrong with their lives. Even worse, many counsellors and psychologists will encourage disturbed people to look back and blame others for their plight and not consider their own responsibility.

Even before he had healed the blind man, Jesus had emphatically denied that physical blindness was the result of sin. He continually insisted that sickness or accidents were not caused by sin but that sin was the result of turning away from the spiritual truth that had been implanted in all our hearts.

The real sin of the Pharisees was in refusing to see what God had done for the blind man. It was as if they would have preferred him to remain in darkness instead of rejoicing at his miraculous gift of sight. Today’s readings are all about seeing and not seeing, about light and darkness. As St. Paul says in the second reading,

Live as children of light,

For light produces every kind of goodness

And righteousness and truth

The Pharisees are still among us. In fact, we are all prone to see things as they did and to ignore the evidence of our own two eyes. I would like to end with a statement by Anna Jameson, a very great lady of the nineteenth century, who suffered much in her own life. She refliected on a sermon that she had heard in church by a preacher whose preaching sounded like the Pharisees.

He is really sublime, this man! with his faith in “the religion of pain,” and “the deification of sorrow!” But is he therefore right? What has he preached to us to-day with all the force of eloquence, all the earnestness of conviction? that “pain is the life of God as shown forth in Christ;”—“that we are to be crucified to the world and the world to us.” This perpetual presence of a crucified God between us and a pitying redeeming Christ, leads many a mourner to the belief that this world is all a Golgotha of pain, and that we are here to crucify each other. Is this the law under which we are to live and strive?

 Surely there is a great difference between the resignation or the endurance of a truthful, faithful, loving, hopeful spirit, and this dreadful theology of suffering as the necessary and appointed state of things! I, for one, will not accept it. Even while most miserable, I will believe in happiness; even while I do or suffer evil, I will believe in goodness; even while my eyes see not through tears, I will believe in the existence of what I do not see—that God is benign, that nature is fair, that the world is not made as a prison or a penance. While I stand lost in utter darkness, I will yet wait for the return of the unfailing dawn,—even though my soul be amazed into such a blind perplexity that I know not on which side to look for it, and ask “where is the East? and whence the dayspring?” For the East holds its wonted place, and the light is withheld only till its appointed time.

 God so strengthen me that I may think of pain and sin only as accidental apparent discords in his great harmonious scheme of good! Then I am ready—I will take up the cross, and hear it bravely, while I must; but I will lay it down when I can, and in any case I will never lay it on another.

###

Reading 1. 1 Samuel 16: 1b, 6-7, 10-13a

Reading II. Ephesians 5: 8-14

Gospel. John 4: 9: 1-41 (the man born blind).