Thoughts from the Second Floor Front IV Sunday of Lent March 22, 2020
The 9th chapter of John’s gospel from which we hear this weekend is always proclaimed on this the fourth week of Lent. The words and teachings of Sacred Scripture are eternal and their message is as applicable in our age as they were in the days when they were first written. Today’s teaching on the man born blind is particularly timely in light of the health crisis that is occurring in the current pandemic brought on by the Corona Virus. The question posed by Jesus’ disciples reflects a belief in that era which associated sickness with sin. If an individual suffered from some malady, blindness to leprosy and every disease in between, it was because either that individual sinned or his or her parents were guilty of something and the sick person was paying for it. Jesus rejects this immediately. The presence of sickness, sometimes unaccountable in its origins and unpredictable in its behavior, is an aspect of what philoso- phers have for centuries called The Problem of Evil. The Problem of Evil is basically a direct question: Why is there evil in the world?
There is no doubt about the reality that sin does bring on dis-ease. The dis-ease is not always en- tirely physical. The main result of sin is alienation from God, from others (including our physical world, as our Holy Father pointed out in his encyclical
Laudato Sí) and ultimately alienation from self. To reduce the complexities of physical illness to fundamentalist belief in the wrath of God is inconsistent with our Catholic Tradition and the Gospel Message. Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, posits the rage and fury that will necessarily come from our God who holds us and our sins in abject disdain, which we deserve due to our miserable and wretched humanity.
No! No to that. It was St. Athanasius who wrote that God has become a human being so that hu- man beings might become God. We are to be divinized. We are to share in the glory which we heard about in the second week of Lent when the gospel proclamation was the story of the Transfiguration. The gospel passage concerning the man born blind demonstrates God’s love for us, entirely underserved and unearned, which comes to us in and through Jesus.
Pandemic or not we are to look to God, who never abandons His people, for assurance that this too will pass. I believe that because of the COVID 19 phenomenon we may more willingly appreciate the fragility of life and more fully appreciate the gifts that we do have. In these days of quarantine, whether imposed or self-generated, be gentle with yourself and with others, especially your family. Look out for those in need. Care for those you can. We will not make headlines with our kindness to a neighbor, but we can make a difference in their lives. As disciples of the Lord Christ we are to be for others. In an arti- cle I read in the Wall Street Journal recently the author asserted that one reason to account for people’s bad behavior in the midst of these challenges, hoarding, price gouging, selfishness in general, is that we never experienced anything like this before. Who of us can remember the Spanish Influenza of 1918? St. John Henry Newman wrote about God’s plan for each of us in that God has given us a task which He has given to no one else. In these days of uncertainty accompanied by anxiety, remember that God wants what’s best for us. What we can do is be the best we can be. And be for others as best we can.