4th Sunday of Lent 2026 - To see with the eyes of Christ

 

The story of the man born blind comes just a few chapters after last Sunday’s Gospel, the story of the woman at the well. Last week, we heard of the woman estranged from her community, going from one assumably failed marriage to the next, estranged from her God. Yet, Jesus comes into the messiness of her life, and offers her a drink of the life-giving waters that well up to eternal life. Her story is our story. Jesus doesn’t wait for our lives to be perfect, he enters into the messiness of our lives, and offers us water to drink—and sends us out to offer that life-giving water to others.

In the Gospel today, we heard of the man born blind.  His story, also, is our story. Each of us struggles with some amount of spiritual blindness. We don’t see as we should.  We don’t see our neighbor as we should, we don’t see our God as we should, we don’t see ourselves as we should, we don’t see the changes we need to make in our lives, in the patterns of our speech and behavior, as we should.  As Jesus offered sight to the blind man at the pool of siloam, so too, He offers sight to us, as well.

Jesus Christ came to restore sight to the spiritually blind, and so by the light of Christ, we are now able live in the light of the truth, not only avoiding those behaviors and attitudes that are harmful to our souls, but seeing how good it is to live virtuously. Spiritual sight helps us to be ever-more attentive to the needs of the suffering, so that we may come to their aid. Spiritual sight even enables us to see ourselves as God sees us, as sons and daughters worth dying for.

The ancient theologian Origen said, “to be holy is to see with the eyes of Christ.”  “To be holy is to see with the eyes of Christ.” 

Here’s an illustration from my own life. During the semester I studied in Rome, I attended several masses at St. Peter’s basilica. Pope St. John Paul II was Pope, and the basilica would often be packed with those hoping to get close to the saintly Holy Father. During Holy Week that year, I went to St. Peter’s for the Chrism mass at which the Pope blesses the holy oils for the upcoming year. I got there very early so that I could get a good seat, and I found myself right on the aisle, where the Pope would be processing up to the altar.

This was in 2004, and the Pope’s health was not great, but he walked up the aisle that day, and I tell you, for a moment, the saint and I locked eyes. And it was if I was looking right into the eyes of Jesus. This spiritual light emanated from the eyes of the Pope. And I felt seen by God, and loved, and confirmed in my vocation. It was so beautiful. I saw the love of Jesus in the Pope’s eyes—a love that was for me and for all. He was truly a saint, for he “saw with the eyes of Christ”, as Origen said, which are eyes of love.

And that’s the goal for all of us: to be so filled with the light of God, the peace of God, the wisdom of God, the compassion of God, that we see with the eyes of Christ. But that only happens when we allow ourselves to be washed, and cleansed, healed and anointed.

When people look into your eyes, what do they see? Harshness, criticism, rash judgment, annoyance? Or do they see patience? Do they see welcome and understanding? Do they see someone who will calmly lead them to the God? If not, why not?

What has yet to be healed in you, so that the light of God can be seen in your eyes? What spiritual blindness is causing you to see not with the eyes of Christ, but with the eyes of the world—the cold, calculating, critical, self-interested eyes of the world? Do you see others as inconveniences or people God has put into your life for you to love?

When we seek to see Christ in others, they will see Christ in us. That was certainly true for the other saintliest group people I have ever met, the missionary sisters of charity, the order of consecrated religious sisters founded by St. Mother Theresa.

I told this story during my first weekend as pastor, how each Friday, when I lived in Rome I would volunteer at the missionary sisters of charity men’s homeless shelter. 

Each week, a group of us seminarians and college students were blessed to work along the sisters in their care for the homeless. And it was always so powerful to be serving alongside these holy woman. Each one of the sisters had this beautiful Christ-like light in their eyes. For their charism was to see Christ in others, and to serve the poorest of the poor as they would serve Christ himself.

We would assist with serving breakfast to the homeless men, and helping the sisters do the laundry. Since Mother Theresa didn’t believe in modern conveniences like electric washing machines, this meant washing the homeless men’s clothing, soiled sheets and towels on old fashioned scrub boards.

One Friday, during Lent, one of the seminarians asked one of the sisters, “Sister, are you ready for Easter?” And in all seriousness she replied, “No, I still have much dying to do.” And she was probably one of the most joyful people I had ever met. “No, I still have much dying to do”. Here was a woman who lived every day in what appeared to be total- selflessness—no possessions, no comforts, spending her days washing soiled sheets and washing the grime off of the homeless. Yet she said, “I still have much dying to do.”

I think about her words quite a bit. For, I know that her words contain one of the most important lessons: that without dying to self, without learning to see with eyes purified by the salve of Christ, we will never have real joy.

On the fourth Sunday of Lent—Laetare Sunday—the priest vests in rose-colored vestments, the color of dawn's first light before sunrise. The liturgical color, rose, symbolizes joyful anticipation for easter—signaling that easter joy is on the horizon. And, yet at the half way point of Lent, it is a reminder that if we want to see that joy, we still have much dying to do.

