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Homilies are posted no later than during the week
prior to the Sunday they are needed |
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4 Lent |
Oil was delivered to a home one winter day. The
father, surrounded by his kids, protested he did not order it. The
driver asked, "Do you have oil?" The father said no. "Well," the driver
said, "you're in luck. Even better, this oil is paid for." The driver
handed over the gift card. It read, "Sent to you by a Christian." His
benefactor was anonymous but well known to Jesus.
The most famous blind man in history is featured in
today's Gospel. It is a play in three acts. (William Barclay) The drama
opens with wonder and ends in faith.
The man formerly blind had no idea his
ophthamologist was the Messiah. In the first act, he is summoned by the
Grand Inquisitors. In answer to their third degree, he says in verse 11
"the man called Jesus" gave me sight. He considered the Teacher
extraordinary but nothing more. He might well have applied
Shakespeare's words to Jesus, "His life was gentle and the elements
were so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the
world, 'This was a man.'" Many atheists are lifelong fans of Jesus. His
is the greatest story ever told and with each telling it gets better
and better. (Unknown) His life is one in an infinite trillion. But a
singular man is not thereby divine.
In the second act and verse 17, the cured man takes
a major step forward. He calls his benefactor a prophet. Such a person
is a VIP with God. He knows what's going down and what's going on. But
he's not divine.
The curtain goes up on the final act. The once blind
man is about to take Kierkegaard's gigantic leap of faith. John's
miracle play is to conclude with all guns booming. The cured man has
been rudely expelled from the presence of his inquisitors. They wanted
to lynch him. They snorted indignantly, "Are you trying to teach us?"
He was to them trash.
But the Lord of the Temple is waiting for him. He
knew well that he would be kicked out of His Temple. He starts the
dialogue with the question, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He
responds, "Sir, tell me who He is so that I may believe." Christ's
response comes as no surprise to the man. "I am He." The man declares,
"Lord, I believe." Notice he does not call Him "Jesus" now nor "sir"
but "Lord." Then he fell on his knees and worshipped Him. The curtain
drops to this centuries old play.
The man placed his belief in the Galilean because he
felt compelled to do so. His new eyes told him of His divinity. Though
he had been blind, we are nowhere told that he was stupid.
The more one studies Jesus, the greater He becomes.
This is not true of us. We quickly reveal our faults. Eg, we are all
grossly disappointed by pedophile priests, but none of that
disappointment washes over onto Christ. If it did, you would not be
reading these lines nor I writing them.
This miracle tells us much about the Lord. The blind
man had not asked for a cure. It was the Christ who gave it freely. He
was touched by the man's condition. It did not concern the Saviour that
the man did not know Him from a hole in the wall. He was repelled by
the condition of the man's eyes. His blindness offended Him. He wanted
him to enjoy rainbows, purple and orange sunsets, and wild flowers. If
Christ had a calling card, it would read, "If in trouble, call me at 1
800 JESUS." Christ is one who keeps His heart softer than His head.
(Unknown)
And, as Jesus is on call 24/7, so does He wish us to
be. He would be delighted if we followed the example of the anonymous
donor who opened the homily. The benefactor has oil delivered in winter
time. A Christian impulse has changed the family's life. War had been
declared on poverty and this time poverty lost. What had begun as a
cold winter developed into a warm one because of a Christian.
Lent is moving along. Into our ears, the Messiah
whispers, "Do amaze me in the three weeks left in this Lent with your
generosity to my poor. Do it without calling attention to yourself."
The poor are not hard to find. The New York Times reports 20% of US
children live in poverty and 47 million US workers lack a living wage.
You may say, "I give away so much already. When do I
stop?" The answer is when Jesus stops giving to you. Remember poverty
never takes a holiday. (Unknown) |
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http://www.st.ignatius.net/pastor.html
4 Lent
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A man had just sat down at his desk to begin the
working day when one of his associates came storming into his office.
"You won't believe this," he said. "I was just almost killed outside. I
had just walked out of the deli where I buy my egg sandwich every
morning. Suddenly a police car came down the street with its lights
flashing and sirens blaring. The police were chasing another car. The
other car stopped right in front of me. The guys jumped out and began
shooting at the police. I hit the ground and could hear bullets buzzing
over my head. I'm telling you, I'm lucky to be alive." After a moment
of silence the first man said: "You eat an egg sandwich every morning?"
