Have you even taken a moment to reflect on the many things in life we take for granted as human beings? We have built into us an astonishing, even miraculous, range of abilities and skills. Other species in the created world have only part of what we are able to do. We are the only species on our planet, and as far as we know the cosmos, with our level of consciousness. The potential of our abilities seems to expand exponentially, they can put someone on the moon, but there is a shadow side which can take us to the verge of annihilation. When we at our best the greatness of humanity and its gifts is a reflection of the wonder and greatness of God, at our worst we imitate the devil.

One of our amazing abilities that many of us have is sight. Think about it for a moment, most of us see in colour, we see in three dimensions, our eyesight adapts to light or dark. The eye itself is an extraordinary construction directly connected to our even more incredible brain. We feel uncomfortable when our sight deteriorates. For those with sight we find the prospect of blindness terrifying. Some of us of us are born without sight as the man in this Sunday's gospel.

At the time of Jesus any type of disability was the result of sin on the part of the person, the parents and even ancestors. Jewish law promoted the welfare of widows and orphans but because of the idea of sin, not disabled people. Disability was a punishment meted out by God. Appalling really. Just before Sunday’s reading Jesus tells His followers that this is not true. Jesus’ response is not to start speculating about rights or wrongs but of helping a person in need, in this case a person who is not asking for help but who Jesus just notices. There’s only one problem with this, it’s the Jewish Sabbath.

In Jesus’ time the Sabbath was strictly observed. There were, and are, 39 forms of work which are forbidden on the Sabbath in Judaism. Healing was one, as was kneading, which is how Jesus creates the paste. Jesus as an observant Jew would have known this. Perhaps it’s not that He does not care about the Sabbath but he wants to help, to give a gift to someone in need that will transform their lives; the gift of sight, not just of the eyes but also to open the eyes of the heart. We see how the man receives his sight but also receives the gift of faith. As his sight returns his understanding of Jesus develops too from “he”, to “prophet” to “Lord” to the worship of God in the person of Jesus.

For the Pharisees, in a sense they just blunder around in their interior darkness. They just see rules being broken and they cannot make up their mind what is going on. This is surprising as they would have known that opening the eyes of the blind was, in scripture, a sign of the dawn of the age of the Messiah and the coming of the kingdom of God. Their blindness is their confusion, but their blindness is not particularly terrifying to them, the more they debate the more blind they become. They are ok with generating a lot of heat but no light.

Where are your blind spots (we all have them)? There are times in our lives when we sit and wait for the Saviour. Times of doubt, times of illness, times of anxiety, times of rejection, times when we do not know where to turn? In our hearts there are times when we sit and wait for Jesus and, in our souls, beg for his presence. There is no need to beg, as with the man today Jesus notices us and, more than this, He looks for us. He always wants to heal us, He wants to shelter our battered and bruised heart in His. Lent is a sacred time to come to Him, particularly in the sacrament of reconciliation, to receive the beauty of His healing grace, where we too can say “Lord, I believe”. Whatever happens in our lives we are always in the light of the Lord.

I hope and pray that Lent is going well for you. God bless and keep you all.

Fr Chris