Fourth Sunday of Lent, 19th March, 2023

 Gospel: John  9:1. 6-9. 13-17..34-38       

As Jesus went along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. He spat on the ground, made a paste with the spittle, put this over the eyes of the blind man. and said to him, ‘Go and wash in the Pool of Siloam (a name that means ‘sent’). So the blind man went off and washed himself, and came away with his sight restored.

His neighbours and people who earlier had seen him begging said, ‘Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some said, ‘Yes, it is the same one’. Others said, ‘No, he only looks like him’. The man himself said, ‘I am the man’. 

 They brought the man who had been blind to the Pharisees. It had been a sabbath day when Jesus made the paste and opened the man’s eyes, so when the Pharisees asked him how he had come to see, he said, ‘He put a paste on my eyes, and I washed, and I can see’. Then some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man cannot be from God: he does not keep the sabbath’. Others said, ‘How could a sinner produce signs like this?’ And there was disagreement among them. So they spoke to the blind man again, ‘What have you to say about him yourself, now that he has opened your eyes?’ ‘He is a prophet’ replied the man.
‘Are you trying to teach us,’ they replied ‘and you a sinner through and through, since you were born!’ And they drove him away.

Jesus heard they had driven him away, and when he found him he said to him, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied ‘tell me who he is so that I may believe in him.’ Jesus said, ‘You are looking at him; he is speaking to you’. The man said, ‘Lord, I believe’, and worshipped him.
Jesus said: ‘It is for judgement that I have come into this world, so that those without sight may see  and those with sight turn blind’.

Hearing this, some Pharisees who were present said to him, ‘We are not blind, surely?’
Jesus replied: ‘Blind? If you were, you would not be guilty,  but since you say, “We see”,  your guilt remains.

Donal Neary SJ:
Gospel Reflections for Sundays of Year A: Matthew
www.messenger.ie/bookshop/

The eye of faith

Some saw a blind man being cured and walked on amazed. Oth­ers saw the same cures and found faith. We can see things - ev­eryday things - with different eyes. A sick woman may be seen with the eye of compassion for illness, hope for a cure/ profit from a profession. The Christian tries to see the world with the eye of faith.

Faith grows in many ways - by opening ourselves to our hu­man desire for God, by mulling over the good things of life/ by experiencing the good within ourselves/ by looking over times of faith in the past and by allowing the goodness of others to bring us to new and stronger faith. This is the call of the gospel today - to open our eyes to the Lord who is at work in many ways.

We learn to see and love with the eye of faith by looking at the look of Jesus towards us. It is often a big jump to believe in what we cannot see. Even the blind man today was reminded by Jesus ' You are looking at the Son of Man/ he is speaking to you.' Jesus looks at each of us with faith in our goodness and with love.

Maybe we can walk around in this atmosphere of faith, "see­ing" God
in a flower,in a parent holding a child" s hand, in a per­son pushing a wheelchair with courage/ and notice that in many ways
God is near and
the presence of Jesus is at hand.

Let this verse echo in your mind from the hymn: Amazing Grace

I once was lost and now am found,
was blind and now I see.

Lord, let me see you in the simple things of my life.