This is the fourth Sunday of Lent. In two weeks we will be celebrating Easter. Time goes very fast. Since we are almost at the end of Lenten season, today, is an opportunity to see what we have done and what we have to change. Today’s Gospel is about the healing of blind man.
Jesus healed a blind man on the Sabbath day. And this miracle created a conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees. By performing this miracle because Jesus wanted to show his mercy and kindness to the blind man. But also, He wanted to challenge the Pharisees and everyone of us. The blind man was healed physically and spiritually. Physically because he recovered his sight. He could see like anyone. Also he was healed spiritually because he discovered that he is a Messiah. Meanwhile the Pharisees remained blind spiritually. They did not believe that Jesus is the Savior, the Messiah. Even more they said that Jesus cannot be from God, because he does not obey the Sabbath law. They were blind to the Holy Spirit. They had religion but lacked the spirit of Jesus’ love. They were also blind to the suffering and pain right before their eyes. They refused to see pain and injustice. There was no compassion in their hearts. In short, they were truly blind both to the Holy Spirit and to the human misery around them.
Now, this story of blind man challenges us. Because the most awful disease in our world today is spiritual blindness. Such blindness refuses to see the truths of God’s revelation. Such blindness refuses to admit that God exists. As religious people, we do good in worship, prayer life, in receiving sacraments, and in knowledge of the Scripture but we have to admit that we are blind to see the poverty, injustice and pain around us. We have to admit that we are blind because we don’t see the people who need our help, the homeless……the sick…..those who are in the hospital. They need our presence, our visit….our prayers. We are blind people when we ignore the sufferings of our neighbors. We are blind when we are indifferent in our community. We are blind when we are indifferent and we ignore the needs of our community. We are blind when we don’t see Jesus suffering through the sick people. We are blind when we don’t care about those who don’t know God.
Our culture has become indifferent to the violent suffering of the world around us. Our culture, our media, our movies and values are often blind to see the true love and value of life. Our culture is blind to the reality that life begins at the moment of conception, and it callously promotes abortion. Lent is a good time to take stock of how we are affected by this blindness, to see just how blind we have been to Jesus and His call to discipleship, and to realize how often we have preferred to stay blind. Lent is a good time to renew our vision and fix our eyes again on the Savior who came so that we can be assured of forgiveness for such blindness, for the times when Jesus has come to us through his Word and we have been too blind to see Him calling us to action. Lent is time to admit that we are blind and to ask Jesus to remove the root causes of our blindness, namely, self centeredness, greed, anger, hatred, prejudice, jealousy, addiction to evil habits and hardness of heart. For that we have to pray , we have to ask God to open our hearts and eyes so that we become more sensitive to the needs of others.
