How can we hear the Shepherd's voice?

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Homily Outline for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A


“When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice.” Jesus is revealed most perfectly as our Shepherd in the Paschal Mystery, the Mystery of Easter: His Suffering, Death, and Resurrection. As we begin this Fourth Week of Easter, our Mother the Church wants to direct our attention to our Risen Lord as our Shepherd. We hear from St. Peter twice today, and in the 2nd reading He says this about Jesus: “When he was insulted, he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten; instead, he handed himself over to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” On the Cross Jesus is the Lamb of God, He is both Priest and Victim, and He is most perfectly our Shepherd.

Peter speaks of returning to the Shepherd… Where and how do we hear the voice of the Shepherd? If we desire to follow Him, to return to Him, we must listen for His voice, we must recognize His voice… How do we do that? There are three principal places where we can hear the Good Shepherd’s voice, and thus be lead to green pastures, out of danger, into peace. Christ the Good Shepherd speaks in our consciences, in the Living and Efficacious Word of God, the Bible, and in His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, which is His Body.

Let me begin with our consciences. The Lord has written His Law on our hearts… but to hear His voice speaking to us there, we must enter into the silence of our hearts, we must pause and listen. It takes courage and discipline to go within and so to encounter the Good Shepherd. How often do we have an inkling what our conscience might tell us if we were to listen! We can storm on at top speed, we can keep the music turned up, but if we want to hear the Shepherd’s voice, we must listen. Of course this happens principally in prayer… speaking to the Lord, but also listening. The day has 3 simple natural times built into it for prayer… when we rise, when we eat, when we lie down again. Do you keep these times for prayer? However brief or simple it might be, there is nothing more tranformative you can do than to begin to speak to the Lord, and if you already speak to Him, to do so with greater frequency. And not only to speak, but also to listen.

Our consciences are not always perfectly formed, and sometimes we can get confused. We need to be taught, we need to learn, our consciences and hearts need to be shepherded. God speaks to us powerfully and intimately in His Sacred Scripture. The Catholic Church gave us the Bible, discerning and collecting the inspired writings of the Apostles and their disciples… and yet, unfortunately, we Catholics have often become known for our ignorance of the very book that our mothers and fathers in faith handed down to us at such a great price! A short passage read in quiet and pondered, this is the way to begin. Two concrete suggestions… begin now to read the first Gospel, the Gospel of Matthew. Read a chapter or less a day, and allow God’s Word to soak into you. Alternatively, read the daily Mass readings each day, or just the passage of the Gospel assigned for each day. It’s listed ever week in our bulletin, it’s very easy to find online. God’s word can and will transform you if you open your life to it. The Good Shepherd will teach and guide your mind and heart, if you will listen.

Finally, whenever doubts and confusion afflict us, when we don’t understand how to apply the word of God, when we need guidance of any sort, especially to respond to the many contemporary challenges we face each day, we must turn to the living voice of the Shepherd, His Body, the Church. The Church gave us the Scriptures, and has handed them down to us. The Church teaches us today what it taught in the first century. As Peter proclaimed Jesus Christ and Him crucified, as we heard in the first reading, the Church proclaims Him still today. Without the Church, directly, or indirectly, none of us could have heard of Christ, His Good News, nor could we encounter Him in the sacraments. In our own time many people sneer at organized religion and walk away…. is disorganized religion is any better! Without the Church to teach and guide us, we so often follow our own preferences, our own convenience. We pick and choose the parts of the Gospel that are comfortable… but that is not the Gospel! The Sheepfold of Christ is His Body the Church. If we want to be part of His flock, we are called to listen to His Voice, to be conformed to His Sacred Heart, to be configured to His Passion, His Death, but also His Resurrection! Jesus speaks to us precisely through His Church, guided by the successor of Peter, the Pope.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord is very near to us, and wishes to shepherd and guide us to green pastures, flowing waters, and into the light of hope. He tells us in the gospel that He came so that we might have life, and have it more abundantly…May we listen to Him in our hearts, seek Him in His word, and may we listen to His voice, especially as it speaks to us through His Body, the Church!

