Holmily for the 4th Sunday of Lent

Christ Will Be Your Light

We are further into Lent. From the temptations we pass to the transfiguration and from there to the meeting of Jesus with the Samaritan woman. The liturgy, the readings of each Sunday are going to centre on the figure of Christ. Finally the whole of Lent will orientate towards remembering intensely those days of Passover in Jerusalem, in which Jesus lived his own personal Passover.

Lent is a very personal journey   in encountering Jesus, discovering his person. Without this meeting we can do nothing.  We speak a lot about morals, the Christian life, the Community, the Sacraments and many other things. But the basic need, the essential point is our encounter with Jesus.
To discover that Jesus is a living person who today directs me and personally invites me to follow him and to participate in his project of building up the Kingdom.

The Gospel of this Sunday marks another milestone in this getting closer to the person of Jesus It reminds us of the cure of the man born blind. The Pharisees question not only the miracle but also the new ability of seeing given the blind man. For them it isn’t enough to see with good eyes and distinguish forms and figures. There is another form of seeing, of knowing, in interpreting what they see. The Pharisees say that the blind man was born blind as a result of sin, and because of this, they couldn’t understand clearly what they saw.

“I Washed And I See”

Nevertheless the blind man didn’t sin from imprudence. He recovered his physical sight thanks to the action of Jesus. It is certain that he was blind and that in a determined moment he began to see. Before he didn’t see, now he sees. Because of this his first reply to the Pharisees’ question is simple. “He put mud on my eyes. I washed and I saw”. There is nothing more to say.

What happened is that the Pharisees wanted to pick holes. They asked him what he thought and the blind man said that it was obvious. He who made him well and resorted sight to the blind must be more that a prophet. He went a step further. He said what he thought, what he saw although at the cost of being rejected by society, by the Pharisees.

But still there was something else to do. He lacked a true encounter with Jesus; he wanted to meet Jesus again. What followed was a moment of dialogue between the two, the intimate encounter with Jesus that resulted with the confession “I believe, Lord”.

"I Believe Lord.”

Here in a few words the Gospel writer tells us the process of conversion as a result of the encounter with Jesus, the discovery of Jesus as the Lord of our Life, as he who gives meaning to all that we do, to our way of relating with others, to our work, to the political commitments, to our relationship as couples. Jesus animates every form of life and always in accordance with the Kingdom. And we, having met him, commit ourselves to living in the same way because we understand that it is well worth it that is the best treasure that we can have in life. As Paul says everything else is worthless compared   to Christ.

In Jesus we have discovered the true light that illumines our life and the life of the world. In Jesus we can recover our sight. We can see more than what the eyes of our body see. In Jesus we learn to see with the heart and mind. In Jesus, in his light, everything recovers its meaning.

Now is the moment to go further with this commentary and seek the moment and opportunity to meet personally with Jesus. Don’t try to read a book, although that can help. In the end, the moment comes when we have to shut the book and enter our interior to speak with Jesus, one to one. To let him heal us, to think over his words and his style of living; To listen when he asks, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” and reply with a firm voice “I believe Lord” and go out to the world and fill it with the lift of Christ.