SPEAKER_00: Sunday in the middle of Lent, this season of repentance, fasting, and self-examination, the church suddenly tells us to rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: The priest may wear rose vestments, the tone shifts.
SPEAKER_00: The church gives us kind of an oasis.
SPEAKER_00: This is Letari Sunday from the word Letare meaning rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: But notice something important.
SPEAKER_00: The church is not telling us to rejoice because Lent is almost over.
SPEAKER_00: We're not celebrating because the discipline is about to ease up.
SPEAKER_00: We rejoice because God is doing something hopefully in us.
SPEAKER_00: And the gospel today shows us exactly what that something is.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus encounters a man who has been blind from birth.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: This man has never seen the sunrise.
SPEAKER_00: He's never seen his parents' face.
SPEAKER_00: He's never seen the beauty of creation.
SPEAKER_00: Darkness was the only world he knew.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus does something extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: He spits on the ground, makes mud, places it on the man's eyes, and tells him to go and wash in the pool of Salem.
SPEAKER_00: At first glance it may seem strange.
SPEAKER_00: Why the mud?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the early Christian community would have immediately seen the connection.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis, God creates the man from dust of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: He forms Adam from clay and breathes life into him.
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus takes dust and forms mud and places it on the man's eyes, this is not random.
SPEAKER_00: It's an act of creation.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is not simply healing the man, he is recreating him.
SPEAKER_00: He's doing what only God can do.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the deeper point of the story.
SPEAKER_00: The miracle is not just about eyesight, it's about vision.
SPEAKER_00: Because something fascinating happens as this story unfolds.
SPEAKER_00: The man who was blind begins to see more and more clearly, not just physically, but spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: At first he says, the man called Jesus healed me.
SPEAKER_00: Then later he calls him a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: And finally he says something extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Lord, I believe.
SPEAKER_00: His eyes are open not only to light but to faith.
SPEAKER_00: At that same time, the people who supposedly see clearly, the Pharisees, become more and more blind.
SPEAKER_00: They have eyes that function perfectly well, but they cannot see the truth standing right there in front of them.
SPEAKER_00: This is the real drama of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: A blind man begins to see, and the people who think they can see reveal that they are actually blind.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where the gospel becomes uncomfortable for us.
SPEAKER_00: Because it forces us to ask a question.
SPEAKER_00: What kind of sight do I have?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there are two ways to see life.
SPEAKER_00: One is natural sight.
SPEAKER_00: Natural sight looks at the world the way everyone else does, sees all the success, the beauty, the status, the pleasure, the security.
SPEAKER_00: It measures life by comfort and achievement.
SPEAKER_00: But if that's the only way that you see the world, then life can become confusing and often frightening.
SPEAKER_00: Because everything is fragile.
SPEAKER_00: Everything can be lost.
SPEAKER_00: But the gospel speaks about something deeper, the vision of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Faith allows us to see the reality the way God sees it.
SPEAKER_00: Faith allows us to see Christ at the very center of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Faith allows us to see suffering not as meaningless, but as something that can be united with the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Faith allows us to see other people not as obstacles or competitors, but as brothers and sisters created in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: Faith allows us to see eternity as the true horizon of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the difficult truth.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is not automatic.
SPEAKER_00: You can have eyes and still be blind.
SPEAKER_00: You can go to mass every Sunday or go to mass every day and still be blind.
SPEAKER_00: You can know all the prayers, all the responses, know all the rituals, and still not be able to see.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees knew Scripture better than anyone.
SPEAKER_00: They were good people.
SPEAKER_00: These were religious people.
SPEAKER_00: They were disciplined, but their hearts were closed.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Jesus is saying to us.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the gospel, he says, I came into this world so that those who did not see might see, and those who think they might see become blind.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the greatest obstacle to faith is spiritual pride.
SPEAKER_00: It's that quiet voice, that quiet belief that everything's fine.
SPEAKER_00: I'm okay.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need anything.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to change.
SPEAKER_00: I don't really need to go through a conversion.
SPEAKER_00: And Lent exists precisely to shatter that illusion.
SPEAKER_00: You do need change.
SPEAKER_00: You do need conversion.
SPEAKER_00: But it's uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: It's inconvenient.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer begins to clear our vision.
SPEAKER_00: If you fast, fasting breaks our attachment to comfort.
SPEAKER_00: If you give it almsgiving, it opens your heart to others.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see how Lent can be transformative?
SPEAKER_00: Little by little light begins to be to bring, be brought to the center.
SPEAKER_00: That's why today the church says, rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: This is, after all, good news.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're here and you're listening to the word of God, maybe not daydreaming or thinking about what you have to do later on today, but if you're really truly listening to the word of God, then something in your heart is stirring even a little, then Christ is already working on your sight.
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to lead you out of darkness into light.
SPEAKER_00: But here's another question that remains for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: Do we want to see?
SPEAKER_00: Because a blind man had to do something.
SPEAKER_00: He had to go and wash.
SPEAKER_00: He had to respond to Christ's command.
SPEAKER_00: Again, we're not again we're being asked to move.
SPEAKER_00: Grace always invites us, but it never forces us.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us here today know exactly what Christ is asking of us.
SPEAKER_00: We know exactly.
SPEAKER_00: We can see what Christ is asking of us to forgive someone that we haven't forgiven, to break that habit of sin that we keep falling into, to return to confession after many years, to make Sunday truly sacred, to reorder our lives so that Christ is at the very center and not just some accessory.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we hesitate.
SPEAKER_00: And so, my brothers and sisters, on this fourth Sunday of Lent, we're halfway through.
SPEAKER_00: Don't waste it.
SPEAKER_00: If you've fallen off the track, get back on.
SPEAKER_00: Let Christ touch your eyes, let him expose what needs to change, let him lead you into the light.
SPEAKER_00: Because the greatest tragedy in life is not physical blindness.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest tragedy is to go through life with perfect eyesight and still not be able to see.
SPEAKER_00: But the greatest miracle is when a person encounters Christ and can finally say what this man said at the end of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I believe.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.