With God's help....

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Wedding Homily for Jeff Page and Sarah  Huffmeyer, 7 May 2011

Chapel of the Immaculate Conception, Oldenburg, IN

Jeff and Sarah, it is an honor, a privilege, but most of all a joy to be with you on this holy day! Let us not be alarmed by the rain… it is a symbol in the Scriptures of God’s grace and mercy which He pours out upon us to bring life, grace, and healing! As we come to these final moments leading up to the Sacrament of Marriage which you are about to enter, the Church calls us to turn to the Word of God to prepare our hearts. You have chosen these readings well and prayerfully, for which I thank you.

We begin, very appropriately, in the beginning! God made us! This was His first gift to us, life… not only did He make us in love, but He made the whole beautiful buzzing world for us! As farmers, engineers, and foresters, you and your families understand and experience daily what it means to use this gift well and wisely. Our lives and the world in which we live are not finally random, but an intentional and loving gift for which we give thanks.

From the VERY beginning, God created man and woman in His image and likeness…He gave us the ability to know, and the ability to love. From the very beginning, He called men and women to marriage. Marriage is not something we have created or imagined ourselves, not something we are free to define as we please… it is a gift from God. Like the very gift of life, like the gift of the world around us, it is to be received, cherished, and nurtured with love. As God calls you into marriage with each other, that is not a generic or general invitation, but a very specific call to each other… of all the infinite number of people God could create, He chose to create you, and to create you for each other… How He loves us!

These precious gifts of life were not enough… God has not only created each one of us with love, but in the midst of our brokenness and need, He redeemed us and gave the gift of new life in Christ. At your baptism, you became adopted children of God, members of Christ’s body the Church. In Christ, marriage becomes a sacrament, a visible sign of an invisible reality. Your second reading speaks to this very directly. I appreciate your boldness and courage in choosing this reading… it is the very heart of the Church’s theology of marriage, but many misunderstand Paul and the Church. The word “submissive” rings out, and anger flares, or hurt. Let us listen carefully, because what Paul actually says is very beautiful, and VERY challenging! Listen to the very first line… “Follow the way of love, even as Christ loved you. He gave himself for us. Defer to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This call to defer, to submit, comes to each of you. You are to imitate Christ who gave Himself for us, who loved us even unto death, death on a Cross. We have just celebrated that highest and most central feast of Christian Life, the Sacred Triduum, Easter. The gift of self that Jesus Christ made on the Cross, the gift of self that led Him into the tomb and even into the depths of Hell, that gift of self for us brought Resurrection, Victory, and Joy! The authentic gift of self, the surrender of one’s life and heart into God’s hands leads to true life.

If anything, Jeff, Paul puts you on the spot even more than your wife. Listen to his instructions to you! “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church. He gave himself up for her…” You know what Christ did for His Church, for us… Remember Holy Thursday, remember Good Friday. Out of love for us, Jesus was condemned, mocked, beaten, crowned with thorns, burdened with the Cross, crucified. He shed every drop of sweat, every ounce of blood in Him for us, for His bride, the Church. This is your calling, to lay down your life, even unto death, to lay down every drop of sweat and life and blood in your veins for Sarah, who will be your wife, even unto death… to empty yourself in love for her, even as our Lord did for you, for us. Marriage will not be easy, life is not easy… the Church is very honest about this! You will be called to give in ways you cannot now imagine, but you will NOT be alone!

Sarah, as you place yourselves freely into your husband’s arms, as you entrust your very life to him, he is to entrust his very life to you, heart, body, mind, & soul. This is Christian Marriage, and this is a mystery, a sacrament, that teaches us about Christ’s love for us. Every sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible reality… the visible sign for the world is your love for each other, and it is meant to teach all of us who see it about Christ’s love for us… Husbands and wives, this is the challenge, the invitation… as you love each other, as you love your children, the world should say… ahhh, now I understand a little more how much God loves me!