The point of the story, and believe it or not there
is one, is that we can become so involved in our own narrow interests
that we miss the obvious. This Sunday’s Gospel illustrates the
destructiveness of such narrowness. Jesus had just healed a blind man,
"to let God's work shine forth." But by doing this he threatened the
comfortable ordered life of the Jewish leaders. How could God possibly
be working through someone other than them? If people were to claim
God's work outside of their structure, then their authority was being
threatened. They missed the fact that God was indeed working. They were
more concerned with the minor part. He was working, but not through
them. They focused on the egg sandwich instead of the whole picture of
what was taking place. So, these leaders sought some way to discredit
what he had done. They condemned Jesus for working on the Sabbath. Even
though it was a sign of the presence of the Messiah that sight would be
given to the blind, and even though the man's parents testified that he
was indeed born blind, they refused to see the presence of God among
them. By the end of the reading it is clear that they are blind.
The Fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John, presents this
intricate little drama in its ninth chapter as a call for us all to
allow the Lord to open our eyes. The Temple leaders and Pharisees were
too concerned with themselves to do this. They were not going to have
some commoner from Nazareth upset their lifestyle. We are all tempted
to do the same thing ourselves. We may be pretty settled in our family
when we suddenly realize that our spouse or one of the children has a
big problem. Our spouse, or one of our older children, college age, is
drinking way too much for it not to be a problem. But it is so easy to
close our eyes to this--maybe it will go away. We act as though it is
asking too much for us to give of ourselves to solve the problem. We
refused to see the Lord calling out to us in others. We don't see the
whole picture. We are blind to his presence.
As another example, perhaps at work or in school we
are confronted with people pushing us to make unchristian choices. We
know that we could take a courageous stand and say "That is just not
right, or even, That is not my style," but this would make for further
conflict. We don't see the whole picture. This is our opportunity to
really stand up for Christ. So, instead of making life difficult for
ourselves, we go along with the crowd, in conversation if not also in
deed. We end up being blind to God's presence calling us to give
witness to the power of Christ in the world.
God's reality and our human perception of things do
not necessarily match. Neither Jesse nor Samuel the prophet thought
that the future king of Israel would be the most insignificant of
Jesse's sons. No one expected the Messiah to be a commoner from
Nazareth. We focus on our perceptions of what God should be like or how
he should act. And we miss the big picture, his presence in our lives.
Even in times of sickness, we expect God to heal us, when actually our
sickness might be the very way that we draw closer to him. We expect
God to solve our problems when actually these problems help us to keep
a perspective on what really is important in life. By demanding how God
should act, as the Pharisees did, we become blind to his presence among
us.
Today we pray for the grace to take steps from
darkness into light. |
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http://www.geocities.com/seapadre_1999/
* available in Spanish - see Spanish
homilies
4 Lent
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Bottom line: Jesus anoints the blind man; for those willing to be
amazed this small gesture contains enormous promise for the future.
A few people have noticed my new haircut. The close cut style is the
new "Barak Obama look." I'm hoping to get some of his charisma. But
someone said to me, "Father, it will take more than a haircut."
In today's Gospel we see the person with the greatest charisma ever.
Jesus performs a small gesture with enormous promise. He anoints the
eyes of blind man. In order to understand the importance of this
gesture, we need to keep in mind a paradox: Those who think they see
clearly are often blind and those considered blind are sometimes the
ones who truly see. We call that a paradox - an apparent, but not real,
contradiction.
A popular movie illustrates the paradox about blindness and vision. The
film is titled "Juno" after its principal character. Juno is a high
school girl who gets pregnant and, after talking with her boyfriend,
decides to "nip it in the bud." When she goes to the abortion clinic,
she runs into a lone protester - a girl in her class named Su-Chin.
Holding a sign with a picture of a baby, Su-Chin timidly chants "All
babies/ want to get borned! All babies/ want to get borned!" Amused -
and feeling a bit sorry for Su-Chin - Juno talks a moment with her,
then heads into the clinic. Su-Chin calls out, "Your baby has a beating
heart… it can feel pain… and it has fingernails!" At the word
"fingernails," Juno turns around and says, "Really?" In the waiting
room, Juno notices the fingernails of each person there. She stands up
and walks out of the clinic.
