Today was a beautiful, sunny day as I drove toward Mt. Irenaeus. Today’s Gospel was about the young man born blind who regains his sight as a result of a miracle that Jesus performs. Blindness is always assumed to be a physical defect and nowadays no one even assumes that the victim got his disease through his sin or the sin of a parent. In the time of Jesus such was not the case. We’ve made some progress since then. We understand that blindness is caused my many conditions, but that sin is not one of them.
There are other types of blindness and while they are not caused by sin they may be the result of learning or acculturation. How often do we fail to see the light within our fellow men? In my case I miss it most of the time because I’m not looking for it. It’s there nonetheless. How often does prejudice blind us? It too is another form of blindness. As I listened to an audio book today by Wayne Dyer I was forced to see or should I say my eyes were opened to yet another blindness and that is the infinite power of God or creation and its bounty. How many times I have put limits on the power of God because I refused to believe that God loved me and cared for me. How often has my ego gotten in the way of his gifts?
This Lent I’ve tried to spend more time listening and maybe listening can restore my sight. I hope so.
While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
When he had said this, he spat on the ground
and made clay with the saliva,
and smeared the clay on his eyes,
and said to him,
“Go wash in the Pool of Siloam” —which means Sent—.
So he went and washed, and came back able to see.
I need the Pool of Siloam each day to see what I must.