Children of Light (4th Sunday Lent A)

I see trees of green and red roses too; I see them bloom for me and for you;
And I think to myself, “What a wonderful world!”

I see skies of blue and clouds of white; Bright blessed days, dark sacred nights;
And I think to myself, “What a wonderful world!”

Louis Armstrong’s distinctive gravelly voice caught my attention and led me, for the first time, into an appreciation of this beautiful song. Much later, with Michael Buble’s contemporary rendition, I fell in love again with this song a second time. And again, a third time, when I heard a local artist in Zamboanga City, sang this with his dark shades on in a restobar. What’s amazing in his performance was not that he had a superior quality of voice compared to the two great singers who popularized the song. No. What’s incredible was the fact that he was a blind man. When he joined us at table after his performance, he allowed me to witness a great irony in life. Here was a blind man who, I presumed to be living in the dark, but surprisingly, had a way of seeing and celebrating the beauty and wonders of life; he could honestly proclaim at the top of his lungs, "What a wonderful world!" Whereas I had been with many people with perfect eyesight but, alas, stuck in the unfortunate dark side of life, grumbling, unable to celebrate with joy the gift of light and life.

(grabbed from http://junialeigh.wordpress.com)

A similar irony is depicted by today’s gospel reading (Jn 9:1-41). A blind man since birth is healed by Jesus. Not only is he enabled to see, he also grows in his faith. He begins to know Jesus Christ and accepts him as the Son of Man. In this gospel incident, the blind, who has been in darkness and believed to be under the curse of sin, embraces the light of Christ and is freed by Christ’s saving grace and becomes a believer. Ironically, the Pharisees who are known for their strict observance of the Law of Moses and who pride in their holiness turn out to be the ones suffering from serious form of blindness as they refuse to see God’s saving grace at work in Jesus. They refuse to embrace the light of Christ. They persist in condemning the blind man to his state of sinfulness. They are incapable of celebrating the joy of liberation from sin and darkness. They refuse to believe in Jesus as the savior.

The healing of the blind man proclaims that Jesus is the light of the world.  He frees those who accept his grace from the darkness of sin. The blind man’s washing in the Pool of Siloam hints at the cleansing ritual of baptism where we embrace our faith in Jesus and accepts him as our savior. Like the blind man, we used to be people of darkness but through the light of Christ received in baptism we become children of the light.

St. Paul, in the second reading (Eph 5:8-14), admonishes the Christian community in Ephesus to live as children of light: “Brothers and sisters, you were once darkness, but, now, you are light, in the Lord. Behave as children of light.” The Ephesians lived once without faith but through baptism have been enlightened. They must now live according to their new life in the light. The admonition to behave as children of light is an invitation towards two things: To do only what is good and to expose the works of darkness as here explained by St. Paul: “You, yourselves, search out what pleases the Lord, and take no part in works of darkness, that are of no benefit; expose them instead.”

Like the blind man and the early Christian community in Ephesus, we too have become children of the light in Christ. The season of Lent is our invitation to behave as children of the light. This may imply a lot of things but allow me to suggest three things in the light of our readings:

Exposing what remains in the dark. Behaving as children of light means exposing whatever is done in the dark as St. Paul reminds us. This season, we can expose to the light of Christ the remaining darkness in our lives. We can allow the light of the Lord to shine in us as it dispels the darkness of our sins. In our examination of conscience let us invite Jesus to enlighten us and lead us towards sincere act of contrition. In the Sacrament of Penance and reconciliation, we can bravely expose our sins by confession and allow God’s mercy to embrace us.

Celebrating the triumph of grace. Behaving as children of light also invites us to celebrate with joy the truth of God’s saving grace working in our lives. Rather than grumbling over the imperfections within us and around us, let us, with the eyes of faith, see the triumph of the light of God’s grace over the darkness of sin. Let us think to ourselves, “What a wonderful world!” for this world is truly blessed by God. Let us acknowledge God’s blessings. Let us be grateful for our blessings and be joyful when others are blessed too by God’s grace.