This is a daunting challenge… to enter into this gift of self freely, to give yourselves totally, holding nothing back, to be faithful to each unto death, and to be open to the gift of life from God… this is Christian marriage, and humanly, it is implausible! It is not possible merely by human strength… but with God, all things are possible! To live this call is to be, like Christ, a sign of contradiction to a world that is very confused, very sad, filled with hurt and falsehood. To live this call is to be a beacon of hope… not because either one of you is perfect, not because you will not make mistakes, but because God’s love at work in you is stronger and more beautiful than any challenge or struggle you may face! We come, here, to our Gospel, to the beatitudes! These sayings are poetic, but in worldly terms, they are silliness, they are pipe dreams. In this world, the poor in spirit, the sorrowing, the lowly, the peacemakers often come up short. But in light of God and eternity, they chart for us the mysterious path of the Gospel. Jeff and Sarah, they chart for you the path of joy in your marriage… to be little and humble before your spouse, ready to admit your failures and ask forgiveness… to long for holiness as a deer longs for running streams, and to lead each other to that life of prayer and truth…to show mercy and to make peace. “Be glad and rejoice, for your reward in heaven is great!”

You begin your marriage here in this beautiful church, a place, Sarah, where you have worshipped, a place where the gift of faith given you by your family was strengthened and nourished. Jeff and Sarah, we have prayed together today, we have listened together to the word of God. Do not stop seeking the Lord in this way… they say that the family that prays together, stays together… this is true! We added a new clause when you visited me last month…the family that traps and prays together, stays together and is warm in their beaver hats! All jesting aside, stay together before the Lord… stay close to the Lord in prayer, in His Word, in the sacraments. In just a few moments, you will enter into the sacrament of marriage, and that sacrament will be sealed by the gift of the Eucharist, the gift of the Lord’s body, blood, soul, and divinity. Jesus who gave Himself to us on the cross, Jesus who calls you to imitate that gift of self in your marriage, pouring out your lives for each other, that same Jesus continues to come to us, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, under the humble appearance of bread and wine. He not only calls you to holiness, but He gives Himself to you, giving you all the grace and strength you need, if you will but receive it. Enter this sacrament today in humble joy, and receive the Lord once joined in marriage as one body, one love… be filled with Him who died for us!

 

My Lord and my God.... Jesus, I trust in you.

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Homily Outline for the 2nd Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday

Happy Easter, brother and sisters in our Risen Lord! Jesus Christ is risen, alleluia, alleluia! He is risen, indeed! Although most of us are finishing off our Easter candy and almost through those delicious leftover ham sandwiches, today is just as much Easter as last Sunday… this evening we enter into the octave day of Easter, the 8th day! The Church gives us these 8 days of intense liturgical joy because we need more than one day to begin to wrap our heads around the truth of that proclamation… “The Prince of life, who died, reigns immortal!” Towards the end, the sequence says, “Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning,” and our opening prayer today says, “God of mercy, you was away our sins!” We also celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. Jesus suffered, died, and rose again precisely because we needed, and need, to be saved!

The Apostles needed to receive the very life and grace of God poured out through the Cross and Resurrection, and so do we! This theme is repeated in our readings: “And every day, the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” “I was hard pressed and was falling, but the Lord helped me.” “You rejoice…. as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of souls.” Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon His apostles, and immediately He says, “Receive the Hol Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” We are invited to believe, and we are filled with joy, precisely because we are so much in need of God’s healing and help, His Divine Mercy. Truly, we are each one of us beggars before the Lord.

It is difficult to admit this; it is difficult to receive this gift of faith. In the gospel we hear vividly of Thomas’ struggle. He will not believe unless he sees the Lord’s wounds. Upon seeing them he exclaims, “My Lord and my God.” Those wounds on the risen Lord speak of our need, His suffering, but also of the victory He offers to us!

