Fourth Sunday in Lent

1.      The season of Lent was mainly designed as a preparation for those who were interested in joining the Christian community as Christians. As the practice of infant baptisms increased and fewer people joined the Church as adults, Lent became a preparation for Easter especially for the faithful who kept their duties of keeping the Sabbath holy.

          However we still have Adults who wan to join this faith Community and so Lent has been restored to the is former purpose: viz journeying with the Catechumens who will be baptised at the Easter Vigil. The Sunday Gospels although long, pick up on the baptismal themes;

Last Sunday it was the Samaritan Woman which highlighted Baptismal Water

Today is the Story of the Man born blind which highlights Baptismal Candle/light

Next Sunday it will be the Raising of Lazarus which highlights Baptismal New life.

2.      I could give a weekend retreat with any of these three stories, they are so rich for meditation and prayer. However, since I am limited in time and there is a rush to get out of the parking lot, I will limit myself to three reflections connected with journey. We can either enjoy a journey or endure a journey. It is a matter of “my goodness, how quickly time has flown” as opposed to “are we there yet.” This depends very much on those journeying with us.     

          As in the case of the Tales of Chaucer - the Pilgrims on the way to Canterbury, we have three groups here: The Parents, the Scribes and the Pharisees and the Blind Man.

a.       THE PARENTS. As parent you love your children very much. I know my parents did, and I tell my mother even today: you are Killing me softly with your kindness. They make sacrifices and they never stop worrying over us. So why are the Parents of the Blind man so indifferent about their Blind Son. They tell the Pharisees, “He is our child. He was born blind. But why are you questioning us. Ask him yourselves, he is old enough to answer you.”

In Canada of in the States if we see an injustice, we can do something about it. We call our MP, our Congress representative, the Labour Relations board or an Ombudsman. However if you have lived in countries where there is no democracy, where are repressive regimes, you will understand the attitude and mentality of the Parents in our Gospel. InHaiti for instance, if today your child is killed, you quietly bury your child. You do not demand justice from the police, because you might be the next to be killed. The parents of the Blind Man were terrified of Authorities, both Roman and Temple authorities. If you challenged the Scribes and Pharisees they could ostracize you. Hence there was an apparent lack of cooperation.

Many of us on our journey are like the parents - not with regards to the children, but with regards to our faith ad living it out in a secular society. We are afraid of the ridicule, being ostracised, being thought of as being strange or religious fanatics. And so like the parents in the Gospel we will try to pass the buck, shift the responsibility.

B.      THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES: Here were a group of people who built up little fortresses around themselves with laws, rituals, customs and traditions. Each year they increased these fortifications with more minor rules and regulations. They had religion but no God. Religion was man made safeguards to help us come closer to God, to lead us to God. Religion was meant to be roads signs pointing to God, meant to be spiritual exercises, limbering up for the journey.

But the Scribes and Pharisees made religion an end in itself. They could not admit to a miracle being done by Jesus. If they did so, then they would have to acknowledge that everything Jesus said and taught was true. They would have to admit that Jesus was the Messiah, because Isaiah had said that when the Messiah came

  the blind would see

 the deaf and mute would hear and speak

 the poor would have the Good news preached to them

And that is precisely what Jesus was doing. However, if they did admit that then they would have to give up their prestigious position in society, they would have to give up their fringe benefits of honour, they would have to give up their places on the pedestals they built for themselves. And they were not willing to sacrifice those benefits. And so they question the former Blind man not once but twice, they question his parents, and finally when all this does not work - they throw the Blind man out of the Temple, the very thing the Parents were afraid would happen to themselves.

This in fact does reflect our own lifestyles. We are willing to be Christians provided it means coming for Mass on Sundays, baptising our babies, getting married in the Church, giving our Sunday envelopes. But are we willing to hear the cry of the poor, go the extra mile with the stranger or the new immigrant, willing to spend hours in the waiting room at the hospital with a senior who has no relatives. It calls for us to have patience with the teenager, kindness to the homeless, the squeegee kid at the intersection during summer. Sometimes, we are like the Blind Man before the cure, we do not even see these people.

c.       This brings us to the Blind Man. Although this is called the cure of the Man born Blind, neither the man nor his blindness are at the centre of the picture. Rather as Jesus says at the beginning of the Story, it is a story of the Glory of God. We think of ourselves as ordinary run of the mill Christians. But then God’s amazing Grace implodes on us and wonderful things happen.

In our TV murder stories: Law and Order, CSI, JAG or Murder she wrote: there is a murder, a suspect and arrest and a conviction and punishment to fit the crime all in one hour. Our Gospel today is of the same genre. It is a story of life imitating Art. A blind person is a disabled person, with a poor self image, at the mercy of others people’s kindness. And then God enters his life.

 He become assertive. “I am the blind man who is cured”

 He is talkative: he tells his story not once but several times.

 He won’t back down. People talk around him as if he is not present. He affirms he is the Blind man that was cured.

 He is rude and cheeky: “Do you want to be his disciples too.”

 He believes: “Tell me who the Messiah is that I may believe.”

Ending One:       

 This last statement echoes the Statement of the Samaritan Woman in last Sunday’s Gospel - and thus brings us to where we started today: Our Lent is to journey with our RCIA candidates. At the end of this Season, together with the Samaritan Woman and the Blind Man they too will say “I believe.” For those of us who were catholics from infancy - may we take this time to deepen our faith.

Ending two:        

 From being a Blind man, he now becomes a prophet. He pays the price of being a prophet, of speaking on God’s behalf. He is thrown out of the Temple. From being a nobody, he becomes the centre of attention, and he is back to being a nobody.  He is a Blind Man, there is a miraculous cure, he is excommunicated.

Like the Samaritan Woman in Last Sunday’s Gospel, he too will say “I Believe”. And thus he becomes both a model to imitate and a pattern to follow.

          However, do not be surprised to find that we have in ourselves all these three personalities: the diffidence and fear of the Parents, the stubbornness and unwillingness to be open to the truth of the Pharisees (when it disturbs our comfort zone.) And the bewilderment, the confusion followed by belief of the Blind man. The beauty is that in any and all of these we can allow the Glory of God to be seen ! Think about it.

God bless you all.