The Gospel According to John, which in so many ways
sets the tone for the second half of Lent, portrays Jesus performing a series
of miracles, which John calls “signs.” The specific “sign” in today’s Gospel is
a truly monumental miracle, for, as the formerly blind man himself testifies to
the authorities, it was unheard of
that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind.
Just as the man blind
from birth receives physical sight, so he is also gradually given
increasing insight into who Jesus is, culminating in his
profession of faith, “I do believe,
Lord.” Meanwhile, he receives his sight through a series of steps in which
he participates as instructed. Jesus spits on the ground, makes a kind of clay
with the saliva, smears it on the man’s eyes, and tells him to wash in the Pool
of Siloam. The man goes, washes, and returns able to see.
Meanwhile, we watch this unnamed (hence,
universal) man develop his insight into who Jesus is - a growth in faith which exactly
parallels the increasing unbelief of Jesus’ adversaries, who can
certainly see with their physical eyes but are spiritually blind - obstinately
so. Physically the Pharisees could see, but spiritually they would
not see, because they already knew with absolute certitude
that Jesus was not from God. Unlike
the disability of the man blind from
birth, theirs was a willful choice not to see.
God, however, has his own way of acting as the story
of God’s surprising selection of an insignificant shepherd as Israel’s king
illustrates. Not as we see does God
see. What God does can come as a complete surprise. Likewise, what God
wants of us may also be a surprise.
The blind man’s meeting with Jesus caused him
literally to see everything in an altogether new light – all because he
had first been seen by Jesus himself and had gone where Jesus had sent him,
allowing something new and different happen to him when Jesus entered his
life. It’s easy to appreciate why the Church chose this Gospel account to
express what happens when one turns one’s life around and obeys Jesus’
command to go and wash in the waters of baptism. What happens is a wonderfully
new and bright outlook on life. At the
same time, it is also an enormous challenge. Embracing belief in Christ opens
one to a new life of faith and worship, but also potentially puts one at odds
with the darkness that still seems to dominate the world. Saying “Yes” to Jesus
inevitably means saying “No” to other options.
The Scrutiny ceremony which we celebrate today is
specifically for the Elect in the final phase of preparation for baptism, for
whom this Lenten season is intended to be an especially transformative
time, just as the blind man’s encounter with Jesus proved totally
transforming for him. The new birth of baptism, the gift of the Holy Spirit,
and communion with Christ in the Eucharist are fundamentally transformative
experiences,
intended to empower the baptized to live
as children of light, producing every
kind of goodness.
Lent, however, is for all of us. Certainly,
we must not imagine that catechumens are the only sinners in our midst
in need of conversion. All of us are being challenged to continuing
conversion throughout our entire lives. And so we join with the elect
today in praying to God for the grace to overcome the power of sin that still infects
our own hearts. Lent is our opportunity to be changed, as was the
blind man, and to be challenged, as were the Pharisees, to reject our own blind
spots and to respond anew to Jesus’ invitation to live in the light.
Baptism, for which the elect are in the final phase
of preparation, is but the first sacrament of conversion, the first
sacramental remedy for sin. The challenge to live as children of light in fact and to keep on producing every kind of goodness remains an ongoing
one. The conversion to which we are all called is a continuing challenge to say
“Yes” to Christ and “No” to other alternatives, a challenge which continues
throughout the entire course of life. It obviously does not cease
with baptism. For us who are already baptized, therefore, we may avail
ourselves of the second sacrament of forgiveness - what the early Church
charmingly called “the second plank after shipwreck” – the sacrament of
Penance, in which, through the ministry of the Church, we receive forgiveness
from God for the sins we commit after baptism and so may be repeatedly
reconciled with God and with his Church.
As Walter Cardinal Kasper recently reminded us in
his address to the College of Cardinals last month, “the entire Christian life
is one of penance, that is, a life of repeatedly new rethinking and
reorientation.” He went on to that our frequent forgetting of this and our
neglect of the sacrament of penance “is one of the deepest wounds of
contemporary Christianity.”
The
sacrament of penance is available all year, but is especially and more widely
available in this Lenten season. So, even if we manage to do little else during
this Lent, let us at least make it a point to do that.
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