Embrace healing or remain blind?

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Homily Outline for the 4th Sunday of Lent, Year A

“Rejoice, Jerusalem! Be glad for her, you who love her; rejoice with her, you who mourned for her, and you will find contentment at her consoling breasts.” (Is 66:10-11)

Today is Laetare Sunday, Rejoice Sunday, named after the “introit” or entrance antiphon proper to this Mass, which I just read. Rejoice Jerusalem, rejoice O Mother Church, rejoice members of Christ’s Body, the Church… on this Fourth Sunday of Lent, we have come through over half of our 40 days of fasting, only 18 days to go until the feasting of Easter! We have been in the desert, but we draw nearer each day to the wellspring of our salvation.

God’s ways are not our ways; God’s power goes far beyond our own power. In our first reading, God chooses David, the youngest brother, despite everyone's expectations.  God sees not just the exterior, but also the heart!  We see Jesus using His divine power as He heals the man born blind. Physically, this is impressive. Spiritually, it is beautiful… this man can now behold the beauty of the natural world, the faces of his parents, even the face of our Lord Jesus Himself. As Paul speaks of us as “children of light,” this description is very tangible for that formerly blind man who sees light for the first time, and at the same time comes to know the Lord.

 What might the Lord heal in your heart this Lent? Perhaps you harbor wounds or pain or grudges or fear that are not nearly so evident as that man’s blindness. Maybe they’ve been caused by your own sin, the sin of others, or by circumstances beyond anyone’s control. Jesus can heal your heart. It does not seem that the blind man expected to be healed that day, and so often God’s healing comes to us unawares, from unexpected quarters, in times and ways we cannot predict.

I suspect that many of you have already had this experience before today… perhaps it was kind words from someone you considered an enemy, maybe it was making a good confession after being away from the Lord. To receive God’s healing is beautiful, but do we embrace it? Does it continue to change our lives? As God pours out the healing water of His grace, are our hearts hard and frozen clay, or are they rich broken soil? To be contrite, to be sorry for our sins, this means to have a heart that is broken, but also a heart that is open to God’s healing. We can look at past healing in our lives, or healing in the lives of others with skepticism, with disbelief, with hostility as the Pharisees, or we can greet that healing with honesty as the blind man did. He doesn’t in any way fully understand what has happened. He doesn’t even recognize Jesus when he encounters Him again. But he is open, desiring the gift of faith that he cannot manufacture himself. Listen to that final dialogue: When Jesus heard…. and those who do see might become blind.”

If we can know and own our brokenness and sin, we are in a position then to receive healing and the gift of faith. This is precisely what Lent is about. We courageously enter into our hearts and lives and seek the sinful places, the painful places, the ugly places, not to wallow in guilt, but to know our need and then be ready to receive. Jesus is the Light, and in Him we can see the truth about our hearts. That may not always be pretty, but it can lead us to the true beauty of healing and reconciliation.

Karol Wotyla, the man who would become JP II

Today is the 6th anniversary of Pope John Paul II, soon to be beatified. I think we can see in his life and ministry this healing light of Christ in a particularly bold way. Karol Wotyla experienced every sort of pain and loss as a young man… he lost his mother, his brother, and his father by 22. He saw his country ravaged first by the Nazis and then by Communism. Many of his friends, both Catholic and Jewish, were killed. Out of this crucible of violence and hatred, by God’s grace he was not a man filled with hatred or anger, but a man filled with a visceral sense of God’s infinite capacity to heal and sustain us in the face of suffering. He was also deeply convicted of the need to speak the truth in the face of falsehood and deception. 

To me, and perhaps in a special way to my generation, John Paul II tore away the blindness and lies of  materialism, relativism, and individualism and spoke of love as the perfect gift of self for the good of the other. He rejected the culture of death, condemning attacks on human life and dignity from whatever direction. As the world slid into an abyss of sexual confusion and sin, he spoke clearly of the beauty and sanctity of the human body, of Christian marriage between a man and a woman, and of the gift of our sexuality. He said no to abortion, contraception, sterilization, capital punishment, and war. He said yes to truth, love, generosity, solidarity with those most in need, and reconciliation. He experienced God’s healing grace, and responded with unusual openness and generosity. The man born blind, once healed, encountered Christ, and believing in Him, worshipped. Six years after the death of John Paul II, I still marvel at the way he too followed this example.

We stand in the line and heritage of redeemed and healed sinners from every age. May we use well these 3 Lenten weeks that remain to go deep within and welcome Christ’s healing light.

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