In the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Jesus
cured a man who was born blind. For the very first time, the man saw colors,
faces, sky and clouds, trees and birds. How different the world was after his
encounter with Jesus! How great his joy and gratitude must have been!
People
were amazed at what happened to him! However, many did not believe: “His
neighbors and the people who used to see him before, when he was a beggar, said,
‘Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some said, ‘Yes, it is the same
one.’ Others said, ‘No but he looks like him.’ The man himself said, ‘I am the
one.’” They could not accept that Jesus had performed a miracle and God was
present in him. There is a similar prejudice in modern culture that relegates
the divine to the sphere of subjectivity and fails to acknowledge God’s
intervention in real history.
When
the man who had been blind was brought to the Pharisees, their position became
evident. They did not examine him attentively. They asked the man repeatedly:
“‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He replied, ‘I have told
you once and you wouldn’t listen.’” They were not listening. They did not
acknowledge the miracle. They had already decided that it was impossible for
Jesus to have cured the man.
The
position of the formerly blind man was very different. When the Pharisees said
to him that Jesus was a sinner and the miracle was impossible, he answered:
“Whether he is a sinner, I do not know; all I know is that I was blind and now I
can see.” He responds by citing his own experience. He does not have any theory
about Jesus. He only knows what happened to him. The man born blind was faithful
to his experience of Jesus. He was a free man before the authority of the
Pharisees, who banned him from the synagogue. Our personal experience of Jesus’
impact on our lives makes us free before any kind of authority. We are free if
we retain the memory of our encounter with Christ.
In
the second reading, Saint Paul says to the Ephesians: “You were once darkness,
but now you are light in the Lord.” The same miracle also happened to us. We,
too, passed from darkness to light, as did the blind man. When did this happen?
This happened on the day of our baptism. However, our blindness persists. It is
hard for us to see that Jesus is present in our lives. We share the modern
attitude that God is remote. Certainly, we all believe in God. However, many
times we live as if He did not exist or were of secondary importance. Our
interests come first.
Why
does this happen? Perhaps it is because we think that if we let God enter more
into our lives, we'd risk losing something. Basically, we suspect that God is
against us. This suspicion began with our first parents in Paradise.
We
heard in the first reading that David was preferred, chosen, anointed and loved
by God. We, too, were anointed at our baptism. We constantly need to rediscover
the grace of our baptism. Jesus’ love makes it possible for us to conquer all
the darkness that persists in our lives. Jesus’ love heals our blindness.
Through him, we can discover the light that gives color and joy to everything.
Our
encounter with Christ conquers our spiritual blindness. It brings a new light
into our lives, a new vision of reality. After our encounter with Christ, our
perceptions of ourselves, people and things change radically. We see in a way
that we never saw before! We start sharing Jesus’ vision of reality.
Let
us ask Jesus to heal our blindness and grant us His vision of reality!
In the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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