4th Lent: Focus on God's love!

One of the things that tends to bother me is when natural disasters would hit or some kind of other bad event and people would say that this was God's punishment. We saw this when Hurricane Katrina happened to New Orleans; I read people say God is punishing the United States for evils that supposedly we have done. It really gives Christianity a bad name. It gives God a bad name.

How do we see God? How do we see God in our lives? What happens when bad things happen to us?

Notice in this gospel passage that with the man born blind everybody seems to see it as a result of sinfulness. Even Jesus’ own disciples ask whose fault this is, the parents or the man. And of course all the other people throughout see everything as sinful, that this is God's reckoning on this man, this man's family whatever the situation. And even Jesus’ own miracle is seen as a sin.

And how does Jesus see this situation?

Jesus sees the man and he sees an opportunity for God's love to shine through. Jesus does not see a victim of sinfulness but maybe a victim of Humanity's lack of compassion, lack of understanding of God. Jesus opens the eyes not only of the blind man, but he is trying to also open the eyes of his disciples, the man's parents, and the religious leaders. And of course Jesus wants us to open up our eyes as well, to truly see God as God is; and thereby seeing our world differently too.

As Disciples of Jesus we are called to see God as Jesus sees God; and we are to act as Jesus acts. Jesus calls us to see a loving Father, a God who wishes to heal, to unite, to forgive. This vision of God will impact all that we do as Disciples.

As disciples when we see a situation that is causing suffering, our first reaction is not to blame anyone, but to heal. Our first action is to say “what does God want me to do in this here and now.“

This is a time to reflect upon our own view of God and really our own view of this world which we live in. Lent slows us down to consider how we look at others; how we look at so-called enemies; how we look at ourselves,

To be free, to be saved is to be able to engage in living to the full. This is the Salvation of Jesus Christ. Salvation means to be free to see God at work in this world and where God wants us to be at work in this world. If we are constantly in fear of the other; if we are constantly in fear of God; if we are constantly worried about whether we have offended God; if we are constantly only seeing our sins and the sins of others, then we are not living as people who have been freed by Jesus Christ.

Now this is not to say that we don't ignore sin and suffering; on the contrary we do need to pay attention because this is often where and when God's love can be given. Jesus did this as well. But instead of only focusing only on sin we are called to focus more on God's love.

Consider the holy day that we are preparing ourselves for, Easter. We are celebrating that God's love surpasses our own ignorance, our own fears, our own blindness, and God's love raised up Jesus.

The Paschal mystery of Jesus Christ is the summit of the trajectory of scripture. Scripture shows us how the understanding of God moves from a god that seems to punish, to all the way to a God who loves and never punishes us, and the revelation of Jesus Christ.  So this becomes Our Journey of Faith.

We are called to open our eyes to the presence of God to the working of God, in our lives and in the lives of others. We are called as Disciples of Jesus Christ to be a positive force for healing in this world.

As Catholics we signify this in our Eucharist, in which the very body and blood of the Risen Jesus is given to us to signify to us God's love is greater than our sinfulness, to signify to us God's love for us to be shared for all.

Gratitude also has a very important part. The more grateful we are, the more capacity we have to see God at work in our lives and in the lives of others. Gratitude centers us, focuses us on God’s love. 

So that when bad things happen, natural disasters, illnesses, struggles; whatever goes on in our world and in our lives, our first response is to heal in the name of Jesus Christ.
So that when we truly do confront sinfulness, we have the power of God’s love to remain free.

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