We have not seen those wounds… Jesus offers us a blessing, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed!” But we have seen the fruits of that resurrection… before that gift of the Holy Spirit, the apostles are scared, they’re still holed up in hiding. But, after that, we hear of their courage in Acts, “They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart, praising God and enjoying favor with all the people.” They were no longer scared, even by persecution, martyrdom and death. This truth and proclamation has come down to us through long centuries of faith and courage. Today there are 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide connected to that upper room by an unbroken chain of faith and grace. Even as it is difficult to believe in our skeptical and cynical world, even as it is difficult to trust a Church made up precisely of broken people like us, nonetheless we have GOOD reason to trust message, this truth! Jesus Christ is risen, indeed! His Body, the Church still lives and breathes with that same Holy Spirit He breathed upon his apostles.

And the Lord’s action in the world did not cease upon His Ascension into heaven… He continues to be at work in the world. As we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday today, we remember the concrete impact of Christ’s resurrection in the life of St. Faustina Kowalska… she was born in a poor family in 1905 in Poland. She grew up in the midst of poverty, hunger, and the horror of World War I. She heard God’s call to the religious life, and as a young nun the Lord appeared to her as He is depicted in the Divine Mercy Image: From His heart, pierced on the cross, shine out rays of white and red, signifying water and blood, Baptism and Eucharist. Jesus asked St. Faustina to share this image with a very simple message, “Jesus, I trust in you!” It was a message much needed in her difficult life, much needed in her broken land. Poland would suffer much more after her death than it did during her life: World War II, and the long Communist regime. It is a message and invitation just as much needed in our hearts and lives, so often broken by sin and suffering. Jesus has risen from the dead, He has trampled death by death. He offers us the fruits of that victory, if we will but receive them! Let us make that pray our own, let those words be on our lips… with Thomas let us say, “My Lord and my God.” With St. Faustina let us say, “Jesus, I trust in you.”

TV link from the Vatican... this should show the beatification LIVE!

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If you want to post this on your website go to:  http://www.h2onews.org/form-web-tv-en.html



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Run to Him, Serve Him, He is Risen, Alleluia!

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Homily Outline for Easter Sunday, Year A

Jesus Christ is risen, Alleluia Alleuia! Truly, He is Risen! Alleluia Alleluia!

Alleluia is Hebrew for “Praise God,” it is the Easter word par excellence, for on this day of all the days of the year we truly have reason to praise our God and Savior… Jesus has risen from the grave trampling death and sin! The stone which the builders rejected has become the corner stone! Most amazing of all, we are invited into and offered the fruits of this victory… Jesus rose precisely for us! God created us in love, now He has redeemed us in love by the blood of His Only Son.

We heard in the Gospel that St. Peter was the first to enter Christ’s empty tomb… listen to his testimony, the testimony of an eye witness, the testimony of one who denied the Lord and yet repented: “He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God
as judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Last night, after we had entered the church with only the light of the Paschal Candle, newly blessed and lighted from the Easter Fire, I proclaimed the Exultet, a song of rejoicing. One line of that most beautiful song captures the mystery of Christ’s resurrection, “O happy fault, o necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!” The Church marvels, we marvel, that from Adam’s sin that sundered the tie between man and God, God has brought forth joy and beauty beyond measure. God Himself came and dwelt among us, Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man. He bore every price of our sin, was beaten and crucified, died and descended down into the land of the dead, and yet rose victorious! Alleluia, Praise God for His mercy, Praise God for His love, Praise God for the invitation made to each one of us, especially in our baptism, to respond to this love with love.

Paul tells us that our lives are hidden with Christ in God. When we were baptized, we descended into the depths of the water, dying with Christ, and we rose up out of the water reborn. “When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with Him in glory.” We are drawn into this praise, into this victory, OUR weakness and sin is overwhelmed in Christ’s victory… This is a mystery, truly our lives are hidden with Christ… so often we do not see all, we do not understand… but Christ has won the victory! May we praise Him this morning in His hiddenness, even as we do not fully understand.

It is often the case that on Easter, like Christmas, many people come to Church who are not here every week… I just want to address some words to you this morning: Welcome! We are glad you are here with us! Of all the days of the year to go to Church, today is the most important day… for your presence here we say Alleluia, Praise God! In our joy that you are here, we also extend the Lord’s invitation… do not come today in joy, and then stay away! We want you to be with us every Sunday, we need you to be with us every Sunday, indeed, you need to be with us every Sunday!

