[00:00] Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever. Today's Gospel is taken from John 9, and it's the story of the man born blind. It's a story about sight. I usually don't start out homilies this way, but it reminded me of two things. One, it reminded me of why the chicken fell into the well.

[00:35] You know why? It's because he couldn't see that well. I also brought to mind the words of the receptionist the other day who told me, "I've scheduled your appointment for 4:45 p.m. because the doctor said that you were the last person he wanted to see." Apart from some Lenten humor for Laetare Sunday, hopefully appropriate, we'll share some comments on the Gospel. A good part of this reflection comes from the biblical scholar Brant Pitre. We'll also add a few thoughts of our own as well.

[01:06] And if I see anyone sleeping, I might throw in another joke just to wake you up. But at the beginning of today's Gospel, the disciples see this man born blind. They ask our Lord, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" John 9:2. Notice there was an assumption that if someone had a physical ailment, it was because of either personal sin or the sin of their parents. This assumption's not totally without foundation. So the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 28:28, mentions blindness as among

[01:41] the various punishments for breaking the covenant. Exodus 34:7 talks of the evil of the fathers being visited upon their children and their children's children to the third and fourth generations. I think just from life experience, too, we know that certain sins would bring with them natural punishments. Sexual immorality, sexual perversity, certain types of drug use, these things often bring with them diseases. So some physical ailments are connected to personal sins.

[02:13] And I also think many of us know of families that seem that there's always some kind of a dark cloud over them, or there's always serious dysfunction going on with them, and it tends to get passed down from generation to generation. So this connection of sin and punishment and of the problems of families being generational does actually have foundations. It can be taken too far. For example, certain rabbis of our Lord's day taught that infants could sin before birth,

[02:43] which isn't true. What we also can't say is that every physical ailment is due to someone's personal sin or the sin of their family members. Jesus rules that out very clearly in today's Gospel when He says, "It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him," John 9:3. So some sufferings and diseases and defects are actually for good, so that God can bring a greater good out of them.

[03:14] As St. Paul says in Romans 8:28, all things work for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. I know of people who, if they didn't have certain defects or certain physical limitations, if they didn't have those, they'd be out living a life of sin. Anecdotally I remember hearing one story, this might be a Bob Shuler story, this might be from you, Bob, but as I remember the story, I remember hearing of a person who had Down Syndrome and they had died and then later on, in a dream or in a vision, they appeared

[03:50] to one of their parents afterwards, told their parent that they were in heaven, they said the reason that they were in heaven, that they were saved was because of their disease. But the Down Syndrome actually preserved a purity of heart that they would not have kept if they would not have been born without that genetic disorder. So not all physical ailments are sin related, some of them are actually grace related, believe it or not.

[04:21] But all that being said, the chapter before this story in John's Gospel is John chapter 8, where our Lord tells us, "I am the light of the world; He who follows Me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life," He says, John 8:12. Jesus reiterates those words as He prepares to heal the blind man, saying in John 9:5, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." What does light do? Light gives sight. Hopefully it doesn't blind you as you're preaching a homily, but in general, light gives sight

[04:55] to people, right? Without light, you're as blind as a bat, can't see anything. Jesus says in John 15:5, "Apart from Me you can do nothing." Here He's saying without Me or apart from Me you can't see anything either. Can't understand God or life without Me. Why are so many people spiritually blind? Why do they call sinful actions and sinful lifestyles good and they call people who live

[05:27] God-fearing lives evil or crazy, or they just call them religious fanatics or other descriptions which are not appropriate for a Sunday service? It's because they can't see. They can't tell good from evil because they have not welcomed the light of Christ into their minds and into their hearts. Notice how our Lord heals this man in today's Gospel. St. John says He spat on the ground and made clay of spittle and anointed the man's eyes with the clay saying to him, "Go wash in the pool of Siloam," which means Sent, St. John

[06:03] tells us. This is John 9:6 through 7. Brant Pitre, in his commentary, points out something very interesting. In first-century Judaism, there was a tradition going back which said that when God made Adam from the dust of the ground, He actually used spittle to do it. Scholars say that God formed Adam out of the dust of the earth, Genesis 2:7, but practically concretely speaking, you can't mold something just out of dust or dirt.

[06:34] You need some kind of liquid to hold it together. So the Jews had a tradition that said that God made man from spit and clay or as the Dead Sea Scrolls say, from spat saliva or molded clay. So with that in mind, what our Lord's doing, what's He doing in this episode with the blind man? In essence, He's gesturing in a way similar to how God acted when He created Adam. Why would He be doing that?

[07:05] It's a way of reiterating what St. John says at the beginning of his Gospel. When he says, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God," John 1:1. So in healing this man, Jesus is revealing His divinity, the fact that He's not just a prophet or the Messiah, but that He's actually God Himself, the same God who formed Adam in the book of Genesis. Here Jesus is performing a new creation.

