In John 9:1-41, proclaimed on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Jesus encounters a man born blind. Jesus heals the man on a Sabbath, which was forbidden by the Sadducees. In that complex social fabric, people were confused about the man’s healing, the forgiveness of his family’s sin, and the act of healing by this man, Jesus. The blind man desired physical sight, and Jesus desired that he see new light, the light that was Jesus himself. The people around the blind man were also healed of the dark notions they held about what was possible in God. The light is Jesus Christ, and everyone came to believe in such brightness, such forgiveness, such beauty of God.
The man born blind was a powerless beggar and must have been dressed in filthy rags, his hair matted from years of grime. People were uncomfortable around him because they feared such poverty and human vulnerability. They could not believe Jesus was a divine healer because this blind man was such an outcast, such a filthy reminder of neglect. The people around the blind man wanted him to prove himself worthy of healing, to show his worth to Jesus, to be clean both physically and spiritually. Jesus bends down to the earth and, with his own saliva, creates clay that he puts on the man’s eyes. The man goes to the Pool of Siloam, washes, and becomes clean and able to see. From his life of need and social isolation, the blind man became a new vessel of light and hope after Jesus’ healing touch, a carrier of Christ’s healing. His eyes became whole, filled with light, filled with a vision of Christ Jesus.
As a priest, I have carried that spiritual blindness of trying to prove myself. I recognize such blindness more clearly now as I look back on my life. In formation, I wanted to look good to people who were making decisions about my future. In my early priesthood, it manifested in trying to please people. I can now see those years of anxiety, fear, and loneliness as I struggled to prove myself, to make myself look better equipped for pastoral ministry, even to make myself seem closer to Jesus. In all my spiritual blindness, it is this encounter with the blind man where I view myself more clearly once again.
People pleasing is a place of death for my spiritual life. I held it tightly over the years and ignored my own gifts and abilities, and even my own instincts and desires for God’s compassion and love. I dredged my soul through the mud, believing I was not good enough in the sight of God. Only now, in my later years, have I learned to shed such destructive behavior. I have learned in Lent that I am with Jesus Christ, who truly tends to my life. No other person can enter the desert of prayer for me. No teacher or parishioner can take my place to stand in the heat of the desert and surrender to God for me. I must surrender my own heart. I can only come to Jesus as I am, not what others want me to be or become.
We are not far from the healing touch of Jesus Christ. Our spiritual blindness becomes a source of God’s healing in our Lenten season. Christ desires us to be in full light, to know forgiveness, to become a new creation in his passion, death, and resurrection. We must not dwell in the darkness of our pasts when Lent invites us to offer our blindness to Christ and to wait for such love, mercy, and wholeness in the resurrected light of our salvation.
Lent is not a time for proving ourselves, or for seeking to look good through the ancient disciplines of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. Lent is not a time to focus on our own fidelity so we may please God. It is not a season for us to try to look perfect, or to try to rise above what is most human. Lent is, instead, an invitation to surrender to God in the blindness of our hearts and to be patient, to wait in love for God’s actions of healing and forgiveness.
For the blindness that keeps us from faith in Christ Jesus. May we shed our self-sufficiency and myopic views. May Christ heal our inner wounds and sound the trumpet of gladness when we finally surrender our hearts to love. May hope be born from our blindness and love find a home in our need for Jesus. We pray to the Lord.
For the blindness that halts our service among others. May we not be repulsed at the reality of other’s lives and situations. May we not overlook the beauty of people’s real lives and the grace that shines in weakness. May hope be born in the raw reality of life and among the filthy lives of people who struggle to survive in alleys or in dumpsters and who cross our own paths. May the beauty of human struggle shine brightly to show us how to see and how to serve others. We pray to the Lord.
For the blindness that keeps us from realizing our baptismal call to serve. May our belonging be deeper than the shallow waters of the baptismal font. May we enter the depths of Christ’s compassion and go deeper into the joy of God’s redeeming love for all people. May we surrender to such waters of death and rebirth, of our second birth, and rise above the pettiness of the past and live solely in the oceanic joy of Christ’s resurrection. We pray to the Lord.
For the blindness that keeps us from seeing the lies of people pleasing. May we see the profound lies of trying to make ourselves look good to other people. May we see the walls we build within our hearts that keep us separated from the truth of God’s revealing holiness. May we realize we are unable to live other people’s lives or possess their inner workings of how to live or love. May the blindness of trying to fix others be washed away in our Lenten renewal and our deeper surrender to God’s redeeming and lasting life within us. We pray to the Lord.
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About:
Rev. Ronald Patrick Raab, C.S.C., serves as religious superior of Holy Cross House, our retirement and medical facility at Notre Dame, Indiana. He is an award-winning author, blogger, and visual artist. Learn more at ronaldraab.com
Artwork:
Fr. Ron created this image, “The Man Born Blind,” in 2019. This image was published in Tui Motu Inter-Islands Magazine from New Zealand in 2019. Fr. Ron’s artwork has been published in parishes, dioceses, and ecumenical settings around the world.
Provided by Rev. Ronald P. Raab, C.S.C, February 2026