The shy, introverted Su-Chin opens the eyes of her self-confident,
extroverted classmate. But several months later, Juno in turn helps
someone see. With her belly as round as a basketball, she runs into the
woman (Vanessa) who wants to become her child's adoptive mother. Juno
tells her that the baby is kicking up a fuss inside her. Hesitantly,
Vanessa asks if she can feel the baby. Juno says, "sure," and Vanessa
puts her hand on top of Juno's stomach. "I don't feel anything," she
says. Juno tells her she has to talk to him. Disregarding all propriety
(they are in the middle of a shopping mall) the lady kneels in front of
Juno and places her hands on either side of the abdomen. At first
slowly - and then as if she is in a world apart - she addresses the
child. Suddenly Vanessa gives a start. "I felt him," she says. A
beautiful expression comes over her: That tiny moment of interaction
holds enormous promise for the future.
So it is in today's Gospel. Jesus performs a seeming small gesture. He
anoints a blind man's eyes. For those who think they have everything
figured out, mud and saliva seem crude. But for those willing to be
amazed the gesture holds tremendous promise.
In a few moment our catechumens will receive the second scrutiny or
pre-baptismal exorcism. It reminds us that just as Jesus anointed the
blind man, he wants to open our eyes. If we are willing to be amazed,
Jesus can do great things for us.
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Spanish Version
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http://www.agreeley.com/homilies.html
4 Lent
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http://benedictine.stvincent.edu/archabbey/Weeklywords/Weeklywords.html
4 Lent
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Fourth Sunday of Lent
Gospel Summary
Jesus, in order that the works of God might be made visible, gives
sight to a man who had been blind from birth. Members of the community
then proceed to debate the meaning of the various aspects of the event:
why Jesus put clay on the man's eyes and sent him to wash in the pool
of Siloam; whether the man was really the blind man they had known; the
significance of Jesus' making the clay with his saliva on the Sabbath;
the fear of the man's parents to acknowledge that Jesus was from God;
the expulsion of the man who had been blind because he insisted that
Jesus really was from God.
The passage ends with the judgment of Jesus that the man who was born
blind now truly sees; while those who claim to see have closed their
eyes to the works of God made visible before their eyes.
Life Implications
John uses the remembrance of Jesus' cure of a blind man to develop a
universal, theological meaning of the event for us, the hearers of his
gospel. We are aware that Jesus is the source of division among people
today, just as he was in his own Jewish community during his lifetime
and decades later at the time of the gospel's composition. There are
numerous actors in the gospel narrative with whom we might identify and
then explore the implications for our own life situations.
We can identify with Jesus, the light which shines in the darkness.
Christians who have accepted this divine light in turn must allow the
light of Christ to shine through them so that the works of God might be
made visible. The narrative seems to affirm that the blind man who has
received the light of Christ, himself becomes a light shining in the
darkness. His simple, to-the-point responses suggest that they might
have been spoken by Jesus in similar circumstances. He, like Jesus, has
become a source of division.
One might readily identify with the beggar, blind from birth. Here is a
person who seeks the truth and has the courage to act upon it even
though suffering is the result. The narrative illustrates the cost of
discipleship in a world of darkness, which tries to overcome the light
(Jn 1:5).
Most Christians would not think of identifying with those who refused
to see the light and thus become hardened in their blindness. Jesus,
however, also warns us that those who say "We see" may really be blind
to the presence of God in their midst. Consider this sentence from the
First Letter of John to his fellow Christians: Whoever hates his
brother is in darkness; he walks in darkness and does not know where he
is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes" (1:11). A good
prayer for this Sunday might be: "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief"
(Mk 9:24).
Campion P. Gavaler, O.S.B.
