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“Live as children of the light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth.”
Blindness is cured by the touch of Jesus. Expressing our faith - being sources of the touch of Jesus in the lives of others - allows others also to see and experience the healing power of Jesus.
Jesus took the initiative in curing the blindness of the young man born blind. This miracle provided others the occasion to come to a better understanding of Jesus and his mission.
The young man dialogued with the authorities concerning his cure. In doing so, he came to a better understanding of Jesus for himself and, he consequently challenged the authorities concerning their beliefs.
Francis de Sales wrote in the Introduction to the Devout Life (3,26)
“If then you are in love with God, you will often speak of him in your familiar conversations with those of your household, your friends and your neighbors…But speak always of God, as of God: reverently and devoutly; not with ostentation or affectation, but with a spirit of meekness, charity and humility…Pray secretly to God in your soul that it would please Him to make this holy dew sink deep into the heart of those who hear you.”
As the young man spoke more and more about Jesus, he broke open the mystery of what had happened to him and how much Jesus meant to him. He went from seeing Jesus as a miracle worker to recognizing him and believing him to be the Son of God (“He worshipped him”). He gradually came to know Jesus in his fullness, encountering and making that truth his own and doubtlessly changing his life forever.
During this season of Lent, the Sacrament of Reconciliation provides us with the touch of Jesus that cures our own blindness, weakness and sinfulness. Prayer and meditation provide a means to break open for ourselves the mystery of our own redemption. Reading and listening to the Word of God in Scripture and sharing it with others in Bible groups and in less formal ways gives us further insight into how we can participate in the mission of Jesus and his Church. Openness to the gift of faith permits us to see others as God sees them, and as Samuel saw in David God's anointed one.
St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians says, “Live as children of the light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth.”
If our life style as a Christian challenges others, then we can express our beliefs with meekness and humility. We need to accept the gift of grace which we received not only as a gift but also as a responsibility. In other words, we need to help others be open to grace and be cured of their own blindness, and to come to see and experience the light that we find only in the life, death, resurrection and love of Jesus Christ.
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“Joseph her husband was a righteous man…”
In a conference (The Virtues of St. Joseph) he gave to the Sisters of the Visitation, St. Francis de Sales remarked:
“Now, our glorious St. Joseph was endowed with four great virtues (constancy, perseverance, strength and valor) and practiced them marvelously well. As regards his constancy, did he not display it wonderfully when seeing Our Lady with child, and, not knowing how that could be, his mind was tossed with distress, perplexity and trouble? Yet, in spite of all, he never complained, he was never harsh or ungracious towards his holy Spouse, but remained just as gentle and respectful in his demeanor as he had ever been…” (Living Jesus, p.184)
Joseph experienced more than a little turmoil in his role as husband and father of the Holy Family. However, being the just and righteous man that he was, Joseph never took out his frustrations on his wife or on his son. Rather, he accepted life’s ups and downs as expressions of God’s will for him.
And so we pray: God grant us the grace to imitate the example of St. Joseph. Help us to take whatever comes in life without taking it out on others – especially on those we love the most.
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"Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”
A touching story in today’s Gospel from John. Jesus encounters a man who has been disabled virtually all his life. The man hopes to be healed by being immersed in the waters of a pool believed to hold miraculous power, but insofar as somebody else always manages to get to the pool ahead of him, his hopes for healing remain unfulfilled.
It’s remarkable what Jesus does for him. He doesn’t offer to carry the man over to the pool. He doesn’t offer to immerse the man into the pool. Jesus heals the disabled man on the very spot on which he had been marooned for nearly four decades.
Simply put, Jesus didn’t make the man work for His healing. Jesus didn’t make the man work for His love. Jesus administered his healing touch freely and without condition.
How often do we make someone work for our love before we decide to share it? How often do we make someone work for our healing touch before we choose to grant it? How often do we make someone crawl before we decide to help them to walk? That’s certainly not how God acts.
And why should we?
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“For the LORD comforts his people and shows mercy to his afflicted…”
Today’s reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah paints the picture of a God who lifts up those who are weighed down. He is a God who clears a path for those burdened by the journey. He is a God who gives drink to the thirsty and food to the hungry. In short, our God goes out of His way to help those who are down and out. In a world with its share of challenges, trials and difficulty, our God is a God who always lightens our load.
