Pastor’s Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Lent
We can be blind in many ways AND we can be blind to many things. The story of the ‘The Man Born Blind’ illustrates these dynamics quite well. The Pharisees were blind to the law of love and compassion, and their being more important than the Sabbath laws. They were also blind to the Messiah, for whom the Chosen People, the Jews, had waited centuries: the Pharisees had a compartmentalized, narrow-minded vision of who and what the Messiah was to look like, and so they failed miserably in recognizing that Jesus was, in fact, the Messiah. Among many other things upon which one could make comment, the irony of the story of ‘The Man Born Blind’ is that the Pharisees were so blinded by their own pride, and their warped “vision” of right and wrong, law-observance, and their notion of what attributes the long-awaited Messiah should have, that they (Pharisees) had MADE themselves spiritually blind; the Man Born Blind, on the other hand, was MADE to physically see due to his spiritual vision to which he was so humbly open: “He said, ‘I do believe, Lord’, and he worshiped Him.” Let us always avoid being so “full of ourselves” that we are blind to being filled with an ever-clearer and accurate vision of God.
Words of Encouragement
Mass Prayer Team Ministry
HSP Religious Library
Rite of Sending & Rite of Election
Custodian Position Available