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http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/lowhome.html
Meeting Christ in the Liturgy
4 Lent
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1 Samuel 16,1.6-7.10-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5, 8-14; St. John 9, 1-41
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
The tragedy greater than all others is to be blind and to say that we
can see. There are so many areas where we are perilously blind to the
ways in which our actions, words, thoughts and desires have jeopardized
our eternal salvation. Our redemption in Christ must begin with an
honest assessment of our fallen nature, with our intellects darkened
and our wills weakened, wounded by the effects of the sin of Adam and
Eve.
We dread to hear our Lord speak these words in judgment of us: " 'But
we see', you say, and your sin remains." Self-righteousness and
hypocritical posturing are abhorrent to God, who favors us when we
embrace our true place before him as Our Lady does, one of humility and
gratitude, of praise and thanksgiving. This is accomplished by heeding
the Lord's call for repentance through authentic conversion.
Conversion is accomplished in daily life by gestures of reconciliation,
concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right,
(Cf. Am 5:24; Isa 1:17.) by the admission of faults to one's brethren,
fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience,
spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution
for the sake of righteousness. Taking up one's cross each day and
following Jesus is the surest way of penance. (Cf. Lk 9:23.) (CCC 1435)
The Catechism illuminates the teaching of our Lord.
Jesus scandalized the Pharisees by eating with tax collectors and
sinners as familiarly as with themselves. (Lk 5:30) Against those among
them 'who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised
others," Jesus affirmed: 'I have not come to call the righteous, but
sinners to repentance.'(Lk 18:9) He went further by proclaiming before
the Pharisees that, since sin is universal, those who pretend not to
need salvation are blind to themselves. (Jn 8:33-36; 9:40-41) (CCC 588)
Our Lenten journey toward Easter cannot be complete without the
fullness of God's mercy granted in sacramental Confession. Since all
are with sin, all are in need of repentance. In Lent we must let the
scales fall from our eyes, to see ourselves as we truly are before our
thrice-holy God. Whether or not we are conscious of mortal sin,
Confession always grants the graces of Christ to the repentant sinner.
I look forward to meeting you here again next week as, together, we
"meet Christ in the liturgy"---Father Cusick
(Publish with permission.) www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/
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http://www.ctk-thornbury.org.uk/
4 Lent
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The symbolism in today’s Gospel is obvious. The blindness of Bartimaeus
represents our spiritual blindness but most especially the blindness of
the Pharisees. They refuse to recognise that Jesus is the Messiah. They
do not see things in their true perspective, most particularly when
they come out with the nonsensical statement that by this healing Jesus
is not keeping the Sabbath.
Bartimaeus experiences a double healing. His vision is restored and in
addition he receives the gift of faith. Jesus is therefore presenting
faith as true sight—seeing things as they really are.
This is most important. When we come to believe in God and in Jesus his
Son we begin to see how things really are. Our view of the world and
all that is in it is seen through new eyes. We recognise that what is
visible with our own eyes and experienced through our senses isn’t the
whole story.
The whole story is that God is the creator of all this, it has a
purpose and in due course all created things will return to God. A
crucial part of this is that God gives us free will because he wants us
to love him voluntarily but that mankind has abused this privilege and
so God sends Jesus to live among us and to give his life for our
salvation—this is the greatest sign that there ever could be of God’s
love for us.
Unfortunately only a few people see these things, only a few recognise
what God’s plan is; only a minority understand and marvel in the
wonders that God is working.
But we can count ourselves in that number. We are recipients of this
Good News and we recognise it for what it is. And we do so not because
of any special quality we have or because we are in any way
intrinsically better than others—most likely it is the opposite because
as we know Christ chooses the weak to confound the strong.
We can count ourselves in that number because God has given us the gift
of faith—he has opened our eyes just as surely as he opened the eyes of
blind Bartimaeus.
And it should always be our prayer that God will continue to bless us
with this gift of faith which gives so much meaning to our lives. We
don’t want to grow lukewarm and slack and lose this marvellous vision
of the works of God; so each day pray that this gift will be renewed in
you that as time passes the richness and wonder of God’s vision for the
world will become evermore clear.
We all know what it is to cross a dark room searching for the light
switch. We have all stubbed our toe on a chair leg as we grope in the
dark searching for light. Sometimes we get a glimpse through the
curtain as a car passes in the street and this might be just enough to
enable us to orientate ourselves and find our way to the switch.
