Three Kinds Of Blindness

Our readings talk about blindness. Our inability to see, however, comes in different forms. One kind of blindness is a natural one, as we find in our Gospel, where the man healed by Jesus was blind from birth. Natural blindness is what we most commonly think about.

Nevertheless, we can also be blinded due to being finite since we're creatures. In our first reading, for instance, the Lord tells us that "Not as man does God see, because man sees the appearance but God looks into the heart." Our natural inclination is then to make judgments by what excites our senses. We like to judge a book by its cover and often fail to see that God prefers those who are most humble. That's why David was the least likely thought to be the King of Israel, though his brothers' strong physical stature seemed to make them more suited to lead their people.

The last kind is spiritual blindness. We often fail to detect it within us because we're inclined to believe that the spiritual lenses with which we see the world is always clear. However, the truth is that we have to constantly work at ensuring that we're not obstructing divine light to penetrate the darkness of our interior vision that causes our fears and insecurities. It's these shortcomings within us that cause us to be spiritually blind. The Pharisees in the Gospel, for instance, were spiritually blind because their fears prevented them from seeing that the essence of the Law was in practicing the love of God and neighbor, instead of practicing legalism. The Pharisees, therefore, forbad curing on the Sabbath because healing was considered a form of work.

The Pharisees, however, represent us because we're also easily inclined to believe that we can attain salvation by simply following a strict set of rules. Discipleship, though, requires more than living by a set of rules. Instead, we're called to live by supernatural faith, which requires the belief that God's hands continually guides all things.

Jesus then gives us miracles, as with the curing of the blind man in the Gospel, as a sign to arouse our faith. His miracles confirm that we can overcome our spiritual blindness by an increase of our trust in him, especially when we find that we have very little control over our situation. Despite the current pandemic, therefore, we'd still be able to gather strength to love because of the hope we have that comes from the Lord.

Jn 9, 1-41; 1 Sm 16, 1-13