Light And Darkness Series

Homily for 4th Sunday in Lent

The team’s morale had never been higher. Their speed was peaking; their accuracy was better than ever. They had become a team through good times and bad, encouraging each other constantly. The cheering section on the sideline was packed; the cheerleaders were yelling and tumbling perfectly. The coach was confident, and his pep-talk was the best homily they ever heard. Everything was working at fever pitch, and everyone was ready to take State.

But they came in second anyway. The opponent was faster, bigger, more aggressive, more something. The scent of victory became a bitter taste as the team returned home with a trophy that read “second best.” No matter how encouraging the parents and faculty and friends were, the team knew they had come within a few minutes of victory, and had known defeat instead.

Disappointment. Every narrative in every newspaper totes up the winners and the non-winners. For every triumph there is a simultaneous tragedy. Even the impressive victory of this team in boys basketball or girls soccer comes matched with a greater number of not-quite-best performances in years past. For every champion there are literally dozens of not-quite-champions. And even in victory there are little defeats–blocked shots and missed questions and spliced notes that the competitor notices even if the judges don’t.

So it is in the moral life, too. God searches the heart and rejects every son of Jesse except the youngest, little, red-headed David. How do you think the older boys felt, one by one turned away by Samuel? Did they wonder what imperfections made them unfit for command? How profound must have been their disappointment, how red-hot their envy? And how many times did the blind man of the Gospel ask “why me?” Perhaps even he wondered what sin he had committed, or his parents had committed, to be condemned to total darkness without so much as a white cane or leader dog to help. Every day, every hour spent listening with heightened hearing the taunts “sinner, sinner.”

The longing of our hearts, of all our hearts, is for a victory that is a true victory, for a light that does not vanish with the sundown. We want to know that death is not just the last in a long series of disappointments, one more dislocation in a life of separations. We want to hear a story in which “they lived happily ever after” is more than the words in a child’s fairy tale.

The critical question we have to answer is the one posed to the blind man: Do you believe in the Son of Man? If we can truly answer “Lord, I do believe,” then we can be part of the story that has only happy endings. We can look to death as a transition from a life of loving service to a life of heavenly glory. We can be part of a victory that has no strata of defeat.

St. Paul tells us today what we have to do in order to be on that winning team. For most of us, the first step was taken when we were infants–our parents brought us to the Church to be baptized, to be soaked with Christ. As our bodies were washed with water, our souls were reborn as images of Jesus Christ. The seed of faith began to grow within our hearts. We began to walk as children of the light.

Many of us, unfortunately, were not entirely faithful to that light. We have walked in darkness at some time. I know I have turned away from God, either totally or partially, many times, somehow thinking that I’d be happier in the shadow of sin. It’s a lie. If we pursue some pleasure ahead of God, or if we chase after honors or power instead of living a life of detachment and service, we just end up with a bitter taste. The ten commandments and the six commandments of the Church are gifts. God wants us to be happy. He wants us to be like Jesus and our Blessed Mother.

God and His prophets especially warn us away from what St. Paul calls the fruitless deeds of darkness. What does that mean? And what good does it does to expose them?

Most of us fall into sin either through bad example or experimentation. As children, perhaps we heard a respected adult swear or use God’s name in a curse, and we thought it was a grown-up thing to do. So we began using bad language with our friends. That’s one reason to watch what we do around impressionable people–they may imitate us in our evildoing. Alternately, we get into a position of stress and experiment with alcohol or psychotropic drugs or self-abuse–a single sin that may give pleasure for a moment but cause physical, emotional and spiritual damage.