We have all experienced occasions such as these and they provide us
with a very good metaphor for the sight which faith gives us.
St Paul says: You were darkness once but now you are light in the Lord.
We have all surely experienced times in our life when we were in thrall
to sin. But we know that while we experienced the glamour of sin for a
while it soon became distasteful and unsatisfying. We know in our
hearts that the only truly fulfilling kind of life is, to use the words
of Paul, a life lived in complete goodness and right living and truth.
In our first reading we hear about how Samuel under the guidance of the
Lord chose David, the most insignificant of Jesse’s sons, to be King.
In the words of the reading, as Samuel anointed David: the spirit of
the Lord seized on David and stayed with him from that day on.
I suggest that the very same thing has happened to each one of us
gathered here. The Spirit of the Lord has seized hold of us in our
Baptism; that is why we are here blessed with the gift of faith. We
know that David was a very fallible man and on several occasions
committed sinful acts but the promise was kept and the Lord remained
with him and he always returned to the right path.
The Lord will remain with us also and he will gently lead us back to
the right path. On Friday 22nd March we will be holding a Service of
Reconciliation with the opportunity for individual confessions. If you
feel you need a bit of “leading back”, then that might be the very
opportunity you are looking for. |
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Contact Father at cbonar@cfl.rr.com;
information about his book of homilies is available at www.clydebonar.com.
4 Lent |
Introduction
If we’re at home, just before noon on weekdays, we can watch the TV
show "The Price Is Right." Contestants try to guess how much something
costs. Guess the closest and you get the prize.
Everyone in the audience wants to be a contestant. The TV camera sweeps
the audience. Then, the announcer says: "Betty, come on down." Betty
has been chosen to be a contestant on "The Price Is Right."
Three of God’s Choices
God chooses people also, for those big tasks God wants done. The Lord
looks into our hearts, finds the heart he needs, and calls that heart
to God's service. Our readings today tell of three unlikely people
chosen by God.
In the first reading, from the book of Samuel, we hear the Lord say: "I
have chosen my king." The Lord chooses David. Pretty strange choice.
Jesse had eight sons. God by-passed the seven older sons of Jesse.
Then, God chooses Jesse’s youngest son. David, the shepherd boy, a
teenager with ruddy cheeks, "handsome to behold." Chosen by God to lead
the Israelites.
And lead he did. David covered the ark of the covenant with gold, put
the ornate cart into a line-up with cymbals clanging and horns blaring,
and marched into Jerusalem. David the boy-king dancing at the head of
the parade. By his charismatic leadership, David captured the
allegiance of all the tribes of Israel, and made Israel a great nation.
An even more unlikely choice, Paul, the writer of our second reading.
In choosing Paul, God chose the leader of the opposition. Newly
converted followers of Christ were causing trouble at the synagogue. A
staunch Pharisee, Paul led his hit squad against these early
Christians. Until Paul himself was knocked to the ground on the road to
Damascus. And Christ asked Paul (Acts 9:4), "Why do you persecute me?"
Paul wasn't much to look at: bald-headed, bowlegged, a man small in
size, with a rather large nose. But, Paul became the great apostle to
the Gentiles.
Then the gospel of John tells us Jesus chooses a man blind from birth.
In those days, blindness, any disability, was thought to be punishment
for sin. Either the man’s own sins or the sins of his parents.
Our Lord rubbed mud and spit into the blind man's eyes and sent him
across town. After he washed off the mud in the Pool of Siloam, the
blind man could see.
Jesus made this strange choice of a blind man to teach a lesson in
faith. By showing he could make the blind see, Christ wanted the
Pharisees to see he was indeed the Lord of the Sabbath, the Son of God.
When you think about it, God often chooses curious people. A teenager
to be king, Paul the persecutor of the early Christian church, and a
blind beggar. But that's the point. God chooses. The Father in Heaven
looks into our hearts, finds the heart he wants, and calls us to his
service.
Some Catholics Give Weak Answers
But you know what. A lot of Christians and Catholics give a very weak
answer. God chooses, but the invitation often falls on closed ears.1
We know the facts. Friends, members of our own families, who just don’t
make it to Mass on Sundays. We joke about Catholics who come to church
three times in their lives: to be baptized, to be married, and to be
buried.