Our Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, our Lenten repenting, our Lenten penances, our Lenten confessions are aimed at helping us to die to self that we may see rightly. “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God”.

From what do I still need to be purified? What impurity is still rooted in me so deeply that I don’t even detect it? Or what impurity am I afraid to acknowledge because of the change that will be demanded of me if it is healed?

To remain in spiritual darkness is to be deprived of joy. There are none so blind than those who choose not to see, and they are quite joyless as well.

 But, the Lord wishes that joy may be in us and joy may be in abundance. So may we not be afraid to expose the darkest parts of our lives to the light of the Lord, to allow him to heal us, to fill us with light, to help us to see with His eyes and joyfully love with his heart, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

4th Sunday of Lent 2022 - Second Scrutiny - To be holy is to see with the eyes of Christ

 This morning we celebrate the second of three scrutinies for those preparing for baptism and full initiation this Easter. 

You’ll hear prayers for the dispelling of darkness in their lives, for the light of Christ and truth and faith to shine in their lives, and you’ll notice how the exorcism prayer references today’s Gospel reading about the healing of the man born blind.

All of us, emerging from our mother’s wombs, are like the man born blind, but we are born with a more terrible malady, original sin, the deprivation of the loss of God’s grace in our souls. And so we require the saving grace of baptism, to restore what was lost due to sin. And through baptism we are given the gift of faith which enables us to see as we should.

The great church father Origen said, “to be holy is to see with the eyes of Christ.”  Blindness is used often in the New Testament to point out that we do not see as we should. We don’t see our neighbor as we should with eyes of loving compassion, we don’t see God as we should,  we don’t see ourselves as we should, we don’t see Truth as we should.  Sin has clouded our vision to rightly perceive truth, goodness, and beauty. 

And so to be holy is to see with the eyes of Christ.  The Saints are those who through a life seeking after holiness have begun to see clearly. They see evil and error and sin for what they really are, and rid them from their lives. They see the poor, as the beloved of God. They see the need to bless those who curse them, and to pray for those who mistreat them, like Christ. The see the cross as the royal road to heaven.

Jesus sees this man born blind.  The blind man was probably begging at the gate, as many blind people were often forced to do.  And Jesus sees him. Jesus sees all of us. The eye of God sees us always, as Padre Pio would say. 

Then Jesus approaches this man, he spits on the ground, and makes a kind of paste, a sort of salve—salve, from which we get the word, salvation.  St. Augustine says, his spittle represents his divinity, the earth, his humanity.  Divinity taking on the flesh, the incarnation of Christ, is the salve God uses to heals our deepest wounds. Jesus rubbing the salve in this man’s eyes, well, that’s Christ himself being rubbed into our eyes.  His incarnation, his presence among us is what allows us to see. 

On Ash Wednesday, we put not earth and spittle on our eyes, but we did put ashes mixed with holy water on our foreheads. That was a salve of sorts. The salve of repentance. The reminder of the need to do penance for our sins, is a salve indeed, that helps baptized and unbaptized alike to take a hard look at our lives, to discern if any sinful attitudes, habits, or behaviors have begun to blind us to goodness of the moral life of Christ.

After placing the salve on the eyes of the blind man, Jesus tells him to then go wash in the pool, and he is then able to see. The pool is evocative of baptism.    

For it is through baptism that we are grafted on to his body and become members of the Church. Isn’t it wonderful to know that when you come to Church, you are gathering with formerly spiritually blind people who are learning how to see again. We are all at different stages of regaining spiritual sight, some of us make better use of the time we’ve been given to regain our sight, some of us have a hard time taking our focus off of the world or off of ourselves. Many of us sadly, at some points in our lives reblind ourselves with the red-hot poker of mortal sin. But even mortal sin after our baptism can be healed in the Sacrament of Confession.

Today I am wearing the rose-colored vestments, because today, the Fourth Sunday of Lent, is "Laetare Sunday".  Laetare means rejoice.  We rejoice because we recognize the prayer, fasting, and almsgiving of Lent helps us see clearly, and helps us to prepare well for Easter which is the source of our spiritual rebirth. We will celebrate the Easter sacraments with our candidates for full initiation, and so we are barely able to contain our joy. 

Again, if you haven’t made a good Lenten confession yet, there is still time. 

We’re 4 weeks into Lent, and I’ve made the invitation to you all several times to go to confession, and many have gone. I was so delighted that Evening of Confession a week and a half ago. I heard about 30 confessions for almost 3 and a half hours, and I would have heard them for three and a half more if I needed to.

But, I can do math. And, there are still many souls in this parish, who haven’t been to confession in a while, too long. Jesus is waiting for you with the salve of his mercy and grace. Go to confession. Especially if you have unconfessed mortal sins. We don’t know the day nor the hour, and the greatest tragedy is when a soul fails to turn to God for forgiveness. There is more joy when one sinner repents than 99 who don’t. Don’t be a member of the 99% who fail to repent. Please. You’ll feel so much better. You’ll begin to see more clearly than you have, perhaps, in a long time.

