March 19, 2023 - Fourth Sunday of Lent

The Word of God for this 4th Sunday of Lent invites us to develop more spiritual sight. We might call this insight, seeing from the heart. In our first reading from the First Book of Samuel we are told, “Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart.” In our Gospel story, the man born blind is not only physically healed of his blindness; he also develops more spiritual insight all the while the Pharisees are becoming spiritually blind. He moves first from not knowing Jesus (“the man called Jesus”), to then calling him a prophet, to later calling him a man sent from God, and finally after seeing Jesus again, he calls him “Lord” and it says that “he worshipped him”. This once blind man now sees from his heart. Unlike the Pharisees, he sees with a deeper insight that is of God. The story invites us to ask ourselves: How are we spiritually blind? For example, are we all too ready to stereotype others and judge quickly by appearance as does the prophet Samuel in the first reading? Or like the Pharisees, does our strong insistence on the law of God cause us to miss the love of God which might just be working outside our religious system as did Jesus? Are we letting our fears get in the way of seeing from the heart and standing up for what is right as do the parents of the blind man? In our second reading St. Paul reminds us that Christ brings light, life, and love into our lives that we may no longer be blinded by prejudice, rigidity, or fear. He tells us to open our eyes to the light and seek to see as God sees with insight; that is, from the heart with love! Fr. John Mark Ettensohn, OMI (Homily given by Fr. Scott Hill, OMI)