Fourth Sunday of Lent

Seeing With Our Hearts

Can you imagine blindness? Most of us think of blindness as the absence of sight, but blindness can take on so many other meanings. If we think of spiritual blindness, we might look at many things in life and begin to see that what is happening, or what has happened, is wrong. We often say, “Oh, now I see” when we come to understand something in a different light.

At other times, we say, “I never saw that coming” or we ask, “Why didn’t I see that when it was happening?” The readings this week are all about what is seen and what is not seen, light and dark, blindness and sight.

If we start today by reflecting on our own blindness, we have to ask ourselves, where do we not see evil? Are we blind to hatred that destroys the good name of another? Are we blind to the prejudices that populate our lives? Do we recognize domestic violence when it is happening around us? Do we see how we blame the victim or make judgments about the behavior of others? Do we hide behind language like “hate the sin but love the sinner”?

Do we have the courage to ask others to help us to see? At Mass this weekend, we have the opportunity to ask God to heal our blindness, to move us out of darkness to light. And on Monday night at 7 pm, come to listen to Miriam and Monica as they explore light and fire as symbols in our Lenten journey.

May the blindness of hatred, the darkness of war, and the gloom of greed be transformed by the Light of Christ. We want to see with our hearts. We want to see as Jesus sees. We want to see as God sees!

“Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the hearts.” May I choose to see the goodness in others, the world, and myself.