Becoming the light of the world. Finally, behaving as children of light is becoming the light of Christ to others by our good works. Our goodness is the light of Christ shining in us. St. Paul reminds us that “the fruits of light are kindness, justice and truth, in every form.” We can be a light to others, especially to those suffering from different forms of misery, when we reach out to them with kindness, when we commit ourselves for the cause of justice, when we relate to others with sincerity and work with honesty.

As we continue with our Lenten journey towards Easter, we strengthen our conviction that we are no longer a people of darkness. We have Jesus who has given us his light and liberated us from our disoriented groping in the dark alleys of sin. Let us behave, then, as children of light.

Perspective of Faith (30th Sunday Ordinary B)

A good friend emailed me this story:

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him. Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions.

One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to the sky. He felt the worst had happened, and everything was lost. He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger. He cried out, 'God! How could you do this to me? '

Early the next day, he was awakened by the sound of a ship approaching the island! It had come to rescue him! “How did you know I was here?” asked the weary man of his rescuers. They replied, "We saw your smoke signal."

Aahhh… how blind was he to the ways of God! What he saw was his suffering, his loss, his own grief. He failed to see the grace of God working through the flames that consumed his hut and the smoke that rolled up to the sky. He was blinded by his anger.

But indeed, it is hard to see God's ways. Human as we are, we are always short-sighted or blinded by our own personal agenda, self-centered motivations and emotional rage. It is real hard to see, for instance, beyond the suffering wrought by these supertyphoons and Covid-19 pandemic. We see our losses; we face our suffering; we endure our grief. But we are slow to understand all these and even more slow in seeing the hand of a loving and providential God in these darkest moments of our lives.

Hence, it is good to be instructed by the story of Bartimaeus in today's gospel (Mk 10: 46-52).

“What do you want me to do for you?” (v. 51), Jesus asks the blind Bartimaeus. But before we treat Bartimaeus’ response, it is good to recall that the same question has been offered by Jesus to James and John, Zebedee’s sons in last Sunday’s gospel. Their answer betrayed their personal agenda and motives. They asked for privilege and position. We recall that asked with the same question, “What do you want me to do for you?” they gave this straightforward petition: “Make sure that we sit in your glory, one at your right and the other at your left.” And we heard Jesus rebuking them, “you do not know what you are asking.” Last Sunday then we saw how Jesus’ disciples continued to fail to see the meaning of authentic discipleship. They continued to be blind as to the real meaning of Christ’s messiahship. They refused to accept the path of suffering, rejection, powerlessness, and death that the messiah, and hence his disciples, had to go through. What they had wanted to see was the fulfillment of their own personal and political ambitions. They failed to see as God sees. In a word, they were blind like Bartimaeus.

All too often, we are like Jesus’ disciples blinded by our personal motives. Our self-centeredness blinds us to God’s intentions. We see only our own agenda. We look at the world and realities and events through our human lens. No wonder we don’t understand a lot of things. We don’t see beyond the ugly surface of our sufferings. We don’t see what we gain in our losses. We don’t understand when things start to get out of our hands. We simply fail to see God’s hands.

Ironically, Bartimaeus, the blind, can point us the way forward. Mark’s Gospel presents Bartimaeus as the exemplar disciple. When asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus answers, “Master, I want to see” (v. 51).  Jesus heals him and instructs him to go his way. Bartimaeus receives his sight but followed Jesus on the way.

Therefore, like him, we would do well to do three things: First, like Bartimaeus, we have to admit that we are blind in terms of recognizing the ways of God. We have to admit that we need the grace of God to see beyond our self-centered motives and agenda. We have to face the fact that our human way of seeing is often clouded by our grief and anger and, therefore, incapable of discerning God’s ways.

Second, we have to ask God fervently: “Master, I want to see.”  We have to ask God to open our eyes of faith that we may see as God sees, to open our eyes to see through the suffering that life brings and discern God’s intentions and the directions He is leading us to, and to open our eyes to see his hands working even when our hut is burning and when all that we have are destroyed by flood and relentless typhoons.

Third, like Bartimaeus, let us accept both the gift of a new perspective and the task of following Jesus. Discipleship is following Jesus precisely with this new perspective of faith and not with our initial perspective of self-centeredness. This means following Jesus in the path He has chosen-- the path of humble service, total self-giving, and sacrificial death.