The Fourth Sunday of Lent

I remember a good number of years ago I was involved in Youth Retreat work. One of the things that we used to do quite a lot was a trust walk. This was where we blind folded one person and allowed the person to be led by another. The one thing that constantly surprised them after doing the walk was where they were and that they were actually crossing over familiar things. So a tree stump for example felt like a big tree. It constantly fascinated me often when we don’t understand or our vision is impaired we can feel lost and we can feel scared or even alone.

Faith can sometimes feel like this. I have often heard people who say that they have lost their faith when something bad has happened in their family or even in the world. They go through their own darkness where God feels distant. John of the Cross speaks of the dark night of the soul where you may feel far away from God. But as John of the Cross says it is here that God is closest.

In the Gospel we notice that the man born blind needed the eyes of faith to see the glory of God. The light of the Lord as Paul describes allows us to see what God things that he has done for us. God penetrates our own darkness with his light and allows us to see more clearly.

There many challenges to our faith in the world today. We look and we see a fragmented world where faith and religion comes second place and so for many people: and here is the challenge for us. In the Pope’s visit last year we saw that people all over the land we saw people witnessing to their faith. We need to be proud of our faith and be able to witness to the faith in the work place and around the streets where we live. By living our faith we strive to preach the Gospel to all around us.  I think that over the last number of years we have had a lack of confidence in proclaiming what we believe, we almost apologize for being Catholic.  We have had a lot of knock backs with clergy abuse scandals and the media’s perception of our teaching. I even do it myself sometimes where I am out and feel embarrassed in proclaiming the Gospel because it is easier to be silent. But now with the visit of the Pope there is a new confidence about proclaiming the word and being proud to be catholic. The Pope managed by his humility and gentleness to give the Church in this country renewed confidence Arch Bishop Vincent Nichols put in beautifully “In speaking of our faith he was always so gentle and courteous, so sensitive to the achievements and anxieties of his listeners, so clear and reasoned in presenting difficult points, so humble and open-hearted. We must strive for the same qualities when speaking about our faith, in witnessing to the truth”

And so the challenge of the day is first to recognize the person of Christ penetrating our own darkness, and so giving the eyes of faith to speak to a broken fragmented world that needs people of faith with confidence to speak the truth about the love of Jesus Christ.