May this Lenten season continue to bring about the healing of spiritual sight, a dispelling of darkness in all of us, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

4th Sunday of Lent 2021 - Joyful Lenten Waters

 On the 4th Sunday of Lent, the Church celebrates Laetare sunday.  Laetare is the latin word for “rejoice”. Lent and Joy. Initially, it doesn’t seem like those two things would go together. Joy and Penance? Joy and Fasting? Joy and Tears of Repentance? 

Today, is a reminder that true joy only comes from God.  And when we make room in our hearts for him through penance, we fast from the things that keep us from hungering for Him, when we allow him to fill our hearts through prayer, we become filled with joy.  If you haven’t experience yet, during this season, maybe you aren’t doing it right? For Lenten joy abounds with all of the opportunities to turn our hearts to God.

One of my favorite cinematic images of Lenten joy comes from a very good movie called “The Mission” starring Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons.  If you haven't seen it, it's worth the time.  The Mission  is the story of the Spanish Jesuits who go to South America to bring Christianity to the natives there.  Robert DeNiro plays a slave trader.  He had spent years treating the natives as a commodity, often murdering them like cattle.   After he catches his wife and brother in the act of adultery, he murders his brother, and spirals into a terrible depression. Then something amazing happens: DeNiro's character becomes attracted to the Christian faith preached by the Jesuits and embraced by the natives.  

For a life of enslaving and murdering, he makes a confession of his sins, and undertakes a serious penance.  With a backpack filled with weapons and armor, symbols of his old life of violence, he climbs up this gigantic waterfall.  And the deeply moving scene of the movie is when after this tremendous strenuous penitential climb, he reaches the top of the waterfall, and surrounded by the Jesuits and Natives, he is embraced by both, and then falls to his knees.  Overwhelmed by the mercy of Christ and his own sorrow for his sins, he begins to weep and laugh for joy at the same time.  He experiences the sorrow of being a sinner and the joy of being a forgiven sinner at the same time.  Where there was only guilt and depression, through his penance, he opened himself to be touched by God.  I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced anything like that…but it changes your life.

A powerful image of Lenten joy, indeed  With great sorrow for our sins, we go to confession,  we undergo penances of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and thereby open ourselves to God in a new way.  We are changed internally, as we seek to conform our actions and our life to God.

St. Paul writes about the profound change that occurs in the soul when it comes to Christ in our reading this weekend: “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” In Christ, the sinner is transformed into something new. Something awakens that was dormant in the soul, something that was dead is revived.  Blindness, like that of the blind man in the Gospel today, is transformed into sight. Hatred and coldness and selfishness is transformed into love, when Christ is truly encountered as Savior.

Our Lenten penances, our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—our stripping away the non-essentials to create pockets of silence and reflection—these things are meant to awaken something in us. But, maybe that’s why some of us find Lent so hard or unagreeable. We don’t want anything to awaken. We like our lives just the way they are. We like our earthly comforts. We like our isolation. We sense that if we became quieter, something might awaken that we don’t have control over. And so, we prefer spiritual blindness because we are afraid what we might see. 

Some of us resist the whole idea of admitting guilt. And that is to the great detriment of our church and our mission.  I don’t want to climb up a waterfall with the reminders of my sins on my back. I don’t want the Lord to spread muddy saliva on my eyes. It makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to look at the ways I’ve  hurt or betrayed others with my words or actions. It’s humiliating. Yes, it is. But it’s the secret of the saints. With the sincere admission of guilt and penance for our sins comes great sanctity. 

Saint John Paul II lamented what he called the loss of the sense of sin.  He called it a crisis in the Church and the world that so many of us fail to acknowledge the destructive power that sin has in our society and our own souls.  Pope Francis echoing Saint John Paul said recently that “When you lose the sense of sin, you lose the sense of the Kingdom of God."  If we deny the fact that we are sinners, we deny our need for Christ.  

But remember, when Peter at the last supper, defiantly resisted the washing of his feet, and said to Jesus “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him,  “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”

Again, the good news, especially of Laetare Sunday is that Jesus does offer to wash us, he does offer to forgive us in the Sacrament of Confession, he does offer to place his hands on our eyes to heal our blindness, he offers to place his hands on our hearts to heal its coldness. Jesus beckons us, he calls us to repentance that we may know the joy of being redeemed sinners, and that his kingdom make take deeper root in our hearts.  

With the time that we have left of this most holy season, may the Holy Spirit help each of us to identify those selfish and sinful attitudes and behaviors and attachments which keep us from knowing the joy God wants for us. May we have the courage to do the penances we ought to, and allow ourselves to be washed by God’s mercy, and come to know the joy of his goodness dwelling within us for the glory of God and salvation of souls.