Homily for 4th Sunday of Lent.

Raise your hand if you are a little boy. Okay. Now, raise your hand if you are a boy at heart. Good. - now how many of you like to play in the mud. I know that I sure did. Well did you know Jesus played in the mud too. Look at today’s Gospel. We will see that Jesus made some mud out of the dirt and his spittle and placed it on a blind man’s eyes. This made the blind man to see. Now, if any of you little boys think that you can do the same with your little brother, just remember that you are not Jesus Christ. Okay.

Any how, I take a certain comfort that Jesus used the mud to heal someone. 

This man in the Gospel was blind from his very birth and Jesus gave him the sight to see. To the best of my recollection there is only one other place in the Old Testament where a man who was blind was given sight. That was in the book of Tobet when Archangel Raphael met Tobit and gave him this miracle. Meeting the Archangel Raphael was like meeting God. The Angel was/ is considered to be an extension of God himself. So when Jesus Christ healed the man born blind, he did not do a simple miracle. He performed a miracle that spoke that He was God. Only God could give someone sight. In giving the man sight he gave him a new life. 

Jesus offers us spiritual sight this day. For too long, we walked around in a blindness, but today he offers us sight. For most of us, we can see, touch, taste, smell, and hear the realities around us. We go about with our work, our pleasures, our concerns and we ignore the most important aspect of our lives - our souls. If we ignore it too long, then we might have an eternity to pay. So there is this spiritual dimension in which we have to have the eyes to see and ears to hear. For many of us, we walked in darkness, we have been blind. Now, Jesus offers us spiritual eyes that will allow us to see bring the new life He has in store for us.

Many of you might remember the great work written by Plato called the Republic. In it there is a story called the Allegory of the Cave. Plato paints the picture of a dark cave where several men sit facing a wall. There is a fire behind them and in between the men and the fire is a passageway. People carry various items that when they pass by the fire they cast a shadow on the wall. The men sitting there only see the objects on the wall. Before long these shadows are the only realities that these men know. They become familiar with them and even give them names. Then one day a man comes to free them from the cave. He takes them out of the cave to where the light is. For some of the men, the light is too strong and too bright. They began to question whether or not they belonged outside or back in the cave. Some of the men preferred the shadows over the true, beautiful, and good. 

What does this mean to us? When Jesus offers the light we have to turn to him and not away. There will be pressures to not follow him and to return to what is only a shadow of what is real. Dont succumb to the pressure that wants to pull you from this new life. Instead run to the light.

Now what is the key to having this new sight and new life. It all comes from the cross. I want you to look at the cross here. This cross is something that every Catholic Church has. Sometimes  we look upon this cross and we are comforted. I know that one time when I was sick there was nothing more powerful to look at then the cross. It comforted me in my sickness. Well look at the cross. Why does it comfort us? Why does looking at a torture device make us comforted. Or here we have the cross which hangs the body of a man who was brutally tortured. He was nailed to that cross sending ripples of pain shooting through his body. Every time he tried to take a breath, he had to stand on his feet which caused more pain. Here lies the greatest torture device ever and we have it hanging from our necks. Why? Why? Because, it was no mere man that climbed on the cross but God himself. It was our sins that nailed him to that cross. It was my sins that put him there and yours. With the resurrection of Jesus Christ, this cross no longer was a sign of torture but a sign of victory. We look at this cross because it is a sign now of life. What was a symbol of death has become an icon of life. 

You know Cardinal Dolan. He is the Archbishop of New York who just became a cardinal and is the president of the conference of Bishops. Well when he was a simple parish priest, he visited a hospital. In the hospital room laid a man who was unable to talk. He simply communicated to others by blinking his eyes and a few other facial contortions. His wife was usually there to interpret his wants, but had just stepped out of the room. Well Fr. Dolan stood at the foot of the bed and was looking at the man as the man grew increasingly agitated. His eyes were blinking rapidly and he was crinkling his face muscles as best he could. Fr. Dolan did not know what to do so he just stood there and prayed. Meanwhile this man’s wife came in and saw the good priest standing there at the foot of the bed not knowing what to do. She instantly said. “Father you have to move now.” As he moved the patient became calm. The wife then explained that all her husband wants to do is to be able to look upon the crucifix and see Father you were standing in the way of his line of sight. 

This man knew that the cross was his way to life. He knew that he needed to look upon it so that he could see rightly the ways of the Lord in his own life.

Now, many of you will be asked if you have not so already, to give an account upon why God should let you into heaven. They ask Catholics this all the time. When you are standing before God and he asks you why you should be allowed into heaven, what will your answer be? My friends the key to the answer is right before you. Its the cross. Its the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I want all of you to be able to answer this question with strength and conviction. It is through the cross that we have any hope to be saved. It is through the cross that all the goodness, blessings, graces of our sacraments come. When you are baptized you are baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Cross. When you are forgiven in the sacrament of Reconciliation, you are forgiven through Jesus Christ crucified. The Cross. When we celebrate the sacrament of the Eucharist, we re-present the death and resurreciton of jesus Christ. The Cross. The answer is always the cross. As Christians - it is our sign of victory. It is our sign of life. It is what brings to us new life.

Now, we each have a choice to follow Jesus or not. Do go back to the ways of darkness or to live a life in the light. At this point we should read the second reading again. “You were once in darkness, but now you are in the light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth.” We are to live as people of light and not as blind men.

I want to finish with this illustration of the sacrament of confession. Two teenage boys were standing there in line waiting to go to confession. They were made to go by their mom and they didnt really get the confession. They decided that they would make up some horrendous sins to tell the priest. So the first one went and told the second ones the sins he just made up. The second one decided that he would trump him. So he went to the priest and started saying outrageous things. Father forgive me for I pulled out all of the hair of my sister and I joined the mafia and I .... The priest understood the situation and gave the boy a simple penance. I would like for you to stand before the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and saying three times. “Jesus, you did all of this for me and I dont give a damn.” The first time the boy did it he was laughing. The second time he couldnt finish the words. The third time, the boy said, “Lord Jesus you did all of this for me.” He was so overtaken by the reality of his sin he ran back to the confessional to make a good confession. 

This boy had been given the new eyes of faith which gave him a new life in Christ. Are you blind or can you see?