The figures on "lapsed" or fallen away Catholic should frighten us.
Numbering about 20 million, there are more lapsed Catholics than belong
to any other denomination!
For too many Christians and Catholics, prayer is not a part of their
daily routine. Morning and evening prayers, never said. Prayers before
meals to thank God for the bounty He provides for our daily needs, so
many people only say prayers before meals on special occasions, like
Thanksgiving Day. On the other hand, when a crisis arises, pleas for
help go out to God, asking God for a special favor.
Catholics have doubts about the teachings of the Church. So many
Catholics disregard the Church’s teaching about birth control. Some
Catholics do not believe the consecrated bread and wine actually
becomes the Body and Blood of Christ.
Nearly half of all Catholics do nothing to help the poor: no
contributions to charities, no time as a volunteer. Yet, Christ told us
to feed the hungry, clothe the naked (Matthew 25:34-46).
A few Catholics don’t even believe Christ rose from the dead! A key
belief of all Christians, the resurrection of Jesus, and one in six
Catholics do not believe it ever happened. Yet, when their time comes,
nearly every baptized Catholic calls a priest for "last rites."
Sometimes our response to God is so weak.
Let the Light Shine
We can do much better. By our baptism, God empowers us to become light
to the world. Let’s let God’s light shine into all that we do, to shine
into all that we are. We give a strong response, a strong "Yes" to God
by living our faith, coming to church, praying, professing the beliefs
of our faith. Let’s give that big "Yes" to God.
Sometimes God calls us to light up the world when we suffer. A good
example comes from a name we know, Braille. When Louis Braille was nine
years old, his father began to teach his son his own trade, to be a
harness-maker. It was the early nineteenth century. One day the
hole-puncher slipped and pierced his eye. Just a few years later, his
other eye failed. Young Louis was totally blind.
Some time after he became blind, a friend handed him a pine cone. As
Louis Braille felt the rough pine cone, an idea struck him. He created
an alphabet of raised dots on paper so that a blind person could read
by feeling the letters. After losing his own eyesight, Louis Braille
said "yes" to God. He opened up the written word for the blind to read.
Each day we can light up the world by little acts of kindness. One day
Madeline was having dinner with some old friends. As they talked, the
daughter of the host couple told of her recent divorce. It had been
messy. Arguments over child custody, arguments about visitation rights,
arguments over how to split up the household. The newly divorced lady
had been through a rough time. And, she began to cry.
A few minutes of silence followed. Then the lady looked at Madeline and
said, "I like your ear rings. They’re lovely." Madeline reached up,
took off her ear rings, and gave them to the newly divorced lady. A
gift, a spontaneous act of kindness. The light of a Christian made the
world a little bit brighter for everyone at dinner than evening.
A great time for the light of Christ comes when sin darkens the world.
Peer pressure often causes us to do sinful things. In one school, a
group of popular teenagers began to shun certain other students. Becky
belonged to the "in" group. Debbie was not a member of the "in" group.
Then, Becky was assigned to work on a science project with Debbie.
Becky and Debbie had never hung out with each other. But, working
together on a school assignment, each started to like the other. Becky
began to feel ashamed when Becky’s friends would mock Debbie.
Starting out as a prideful "in" group snob, Becky ended up lighting the
light of Christ. She recognized what a wonderful person Debbie was,
even if not popular.
When God calls, we are to answer with a loud "Yes." In our prayer, in
our ministry, in our families, where we work. and where we go to
school. To make Christ present, to light up the world.
Conclusion
Paul wrote to the Ephesians: "Live as children of the light." In this
world darkened by sin, God calls us to make the light of Christ shine.
Our answer is our choice: Yes or No. If we say No, the world stays
dark. If we say Yes, God shines forth from us like a bright beacon on a
hill. A bright Christian light for all to see.
Add the following when celebrating the Second Scrutiny
Today we celebrate with our catechumens the Second Scrutiny. As we did
last week, we and our catechumens seek to leave behind the darkness of
sin and to live in the light of goodness, justice, and truth. We repent
of our sins. |
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homilies may be copied and adapted for your own use;
however, they may not be commercially published without permission of
the author.
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