FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT - A

ENTER INTO LIGHT

Close your eyes for a moment, concentrating on the darkness that engulfs you.  How do you feel with eyes tight shut?  Do you think you can do anything in this condition? Can you walk home, eat your food or work on the computer? Do you enjoy being like this?

The answer is obvious.  We don’t want to be blind or to be trapped in the darkness.  The blind want to be able to see. Those in the dark want to emerge into light. Many of us are afraid of the dark because in the dark we do not control our environment and our own movement.

Jesus was not afraid of the dark.  He came to encounter the darkness of this world. He came to lead the blind to an experience of color and images and action. Jesus is the God who entered the darkness of this world and the darkness of each of our lives in order to set us free.

As we speak of darkness today, we do not primarily refer to physical blindness.  Many of us live each day in interior darkness. Our eyes are open and yet we cannot see what needs to be done with our present or our future.  Our eyes are open but we cannot distinguish right from wrong. Our eyes are clear and yet so narrow is our vision of the road out of anger, un-forgiveness and pain. The road exiting from guilt is not visible; the way out of the cycle of sin is non-existent.

Sin is the worst interior darkness.  It has power to rob our lives of light and of delight. It cripples us so that we cannot move forward and change ourselves. It makes us weak to fight for what is right.

A blind person cannot cure himself. The darkness cannot produce light. Sin cannot lead to holiness. We need someone to meet us and touch us. In Jesus we have someone who speaks to the blind, touches his eyes with mud, directs him to wash and to return with perfect sight.

Jesus is doing this same thing again and again today in the sacrament of Confession.  He knows we need him to guide us toward the light so he speaks to us, touches us and sends us away with peace and joy.  In the sacrament of Reconciliation, we experience the same liberation that flooded the blind man’s life.

If you have not been to confession for a long time and if you have been living in a particular darkness, interior darkness, due to sin and human weakness, do not hesitate to approach the Lord.  Allow the Lord to show you his love and express to you his mercy. If you regularly go to confession, continue doing so and as an act of charity, invite others to do so out genuine concern for them.

In the end, like the blind man, who made a definite stand to follow Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior, may we also have the confidence and renewed optimism to venture into life with hope.  May Confession bring us closer to the Lord, who is the Light of the world, and light of every human heart.