Homily for March 6, 2005
Liturgical Year A-Cycle I
4th Sunday of Lent
by Fr. John Carney
Topic: Blinded by Darkness
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Gospel: 
John 9: 1- 41
As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him. We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes, and said to him,  "Go wash in the Pool of Siloam"--which means Sent--. So he went and washed, and came back able to see.

His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said, "Isn't this the one who used to sit and beg?" Some said, "It is," but others said, "No, he just looks like him." He said, "I am." So they said to him, "How were your eyes opened?" He replied, "The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' So I went there and washed and was able to see." And they said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I don't know."

They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees. Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a Sabbath. So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see. He said to them, "He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see." So some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath." But others said, "How can a sinful man do such signs?" And there was a division among them. So they said to the blind man again, "What do you have to say about him, since he opened your eyes?" He said, "He is a prophet."

Now the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight. They asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How does he now see?" His parents answered and said, "We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. We do not know how he sees now, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age; he can speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged him as the Christ, he would be expelled from the synagogue. For this reason his parents said, "He is of age; question him."

So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, "Give God the praise! We know that this man is a sinner." He replied, "If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see." So they said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered them, "I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?" They ridiculed him and said, "You are that man's disciple; we are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from." The man answered and said to them, "This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything." They answered and said to him, "You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?" Then they threw him out.

When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, he found him and said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered and said, "Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, the one speaking with you is he." He said, "I do believe, Lord," and he worshiped him. Then Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind."

Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not also blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, 'We see,' so your sin remains."

Did you get all that?  We were talking before Mass, Deacon Ray and I, and John’s Gospel is loaded.  Week after week we’ve been hearing from John.  You say, “Wait a minute, wait a minute.  Stop.  Let me figure out what that last sentence meant before we get on to the next one.” 

This miracle story of the blind man who was born blind and cured is somewhat unique, very different than most miracles.  In most miracles the person is cured as a result of his or her faith.  They approach Jesus, speak to him, touch the hem of his garment, or express their faith in him, or whatever, and then they’re cured.  But in this case it was Jesus who approached the blind man and the blind man showed his faith in Christ only after he had been cured.  This is a different kind of miracle story for different reasons.  The reason the blind man was cured was so that God’s glory might be shown to those around him.  The blind man was given sight in order to expose the spiritual blindness of everyone else.  The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a bunch of sinners; his neighbors who showed no compassion or joy that he had been cured. Even some jealousy is suggested with the Pharisees whose hypocrisy is always on display.  It’s that great sin of hypocrisy.  Even his parents, when he looks upon them, didn’t want to get in trouble with the religious authorities.  They say, “Well, you ask him.”   His parents, who should’ve been delighted and given praise to Christ, to God, for this great miracle, instead almost denied him as their son.  They were cowardly in their fear. 

Jesus brought the blind man out of darkness so that others might be brought out of the darkness of sin.  Before that can happen, one has to admit and recognize that one is a sinner.  That’s true for many things.  You can’t fix something until you admit there’s a problem, right?  And you can’t approach the sin in your life until you first examine it and admit that you are a sinner. 

Everyone in this story is spiritually blind.  Frankly, every one of us, to a greater or lesser extent, is spiritually blind.  We will be until we see God as God sees God and that won’t happen on this side of heaven.  Sin is real.  It is deadly.  It kills the soul.  It damns to hell, sin does.  If there’s no sin, there’s no need of a savior.  If there are no consequences for sin then the Passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord, doesn’t mean anything.  Some people say, “Oh there’s sin but everyone gets to Heaven anyhow.”  Well, what was that all about?  (Pointing to the crucifix.)  If that’s the case why did he do that?  Just for a show?  Modern Christianity has been mistakenly described as “A God without wrath, who brought humans without sin, into God’s Kingdom without judgment, through a Christ without a cross.”  In church after church today, in the United States, people are going and listening to some wonderful message from the preacher telling them how good they are, and how wonderful everything is.  But it’s not true.  We are no different than the people that surrounded that man who was cured 2000 years ago.  We suffer from spiritual blindness, each and every one of us. 

Now some, we might say more than others, are in the deep darkness of sin.  Murderers and people who are selling drugs, and we’re not doing that, I hope.  But that doesn’t mean we’re not blind.  As a matter of fact, we, who know Christ, are more culpable than those who do not know Him.  That’s why, in this journey towards Christ, you’re never there.  The closer we are to God, the closer we are to the Light of Christ, and the more aware you and I should be of our blemishes.  It’s like when you go to those fancy hotels with the big lights over the vanity, you don’t want to see what you look like.  You see lots of blemishes you didn’t notice before and that’s the way it is. 

Some people are blinded by the darkness.  They’re steeped in sin. Those, who are even closer to Christ, are blinded by Christ and aware of their sinfulness.  Mother Theresa, every day of her life, admitted her sinfulness and I consider her, we consider her I’m sure, a saint.  Many deny their culpability for sin, their personal blame for sin, and therefore sin, itself.  If you’re not responsible, you didn’t sin.  Remember the old Confiteor in Latin.  We used to say, “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”  “Through my fault, through my fault”, and we used to beat our chest, “through my most grievous fault”.  That was translated now into Spanish, a very close translation, “Por mi culpa, por mi culpa, por mi gran culpa.”  However, in English, for some reason, we only have one guilt and we only strike our breast once.  Guilt, yes, we’re guilty. 

Sometimes we’re better about explaining away sin than admitting it and dealing with it.  Parents make excuses for their children.  There was a piece in Time Magazine a few weeks ago.  I’m sure many of you saw it about one of the most difficult things that teachers have to deal with is parents.  It is parents who are not working with them to ensure their child gets the best education but are fighting the teacher because they know their child’s perfect and the teacher’s obviously not aware of that.  Now there’s none of those cases in our town but in other cities this is a real problem.  Even later, misbehaving adults blame their childhood.  That’s very common today.  Flip Wilson used to say, “The devil made me do it.”   Now we say, “My mother’s responsible.” “My mother did it.”  I say, if your mother liked your sister more than you, then just get over it.  And the more I encounter these people, the more I understand why their mother preferred their sister. 

Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the snake.  Nobody’s responsible.  It’s not my fault.  Bishop Fulton Sheen once said, “In the past, Catholics believed Our Lady was immaculately conceived but now we believe that we are all immaculately conceived.”  The point is that we’re fighting the fight.  We admit our sinfulness, our weakness, and we ask God for strength.  Paul encourages us.  He tells us, “Brothers and sisters, you were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” (Eph 5:8) We are his children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth.  We’re never there and so, I think we have to, all of us, admit that to one degree or another. We are blind spiritually and we need to do something about it by at least, on a daily basis, examining our conscience.  It’s an old Catholic term.  Make a good examination of conscience, preferably, as you go to bed at night.  Just review the day.  Accuse yourself according to how you acted, how you spoke.  Challenge yourself on your selfishness, on your lack of compassion for others.  Then tell God you’re sorry and get up and give it another try tomorrow.  That’s all He asks of us.  We’ll never be there but the journey is worth it. 

We all know this prayer in our hearts and I’d like to say it now together and mean every word that we speak.

I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do; and I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.

May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us all to everlasting life.  Amen.