Fourth Sunday of Lent

Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a, Ephesians 5:8-14, John 9:1-41

 

 

Dear sisters and brothers,

 

Today we are invited to meditate, to think deeply, about sight, blindness, light and darkness. This is a theme that runs through all of our readings today and is so very important in this time of Lent.

The Prophet Samuel has his own ideas about who should be king, even though he is quite faithful to all that the Lord tells him. The Lord tells him not to pay attention to appearances and yet in the end we are told that David, the chosen king, was a youth handsome to behold and making a splendid appearance. The point of the reading seems to be that the only important reality is that which God chooses. We must come to see as God sees. Quite often we are blinded in this life because we are seeking what we want and not what God wants.

The letter to the Ephesians underlines this point: we are blinded and dead and must begin to see and live in the light. The only way to live in the light is to live in God. The more faithful we are to God and to God’s will in our lives, the more clearly, we shall see and understand all that takes place around us.

Then we have this enormously long Gospel about the man born blind who is cured by Jesus. The first teaching of the Gospel is that sickness is not a punishment for sin. This is always important. There is a lot of history, and not only Christian history, that makes sickness something related to our sinful deeds. Jesus wants to make clear that sinfulness and sickness are not connected that way. That does not mean that we cannot make ourselves sick on sin! It is just that there is not a one-to-one relationship between sickness and sin. If I tell a small white lie, I won’t get some sickness from it—except perhaps some moral sickness!

The second teaching is one common to many of Jesus’ actions: the Sabbath is made for us and we are not made for the Sabbath. This means that there is nothing wrong in keeping a holy day, but that keeping a day holy does not mean stopping acts of love and caring for others. Jesus is always clear that He did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them. The fulfillment is always love.

A third teaching is that we must not be afraid to proclaim the goodness of the Lord and the Lord’s actions in our lives when that is asked of us. The parents of the blind man don’t want to get involved in religious controversy and they find ways to sidestep any involvement. One would think that they would be delighted that their son could now see, but instead they show a fear of what the religious authorities might do.

So today, we can pray for light and vision in our own lives and in our Church. May the Lord  continue to form us as His followers. May we have courage to see and to proclaim what we see. May we have God’s own life at work within us so that we can grow more and more aware of the divine reality that surrounds us. May our hearts become more divine in this time of Lent.

Peace and all good!

Fr. Valery Burusu

Parochial Administrator