Fourth Sunday of Lent (March 25, 2017)

The fourth Sunday of Lent is known as Laetare Sunday – Rejoice Sunday – marking that we are more than halfway through our Lenten journey and so we begin to anticipate the joy of the Risen Lord on Easter.  We wear rose vestments not to celebrate a birthday, but to celebrate the joy of the Risen Lord beginning to invade the Lenten season as we have passed the halfway point in our journey to Easter.

Today we journey in the company of the blind man.  It is the long, often painful, journey of a person who is called to see life in a new way and as a result makes a new commitment.  As his blindness was removed, the man could now see.  The gift of sight is a most precious gift.  But the real message of this Gospel is greater than the gift of sight is the gift of faith.  Jesus bestows not merely sight but a faith-filled insight.  The man born blind eventually sees Jesus, but – a greater gift – he comes to see who Jesus really is. 

The man born blind is symbolic of the human condition.  We need the continuing creation of God, spreading mud on our eyes and washing in the waters of the pool of Siloam. 
Again and again in the course of our spiritual journey, God’s saving work, symbolically opening our eyes, but really opening our hearts, happens through the One who is sent, Jesus Christ.   In the second Scripture reading from the Letter to the Ephesians, Paul challenges us to make this miracle our own:   “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of light.”

As we listen to the story of the man born blind, pray for the discernment of how each one of us is able to have our eyes opened to see the saving power of God calling us to a relationship with Jesus Christ.  As the man born blind witnessed to “that man they call Jesus”, we are to witness to a spiritual sightedness that was not from birth, but one that we have learned through life experience.

The Scriptures invite us to reflect how has the season of Lent has revealed to you your “blindness” and your need for Christ’s light, Christ’s reconciliation?
As hopefully I advance in wisdom, age and grace, I can recall experiences in my journey of life where a blindness has been removed, and I can see more clearly the light of Christ.
In preparation for ordination to the priesthood, I spent 12 years in the seminary from age 14 to 26.  In those days, seminary formation was on the rigid side.  Discipline was a high priority.  In my seminary formation, I don’t recall any faculty member asking if I have experienced the love of Jesus or the love of another human being.  My seminary training was invaluable in learning some significant life values but the relational side of life and spirituality wasn’t a high priority.  The emphasis was on obedience and discipline and rule-keeping.

It took some years of priestly ministry to come to the experience of letting myself be loved and really valuing the relational side of prayer and ministry.  Being loved in healthy ways opened my eyes to experiencing God’s love for me.

In your own journey of faith, how much have you opened   yourself up to being loved?  The spiritual sightedness we seek is to know the depth of God’s love for us, how Jesus embraces us with open arms.  I suggest we will not know the depth of God’s unending love for us if we do not let ourselves be loved by others.

There is no way to over-emphasize the priority of knowing we are God’s beloved sons and daughters.  This is the spiritual sightedness that the man born blind came to.
The real darkness in my life and in yours is not knowing how much we are God’s beloved.
Another ongoing blindness that we can wrestle with is control and telling God how we want our future planned, rather than opening up ourselves to the sightedness of God’s plan for our life.  Yes, God’s plan for your life and mine does not include a free pass from the challenges of life.   In some form or fashion, the cross is going to be a part of your life and mine.   When we can trust in God’s love for us while we are experiencing the cross the in our life,  we come to know the sightedness of the man born blind in the Gospel.  The question is how much of our life plans can we let go of, trusting not just another person but trusting the unseen mystery of God’s unending love for us? 

Trusting another is a most precious quality of the friendships of our life.  Even more so, trusting in God’s unending love for us is the sightedness that overcomes much blindness in our lives.

Trusting in God is easy to talk about, but it is a blindness we struggle with in the face of the crosses of life that turn our life upside down.

Another source of blindness can be in our in ability to find our own voice, the courage to follow our own intuition, like the Samaritan woman in last Sunday’s Gospel who went from being an outcast, an outsider to being the person who invited others to come to know Jesus.

We have within ourselves the wellspring of eternal life.  May we have the sightedness to tap into our inner voice, our inner strength.  This past week I had the privilege of sharing with some of our 15 year old Confirmation candidates.  It filled my heart with considerable joy to listen to these teenage parishioners speak of their desire to serve and to help others in visiting a nursing home and in using their gift of music to bring prayer and joy into the lives of others.  They are beautiful witnesses of God’s love that flows from deep within their spirit.

In our parish life, there were many more examples of people finding their inner voice that comes from their journey of faith.   But  yes, we need to be patient.  God isn’t finished with us yet.  There is still blindness in the eyes and hearts of each of us. 

May the grace of this Lenten season continue to go with us as we journey from spiritual blindness to living in the light and joy of the Risen Lord.

Have a blessed day.