[07:36] He's remolding, remaking, redeeming His creation, as St. Paul would later say in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Anyone who's in Christ is a new creation." He says in Galatians 6:15, "For neither does circumcision mean anything nor uncircumcision, but only a new creation." This is also one of the reasons why our Lord heals this man on the Sabbath. One is to indicate a new creation, a new beginning, which is the Sabbath, which is the new day

[08:11] of our Lord for us is on Sunday, but two, it's also to point to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the Lord of the Sabbath, that He's actually the one who made the Sabbath and He made it for man, He actually made it for us. The cure of the blind man is done in two stages. So first, Jesus's actions on his eyes, and second is the man being told to go and wash in the pool. The fact that Jesus has him go and wash in the pool of Siloam, the washing, as the fathers

[08:44] of the church have noted, refers to the sacrament of baptism, which in ancient times was called the sacrament of enlightenment or illumination. It's through baptism that we are given eyes to see spiritually. We're brought into the light of faith, the light of Christ, that's where we literally become a new creation in Christ and are given supernatural sight. St. Thomas Aquinas says, "Christ sent the man to the pool called the pool of Siloam to be

[09:16] cleansed and enlightened, that is to be baptized and receive in baptism full enlightenment." So it's a foreshadowing of what's called the sacramental economy, meaning God's plan of distributing the grace of Christ's passion and death and resurrection to humanity, to us through the sacraments, through the seven sacraments of the Church. It's a foreshadowing of that. St. John actually alludes to or refers to all seven sacraments in his Gospel, the sacrament

[09:46] of baptism in John 3, and also here subtly in John 9, and the blood and water which comes from Jesus's side in John 19:34, the sacrament of confirmation in the anointing imagery of the Spirit's outpouring that He gives us in John 14, 15, 16, the Eucharist famously in John 6, the bread of life discourse, confession in John 20:23, when our Lord gives the apostles power to forgive and retain sins, He breathes on them.

[10:18] The anointing of the sick is implied in all of Christ's healings. Holy orders is instituted at the last supper and the washing of the disciples' feet in John 13. Matrimony is foreshadowed earlier, the wedding feast at Cana, John chapter 2. So how does the power of Christ reach us today? It reaches us primarily through His sacraments, what we call the sacramental economy. But back to the Gospel, the word Siloam, which St. John tells us means sent, of course there's

[10:53] a spiritual meaning to that as well, right? Jesus was sent by the Father to carry out God's saving plan, as St. John tells us in John 3:17, "God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him." In John 8:29, Christ says, "He who sent Me, meaning the Father, is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to Him." Our Lord in this episode sends the man to the pool to wash, He literally says, "Go to

[11:28] sent," that's what the literal translation is. So it's through washing that he receives his sight, just as it's through baptism again that we receive spiritual sight, born again through water and the Spirit, as Jesus tells Nicodemus, John 3:5. It's a sight that can be lost again through sin, but can be regained through repentance and the other sacrament of confession. Jesus, the one who is sent by God the Father, will eventually send out His disciples to

[12:00] continue His saving work, and He will send us to where we can receive true spiritual healing again, to the sacraments. So the story has very beautiful theological significance. It also has a dark side to it. The dark side is portrayed by the Pharisees. So Jesus, sent by the Father, sends the blind man to the pool, blind man receives his sight, and then he's providentially sent to the Pharisees as a witness for them of Jesus's healing power.

[12:33] The Pharisees investigate the healing, they can't deny the miracle, but they refuse to believe that Jesus is from God. They refuse to humble their hearts, even when the man's testimony clearly shows that something's not right about their reasoning. So the formerly blind man makes them look very foolish in the exchanges that they have with him. There's truly an echo here of God's dealing with Pharaoh in the Old Testament in the book of Exodus, if you remember that.

[13:05] Despite the many signs and wonders, Pharaoh refused to humble his heart. Hardness of heart is the greatest obstacle in a spiritual life, and anyone susceptible to it, priests and religious, even those who consider themselves or who are considered to be very devout persons, even those who think of themselves as good people. "For judgment, I came into this world," Jesus says, "that those who do not see may see, and

[13:35] that those who see may become blind," John 9:39. The only cure for spiritual blindness and hardness of heart is humility and repentance. There's a lot more that could be said about today's Gospel. We'll just close with one final observation. Today's Gospel is taken from John chapter 9, and it has something in common with last Sunday's Gospel, story of the woman at the well, John chapter 4.

[14:06] In both episodes, the perception of who Jesus really is deepens as the story progresses. With the woman at the well in John 4, the longer the conversation with Jesus was prolonged, the clearer the woman truly perceived His identity. If you remember the story from last week, John 4:9, she simply first refers to Jesus as a Jew. "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" Verses 11 and 15, she refers to Him as sir, so more respectful, "Sir, give me this water

[14:38] so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." Verse 19, she calls our Lord a prophet. Verse 29, she calls Him the Christ. By verse 42, the end of the story, all the Samaritans are referring to Jesus as the savior of the world. Something similar happens in today's Gospel, if you noticed it. After the blind man is healed and he asks how his eyes were opened, he says in John 9:11, "The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes."

[15:11] And the blind man's asked by the Pharisees who they think Jesus is. He says He's a prophet. Verse 17, after giving a brilliant defense of Jesus's ministry, the man born blind says even more clearly that Jesus is from God. Verse 33, then by the end of the story, when he encounters Jesus for a second time, he affirms that Jesus is both the Son of Man and Lord. In verse 38, and it says that he worshipped Him, worshipped Jesus at that point.

[15:45] The evangelist, St. John himself, tells us at the end of his Gospel why he wrote what he wrote. He says, "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name." John 20:30 through 31. So spiritually, the longer we prolong our conversation with the Lord, meaning the longer we continue to remain faithful to Him, faithful to a life of prayer, the better we'll understand

[16:20] who He truly is, and we'll truly understand who we are according to how God sees us. And He'll do with us what He did with the blind man. He'll send us out to others, and He'll send other people to us so we can testify of the wonderful things that Jesus has done in our life. Let's ask our lady today for the grace to be more faithful witnesses of her ever faithful loving son. Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.