Fourth Sunday of Lent A.
March 2, 2008. Our Lady of Grace 7:30, 11:30, 6PM.
I Samuel 16: 1b, 6-7, 10-13a. Ephesians 5: 8-14. John 9: 1-41.
When Helen Keller was nineteen months old she developed a
brain fever that left her both blind and unable to hear. As a small child
she was plunged into total silence and darkness. For five years Helen Keller
was trapped within herself. Then Anne Sullivan entered her life to set Helen
Keller free. Anne Sullivan had lost most of her sight by the time
she was five. She and her brother were moved to a house for the destitute
poor after her mother died when Anne was 10 and her father deserted
them. Without any training except her own experience of limited
sight to guide her, Anne Sullivan moved into the darkness and silence of Helen
Keller’s life. She ran water from a pump over Helen’s hand and
spelled the word water with her finger in the girl’s free hand. Anne
Sullivan had begun to teach Helen Keller how to see and hear in a world of darkness
and silence. Helen Keller lived to be 88 years old. She died as a
national hero, a woman of courage and a daring teacher in the struggle to
overcome great limitations in life. Before she died Helen Keller received
the Presidential Medal of Freedom and her funeral was celebrated by thousands
at the National Cathedral in
When Jesus entered the world of the man born blind he was
after much more than the healing of the blind man’s eyes. After the blind man
was healed of his physical blindness Jesus found him and said to him, “Do
you believe in the Son of Man?” Jesus had sent the blind man to wash
in the pool of Siloam after he had placed clay made with saliva on the blind
man’s eyes. Having been healed at the pool, the blind man who could now
see had never seen Jesus. So when Jesus found him and asked if he believed in
the Son of man, the blind man answered, “Who is he, sir that I may believe
in him?” Jesus said, “You have seen him. He is the one
speaking to you now.” The man who was born blind but could now see
said, “I do believe” and he bowed down and worshipped Jesus. The
man’s blindness was not completely healed until he could see and recognize who
Jesus was and accept Jesus as the light of his life and the light that shines
in a world of darkness.
The Pharisees could see with their bodily eyes, but they
were blind spiritually. The Pharisees said to Jesus, “Surely we are not also
blind, are we?” Jesus said to them. “If you were blind, you would
have no sin. But because you are saying, “We can see” you sin remains.” With
our eyes wide open and healthy we can live in spiritual darkness. It is
spiritual not physical blindness that is most dangerous because it can cause us
to fall into the pit of not seeing things are they are in the real world, the
world of God’s Kingdom, the world that will endure forever.
Let me give you some examples of spiritual blindness:
Jesus came to teach us that God is love. In fact, God
is a furnace of love as the Trinity of three divine persons totally loving one
another and totally loving the world. If we base our lives on a world of
competition, power, greed and materialism we are simply spiritually blind to
the true nature of the universe in which we live. While there are
many good things in God’s creation, to make anything other than love the goal
and meaning of our lives is to live in darkness and spiritual blindness.
Spiritual blindness about love being the perfection of human and divine life
eventually leads us to a pit of great suffering.
Love is about self-giving and not getting
Love is about truth and not about the blindness of
popularity. Jesus died on the cross mocked by a jeering crowd who
expressed the opinion of the majority. Jesus said, “I have come to
bear witness to the truth and everyone who is of the truth listens to my
voice.” As he handed Jesus over to the fury of the majority, the mob,
Pilate said, “What is truth?” Surrendering to what everyone is
doing rather than to what is right and good is a spiritual blindness that leads
to great unhappiness as quickly as the mob changes its mind and the opinion of
today’s majority passes away.
Jesus said, “While I am in the world, I am the light of
the world.” Spiritual blindness and spiritual darkness are very
dangerous things for us when we are very sure that we can see. Lent is
about healing the eyes of our souls so that we can see with the new sight that
only Jesus can give us. Paul told the Ephesians, “Brothers and
sisters; You were once darkness, but now you are light
in the Lord. Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of
goodness and righteousness and truth. Try to learn what is pleasing to
the Lord. Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness.”
What a tragedy it would be to walk through life with good
eyesight at the same time that we are blind to the great spiritual truths that
lead to a successful human life. For Jesus who saves us from the
blindness and the darkness around us we give God thanks and praise.