Mickey Gallagher, from County Cork, read the Morning Paper and saw his name in the Obituary Column, so he called his best friend Shamus O’ Casey and said, “Did you read the Morning Paper, they said I died!” “Yes, I saw it!” replied Shamus, “Where are you calling from?”
In the Book of Genesis, we can find the familiar pattern of sin in the world.
1. Temptation, in this case not resisted.
2. Sin/ Adam & Eve fall – we fall.
3. They made excuses – we make excuses.
4. The blame game starts.
In 1 Samuel 16 we heard that the Lord judges our motives the heart. St. Paul urges us to “… live as children of light ….” & to “Awake, O sleeper … Christ will give you light.” Lent calls us reflect on what we believe & how we live those believes. Are they one in the same? Do they run on parallel tracks? Do they intersect occasionally? How are they connected at all?
Soren Kierkegaard a 19th century Danish Philosopher/theologian said, “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what is not true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” [Catherine Upchurch, Loose- Leaf Lectionary 3/19/2023]
Today’s Gospel shows both ways and it shows us one man’s healing & his discovery of Jesus as Lord. Where are our BLIND spots, what sins are keeping us from loving God more fully. What do we do with our grievances, when something goes wrong, when something breaks, when something is missing.
We demand accountability, who’s responsible for this? We insist on satisfaction. Most of the time that’s a reasonable position. Our grievances we can cloud our vision and our hearts when life goes awry, when dreams crash, we look for someone to blame. Blame immigrants, blame people of color, blame those smart and competent women breaking “the glass ceiling,” blame the “old boys’ network. The world’s a mess. So, we want to Blame someone. More often than we realize, we look for someone to take responsibility so we can take ourselves off the hook. [Adopted from Connections, March 2023]
In our Gospel, today, the religious powers want to Blame Jesus. To the question of who was to blame for the tragedy of the man born blind, Jesus replies nobody. Jesus teaches us not to solve our problems through assigning blame. Jesus challenges us to discern the light of God in the midst of whatever darkness we experience.
The challenge for us as disciples of Jesus is not to seek someone or something to blame but to move beyond our anger and brokenness to transform our Good Friday experiences unto Easter re-creation. Christ not only suffered and died for us, He, also, ROSE from the dead for us so that our faith and our hope in His promises would be secure!
Decide to accept your crosses and burdens with Faith and Trust because Jesus walks with you. Jesus will forgive us from our sins and strengthen us to carry our crosses with Grace and Dignity. Commit to use the rest of Lent with God’s Grace to be Transformed, to allow God’s Love to purify you and God’s Mercy to fashion you.
Commit to allow the Light of Jesus to guide you today and every day. Don’t be blinded by the secularism that pervades our culture, choose to follow Jesus and be the best Catholic you can be.
May God Be Praised.
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