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Sunday 4 of Lent (A): Willful blindness – John 9
In life, we can often choose what to see and what not to see. That applies not only to our bodily eyes, but
also to the eyes of our understanding and to the eyes of faith. If we want to, we can close our eyes or avert our gaze from
almost anything; in the same way, we can choose not to understand and not to believe. Of course, closing ones eyes is different
from being blind – closed eyes are a choice, blindness is not. Likewise, there are those who choose not to understand,
as well as those who just cannot understand. There are those who choose not to believe despite possessing the gift of faith,
as well as those who have not been given that gift.
The Gospel of the blind man is about the healing of those who cannot see but want to see, and the judgment
of those who, though able to see, refuse to open their eyes. It is not always easy to distinguish who will not believe from those who cannot. The Lord alone is the judge
of that. Jesus says of the Pharisees: “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, ‘we see.’
So your sin remains.” In other words, because they can believe, their refusal
to do so is sinful. Why would they choose not to believe? Well, for the same reason someone would not want to see something
offensive or understand something painful. That is, the Pharisees did not like what they saw when they saw Jesus. They did
not believe in him because he was not what they expected, demanded even. They expected to see only what they liked, namely,
another kind of Messiah. They wanted an Alexander the Great, or a Jewish Julius Caesar. They wanted a combined clone of Moses,
David and Elijah, powerful signs from heaven and political and military supremacy. Their vision of the kingdom of God
was one of worldly prestige, dominance and prosperity. In a word, they wanted the Messiah to be, to think, to act and to react
like themselves. He had to fit in, to be one of them. They had interpreted the Old Testament to suit themselves. They were
not attentive to its message that the Messiah would come in humility, to suffer and to die for the sin of mankind and thus
to transform the world. Jesus the carpenter was therefore a scandal and an outrage to them. They did not want to see in Jesus
what God wanted them to see, because it meant letting go of their own power, plans and wealth. Jesus made them face a new
vision that required change or conversion. But they averted their gaze. They did not like it, so they closed their hearts
and they killed him.
Christ still scandalizes. He still faces men with a vision of life, of a way of being, which is humble, obedient
and chaste, but against which the arrogant, self-willed and unchaste part of us rebels. We buy so easily the standards of
the world because they cater to our selfishness. For the world, freedom is almost unlimited license to indulge arrogance and
self-righteousness; for Christ, it is the power to obey the truth of God with love and humility, always and everywhere. For
the world, success is money, property and fame; for Christ it is charity. For the world, riches are almost exclusively of
the material order; for Christ, they are the fruits of divine grace. Christ’s values show up the world’s values
to be fake, and people do not like that. He places the meaning of life beyond death, which angers those who fear or deny death,
and seek eternity in the here and now. Is this not the deepest reason for the persecution of the Church and for the orchestrated
and increasingly effective campaign to remove Christianity from the sight of society?
If we say we see, yet lead our lives as if Christ were irrelevant, then we allow sin to blind us. To come
to Christ at the altar but abandon him in the street, is to walk in blindness; sooner or later you must stumble and fall.
To recognize Jesus in the abstract only is not to recognize him at all. In fact, it is worse than rejecting him outright.
For the Pharisees the Messiah was an abstraction, a figment of their own selfish imagination. For the blind man, Jesus was
anything but abstract. Being Christian is not about inventing our own version of Jesus, but of letting Jesus open our eyes
to see him as he truly is. And we can only find him if we look for him where he has made himself available: in the Church,
in the sacraments, in the bible, in charity, prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We make a tragic mistake if we confine him to
the sacristy. If he waits for us there, it is only so that we will lead him into every corner of our lives, including the
darkest ones. Do not try to fool the Light by pretending there is no darkness in your life, lest, seeing the door of your
heart closed, he must with great sadness leave you in the fantasy world of your own blindness. Open your eyes and keep them
open so that Christ can shine in you and, through you, into the darkness of the world!
Msgr. Peter Magee
Sunday, March
6th, 2005: St. Andrew Apostle, Silver
Spring: 8.30 am
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