  For every one of us here, today, this morning, in this Easter Joy, there is an invitation… God has given us everything, even Himself… and He has won for us the victory… there is only one response that is fitting… to respond in joy, to give our lives to Him, to seek Him… not just today, on Easter, not just on Sunday, but every day of the week. We are to seek Him, to serve Him, to love Him at Church, at home, at work, at school, each day and in every moment. He offers us grace and strength and light. May we wait upon His love as Mary Magdalene did, may we run to Him as Peter and John, may we see the empty tomb and believe.

In just a few moments, we will renew our baptismal promises… this is our renewed response to the Lord. May our prayer be heartfelt, and may we in this way prepare our hearts to receive the Risen Lord Himself from this altar.

He died for our sins.... for love of us.

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Homily Outline for Good Friday, Year A    

In many powerful ways, this Good Friday service speaks for itself… it places before us the Passion of Christ, His suffering and death. We will respond shortly by praying for the whole world, we will venerate the Cross, sign of our salvation, and we will receive the fruits of the Lord’s Sacrifice, His Body Blood Soul and Divinity. We will depart in silence, into the waiting and fast, lasting all the way through tomorrow evening, if possible. Only on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, of all the days of the year, is the Mass not celebrated. We wait in silence while Christ lies in the tomb. Tomorrow evening, having passed through this silence, as darkness falls and Saturday ends, we will gather again for the Easter Vigil, the most joyous of all nights.

I simply want to draw your attention now to the reason for all of this, the reason for our somber and sober liturgy today, the reason for Christ’s suffering and death. There is an immediate reason, a painful one, and a deeper reason, a joyful one.

Listen again to the prophet Isaiah “he was spurned and avoided by people…. the guilt of us all.” Christ died because He bore our offenses, He was crushed for our sins. This is not hyperbole, this is not immoderate or inappropriate guilt, this is simply the truth. Christ died for our sins. Every time we’ve been unkind to someone, every time we’ve used pornography or indulged a lustful thought, every time we’ve refused forgiveness, whatever sins we have preferred or been unable to overcome,… the lash of our sin strikes painfully into the Lord’s wounded back. Physically, the Roman soldiers and the Temple Guard beat and killed him, Pontius Pilate in his cowardice condemned him, people in the crowd that day yelled “Crucify Him,” but only our sins brought Him to the Cross. If we ignore this fact, if we fail to be sorry for our sins… if no ray of sorrow pierces our hardened hearts at the thought of the Lord of Glory ground to a pulp, we have not understood this day or the Gospel.

If in honesty we can gaze upon our broken Lord, if we can gaze upon our broken promises, the baptismal purity that we have sullied by our sin, then and only then are we open to the deeper and far more joyful reason for today.

Listen again to Isaiah, who dimly and through shadows foresaw this mystery and joy. “If he gives his life as an offering for sin, he shall see his descendants in a long life, and the will of the Lord shall be accomplished through him.” Christ gave His life for our sins… and he was motivated only by perfect love and obedience. “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” God loves us perfectly, faithfully…. although our sins often render us unable or unwilling to receive that love, nothing we do diminishes His perfect and faithful love for us. That love took on flesh and dwelt among us in Jesus who is Himself God, who is Himself Love. “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” Jesus, in His infinite power as God, is only held to the pillar to be scourged, He is only bound to the cross, by love for us. This is the irony when they mock him, “come down from there.” He could have come down, but out of love, he took our sins all the way to death, so that we could be saved.

So, this afternoon, let our hearts be pierced with sorrow at the pain and sorrow we have caused the Lord. In this sorrow, let us be filled with thanksgiving… He bore the lash for us. By his stripes we are saved…. and in the midst of that healthy and truthful sorrow, let joy be found, and awe and wonder. Jesus loved us perfectly, and was obedient unto death, death on a cross. All has been bought and paid for at the greatest price. Through our tears, as it were, let us see the unimaginable love, the infinite love that has conquered our grief. Let us fast and wait for the joy of the coming dawn.  

           

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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