We
have covered a half of our Lenten journey. This fourth Sunday marks a kind of
stop, as if we had to take refreshment. From the first word of the Entrance
Antiphon, it is called Laetare, which means “Rejoice.” We are invited to
be glad. The liturgical color is rose, precisely to emphasize this sense of
joy.
Meanwhile, the catechumens’
preparation for Baptism continues with the second scrutiny and exorcism. The
catechesis on Baptism also goes on with the second passage from the gospel of
John—the healing of the man born blind. Last Sunday the whole liturgy was about
water, so as to illustrate Baptism as a kind of purification. Even in today’s
gospel we find a hint to water, when Jesus sends the blind man to wash in the
Pool of Siloam: “So he went and washed, and came back able to see”—a clear
reference to Baptism. We can see another allusion to the sacraments of
Christian initiation in the smearing of clay on the eyes of the blind man: the
verb used by the gospel is to anoint, a verb usually employed for oil,
like, for example, in the first reading for the anointing of David as king of
Israel. Jesus’ gesture could refer either to the pre-baptismal anointing of
catechumens or to Confirmation.
But the point of today’s liturgy
is blindness, which is a symbol of the darkness wherein man lives. In the
second reading Saint Paul portrays as darkness the state of man before becoming
Christian. Well, the blind man in the gospel is the emblem of the human
condition before Baptism. Mark well, he did not become blind during his life,
but was born blind. That is precisely the situation of each of us: when we are
born, we are already sinners, before committing any sin. We could consider our
sinfulness as a kind of blindness, because sin prevents us from seeing and,
consequently, from acting freely.
It is interesting to notice that
in the Old Testament the only blind person healed is Tobit, Tobiah’s father;
but he had become blind. Even in the gospel, Jesus heals several other blind
men, but none of them was born blind. This is the only one. He says to the
Pharisees: “It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born
blind.” It is really a unique miracle. Not everybody is able to heal a man born
blind. That is why one should wonder who is he who performs such a great
miracle. The blind man does it, and comes to the only conclusion possible. An
antiphon in the liturgy of the hours supplements the blind man’s statement: “It
was unheard of for anyone to open the eyes of a man born blind until the coming
of Christ, the Son of God.” But he reaches this conclusion little by little,
reflecting upon what he had experienced. He starts from the facts and progressively
arrives at the only conclusion that can explain those facts. Exactly the
opposite of what the Pharisees do: they start from their frames of thought, and
apply them to the facts. For them, Jesus is a sinner, because he does not keep
the sabbath. For them, Jesus has not performed the miracle. Indeed, they go so
far as not to believe that that man had been blind. When we are slaves to
ideology, we are not even able to bow to the facts. For this reason, the
Pharisees can be considered blind and, moreover, guilty, because they are
convinced that they see. Jesus says to them: “If you were blind, you would have
no sin; but now you are saying, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.”
On the contrary, the blind man
not only gains his sight, but also is interiorly illuminated by the one who
says: “I am the light of the world.” The light that enlightens our minds is
faith. Even in this case the Communion Antiphon of this Mass completes the
words of the blind man: “The Lord anointed my eyes: I went, I washed, I saw and
I believed in God (et abii, et lavi, et vidi, et credidi Deo).” It is precisely what happens in Baptism. Baptism is the
sacrament of enlightenment; through it we are healed from blindness and our
spirit is filled with light, so that we may see the way to walk, so as to reach
our eternal salvation.
Q
