Jesus and the man born blind
It’s the fourth Sunday of Lent and it is high time that in this historic era where there is no Holy Mass said for the public that we ought to go on a spiritual journey. I’m referring to doing a retreat, but since this is next to impossible I would like our readers, especially those with a computer and internet, to go to YouTube and watch Bishop Robert Barron on the real presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The reason why I ask you to do this is that I learned that 70% of Catholics do not believe in the real presence of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. He has at least ten videos on this subject and it is high time that you truly learn the facts about this direct from John’s gospel, the early fathers, down to the Council of Trent, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Pope Paul VI. This should make your Lenten season complete and make you realize the Holy Eucharist is our Lord Jesus himself! Today’s gospel comes from John 9:1,6-9,13-17,34-38.
“As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
“The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some were saying, ‘It is he.’ Others were saying, ‘No, but it is someone like him.’ He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’ They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.
“Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, ‘He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.’ Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.’ But others said, ‘How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?’ And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, ‘What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.’ He said, ‘He is a prophet.’ They answered him, ‘You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?’ And they drove him out.
“Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, ‘And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.’ He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshipped him.”
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Here is a beautiful story where Jesus cured a man born blind. Now since it was a Sabbath Day, the Pharisees believed that a man who cures during this day is not from God, but a sinner. This incident actually divided the Pharisees that such a man who cures even during the Sabbath must come from God.
The Pharisees even asked the man’s parents to tell them the truth about the child born blind, yet they ended up asking him again simply because the man born blind could now see, while the Pharisees who could see were blind to the reality that Jesus had the power to restore the sight of the blind.
The Pharisees do not realize that God’s word is power. During the creation when there was nothing but darkness in the firmament, God said, “Let there be light!” and there was light! Then he called the darkness night. Then he separated the water from the sky and created land and called the water the sea. So awesome is the power of God. So when the Son of God puts mud in the eyes of a man born blind and asks him to go clean in the waters of Siloam this is a small miracle from God. But the Pharisees could not believe that the man, our Lord Jesus Christ, was from God. Where are the Pharisees now? They have disappeared into history, but Jesus still reigns over us.
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