Good morning, everyone; welcome to those who joined in this live streaming after Mass started. I hope you are keeping well in this very stressful time. Fortunately, modern technology allows us to come together – not in person but over the internet – as a faith community to worship our God. This is a time when we need to come to God and support each other as his faithful people. Modern technology also makes it really easy for us to understand that what we’re experiencing in our time isn’t something new; it’s just something new to us. Just google “pandemics in history” and you’ll see that humanity has struggled through a wide variety of pandemics down through the ages. The earliest recorded one was during the Peloponnesian War, beginning in 430BC; an estimated two-thirds of the population died. In more recent times, we’ve all heard of the Spanish Flu pandemic. It lasted over a year and resulted in 50 million deaths worldwide. And, most of us have lived through SARS, when over 9,000 died worldwide in 2002 and the swine flu that killed over 12,000 people between April 2009 and August 2010. We live in a universe that continues to evolve and a world that is very dynamic. We’re continually subjected to natural events that are usually beneficial over time but can, in the short run, be devastating, the result of both inanimate and animate forces. For example, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and wildfires reshape our world and the destruction often brings growth. Earthquakes make mountains rise, volcanoes add landmass and wildfires foster new growth. In the same way, animate activity, such as smallpox, tuberculosis, influenza and coronaviruses, are deadly but make the survivors ever more resilient.
As we continue to struggle through this COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve had a number of people ask me, “Did God cause this?” or “Why did God send this plague on us?” These questions sound like today’s Gospel account where we hear the disciples ask Jesus if the man’s blindness is God’s punishment due to his sin or the sin of his parents. Notice how Jesus responds: “It is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.” I like to respond that this pandemic is a wonderful reminder to us that we’re not in charge – God is. Jesus puts aside any notion that God punishes us. God loves us and wants only the best for us. And, he calls us to trust in him and his plan as we work to make him more visible. So, how is this moment in our world supposed to help us make God more visible? Let’s examine today’s gospel account a little more carefully. Jesus cures the blind man by spitting on the ground, stooping down to make clay with his saliva and smearing the clay on the blind man’s eyes. And then, he orders the man to “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam – which means Sent.”
By giving this blind man sight, Jesus gives him new life; that’s what Jesus came to give all of us – new life in him. You will notice that Jesus’ actions mirror his heavenly father’s actions at the beginning of creation when, as you will read in the Book of Genesis, God stooped down and made man out of the clay of the earth and then breathed his breath of life into him. As God gave us life at the beginning of creation, Jesus gives this man new life as he heals him of his blindness. And notice, as the story unfolds, this man born blind comes to recognize who Jesus is, step by step: first, simply as a man called Jesus, then as a prophet – that is, one who speaks for God – and then finally as Lord; and he bows down to worship him.
The Lenten Season is given to us every year to help us recognize our own blindness and to allow Jesus to remove our blindness so that we may see him for who he really is – our Lord. So many of us have been blinded by our busyness in the matters of this world – trying to ensure that we can live well here and now. I invite you to reflect on how this pandemic can help you turn to our Lord and be given new sight – a vision of faith in God rather than a focus on the fleeting pleasures of this world.
Today, we join with the universal Church in celebrating Laetare Sunday, a time when we look forward with a hint of joyful expectation that Easter is near. Notice that I’m wearing rose-colored vestments and we have flowers in front of the altar; they’ve been absent all of Lent.
Of course, before we come to celebrate the joy of Easter, we have to follow our Lord, Jesus, as he goes to his suffering and death on the cross. I’m sure you have all heard that this pandemic will get worse before it gets better. And so, we can accompany our Lord on his way to Jerusalem where he will face suffering and death. The experts aren’t yet sure when we will see light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to the coronavirus but we can be sure that our Lord offers all of the faithful the bright light of the Resurrection at the end of our lives.
In today’s first reading, we hear God lead Samuel to anoint David as king of his people. David is an unexpected choice since he is the last son and isn’t tall and handsome like some of his older brothers. And yet, with the strength that he receives from the Spirit of God, he gathers the distant tribes of Israel into a nation united under God’s care. I suggest that we are the unexpected choice today to be the messengers of Good News – that God is with us to care for us during this very challenging time. The Lenten season is given us to open our eyes to the works of God present in our midst. Like the blind man in today’s Gospel, let us come to see Jesus for who he really is: our Lord. And then, let us – like King David and our Lord, Jesus – lead everyone ever closer to God; after all, he’s the one in charge.