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“We must take the greatest consolation from seeing how God exercises His mercy by the many diverse favors he distributes among angels and men – in heaven, and on earth – and how He exercises His justice by an infinite variety of trials and difficulties. Hence, death, affliction sweat and toil with which life abounds are by God’s justice the consequences of sin, but they are also by God’s sweet mercy ladders upon which to ascend to heaven, means by which to increase and grace and merits whereby to obtain glory. Indeed, blessed are poverty, hunger, thirst, sorrow sickness death and persecution: they are consequences of our humanity which nevertheless are so steeped and aromatized in God’s love, goodness and mercy that theirs is a most sweet bitterness.” (TLG Bk IX, Chapter 1, p.98)
Trials and difficulties are a part of life. Fortunately for us, God seizes these same trials and difficulties as opportunities to console, support, nourish and sustain us.
Consider today – how, in the name of this merciful and generous God, do we do the same for one another?
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“Moses, his chosen one, withstood him in the breach…”
Moses and Jesus have at least one thing in common: they were willing to go the wall for the people they cared about.
In Moses’ case, he dissuades God from punishing the Israelites out of anger for their infidelity. Moses puts his own life on the line in order to convince God to exercise mercy rather than justice. Moses is an advocate for his people.
In Jesus’ case, he continues to reach out to the poor and marginalized despite the growing hostility of the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus puts His own life on the line in order to convince his religious peers to seek mercy rather than justice. Jesus is an advocate for his people.
How about us? Today, how far are we willing to go to be an advocate for others, especially for those most in need?
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“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted…”
Even a cursory reading of both the Old Testament and the New Testament demonstrates that Yahweh has a special place in His heart for the weak, the poor, the lonely, the disadvantaged, the marginalized, the exploited, the vanquished and the down-and-out. But there’s more to Yahweh. God also has plenty of room in His heart for the strong, the wealthy, the powerful, the streamlined, the victorious and the up-and-comers.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales remarked: “The Apostle (St. Paul) says, ‘Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.” (Part III, Chapter 1, p. 121) God finds room in his heart for all kinds of people and for all kinds of occasions. God’s heart knows that it takes all kinds, all types and all times to promote His kingdom on this earth.
God makes so much room in his heart for us. How generous are wee in attempting to make room in our hearts for others?
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“Ask for a sign from the Lord your God…”
Who wouldn’t jump at the chance of making such a request of God? Who wouldn’t say “yes” to the opportunity for God to display His power for us and/or for someone whom we love? Yet, in today’s selection from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, Ahaz balks when given the opportunity of a lifetime and he takes a pass. He backs away, saying, “I will not tempt the Lord.”
What’s up with that? Perhaps Ahaz’s reluctance is rooted in his intuition that signs from the Lord often require changes in the one who asks for the sign in the first place! Under those circumstances, his circumspection makes a whole lot more sense. Remember the admonition? “Be careful what you pray for…”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Devout discussions and arguments, miracles and other helps in Christ’s religion do indeed make it supremely credible and knowable, but faith alone makes it believed and known. It brings us to love the beauty of its truth and to believe the truth of its beauty by the sweetness it diffuses throughout our will and the certitude it gives to our intellect. The Jews saw our Lord’s miracles (signs) and heard his marvelous doctrines, but since they were not disposed to accept the faith, that is, since their wills were not susceptible to the sweet and gentle faith because of the bitterness and malice with which they were filled, they remained in their infidelity. They saw the force of the proof but they did not relish its sweet conclusion…” (TLG, II, Chapter 14, pp. 139 – 140)
Of course, God has been giving us signs of his love for us - regardless of whether we have asked for them or not - from the very beginning of time. Creation, itself – through which we were made in God’s image and likeness - is the first and fundamental sign of God’s love for us. As today’s Gospel reminds us, Jesus is the great reaffirmation of that first and fundamental sign of divine love, because Jesus not only redeems us, but through Jesus God also made himself in our image and likeness.
If you are so moved, feel free to ask God for a sign of his love and care. However, it is better that we be more moved to be signs of God’s love and care in the lives of one another.
