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Homilies | Sunday, March 26, 2017

We do not have to be blind to have blind spots

Homily by Archbishop Wenski at Mass at Marriage Summit

Homily by Archbishop Thomas Wenski at Mass for the Marriage Summit 2017 at St. John Vianney College Seminary. Sunday, March 26, 2017.

Today is Laetare Sunday – “Laetare” is a Latin word taken from the entrance antiphon of the Liturgy and it simply means “rejoice”. We rejoice because Easter is near (And so, rather than wear the usual “Violet” vestments of the Lenten Season, we wear rose colored vestments – and don’t anybody dare say that they are “pink”).

And today’s gospel about Jesus’ cure of a man born blind points us to Easter Vigil when we light up the Paschal Candle and proclaim that Jesus, our Light, dispels the darkness of sin. And certainly we can rejoice today because of this “Marriage Summit”. Hopefully the various workshops and presentations have shed some light on the many challenges we face today in presenting the good news about marriage. We have a vision to guide us and a mission to share it with others. Thank you for your participation – and for what you do and will continue to do to witness to Amoris Laetitia, the Joy of Love.

There’s a story from the Indian subcontinent about the six blind men and the elephant. It goes something like this:  once upon a time, in a village where these six blind men lived, they heard that someone had brought an elephant. The blind men couldn’t go and see it – but they figured they might as well go and “feel” it in order to learn what an elephant was. The first blind man felt the elephant’s leg and determined that an elephant was pretty like a pillar; the second blind man touched the elephant’s tail and declared that an elephant was simply like a rope; the third grabbed hold of the elephant’s trunk and said the elephant was much like a tree branch; the fourth held ear and pronounced it like a fan. The fifth blind man leaded against the elephant’s side and thought the elephant to be a wall and the sixth one put his hands around the tusk of the elephant and went off saying that an elephant was like a pipe.

Of course, when they shared their observations with one another there was a lot of arguing. Each of the blind men was partly in the right; but all were in the wrong. 

Like those blind men sometimes we think we know about something but we’re really still in the dark – because we don’t consider another perspective other than our own. 

We don’t have to be blind to have “blind spots”. We might be able to see what the gospel says about one thing but we are blind to other things. How many of us are blind to the poverty and the pain of our neighbor? Our culture today is seemingly “enlightened” about many things – we see the wrongness of racism, of sexism but we are blind to the slaughter of the unborn.

In the gospel today the Pharisees certainly had a blind spot when it came to Jesus. They were spiritually blind to the reality of whom Jesus was. There is the saying:  Seeing is believing. But in the Pharisees’ case, even seeing the miracle didn’t bring them to believe in it or in Jesus.

But the blind man does come to believe in Jesus – but not instantaneously – he has to follow a path, like all of us do.  Our path, of course, includes our journey through Lent with its invitation to conversion – that is, to address those blind spots in our lives that can obscure our true identity and vocation as missionary disciples of Jesus Christ.

At first the man born blind doesn’t know much about who Jesus is – just enough to say that he is a prophet; later, after he’s been kicked out of the temple, Jesus finds him and asks him: Do you believe in the Son of Man? He answers, “Who is he that I may believe in him”. Jesus answers, “You have seen him, the one who is speaking with you is he.” And the once blind man says, “I do believe, Lord” and he worshiped him. 

The message of this gospel of this Fourth Sunday of Lent is not that “seeing is believing” – rather the gospel teaches us that to believe is to see. May the light of faith dispel the darkness of those blind spots. Mother Teresa used to say, if we pray, we will believe; if we believe we will love; if we love, we will serve.

As Easter approaches, let us pray that we see Christ more clearly, love him more dearly, and follow him more nearly.

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