Homily originally presented April 3, 2020

If you listen to God … you’ll be able to see!

For all the people in the world that don’t know who Jesus is,

A most excellent way to discover who Jesus is

would be to find out who Jesus said He is.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus gives clear descriptions of who He is in a series of some 15 different “I AM” Statements.

It would be like me saying:

I am from Chicago, Ill., I am a graduate of Auburn Univ. and Notre Dame Seminary, I am a Catholic Priest,  I am the Pastor of this St. Henry. Taking all these statements of self-description together, you’d have a good idea of who I am.

So here’s how Jesus described Himself in John’s Gospel:

In John 6, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.”

And later, “I am the living bread come down from Heaven.”

In John 10, Jesus says, “I am the gate for the sheep.”

And also, “I am the Good Shepherd.”

In John 14, Jesus says, “I am the way the truth and the life.”

In John 15, Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

Through these self-proclamations we get a clear image of who Jesus is.

1. that as Bread, He is our food for eternal life,
2. that as Gate, we must pass through Him to enter the Kingdom of Heaven,
3. that as Good Shepherd, we must follow wherever He leads us, and
4. that as Vine, we must stay connected to Him in order to live.

And in today’s Gospel from John Chapter 9, Jesus reveals Himself even more, when He says, “I am the light of the world.”

He’s saying:

just as the sun in the sky, gives natural light of our world.

He Jesus, the Son of God, gives supernatural light of our world.

The sun’s light helps us physically see where we’re going & what we need to avoid.

Jesus’ light helps us spiritually see where we’re going and what we need to avoid.

Light guides both our bodies and our spirits!

Paul affirms this in our Second Reading saying, “Live as children of light,

for light produces every kind of goodness, and righteousness and truth.”

And He goes on to say, “Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness.”

There’s physical light and darkness and there’s spiritual light and darkness.

Sometimes, physical darkness can lead us into spiritual darkness!

It’s when we think no one is watching, that we’re more likely to consider doing something that is wrong … whether it’s stealing or cheating or drinking alcohol, or doing drugs, or looking at pornography or engaging in a sexual sin, … darkness makes us think our sins will be hidden.

But we need to realize that darkness to us is not darkness to God.

For God is Light and so He sees everything, even the things done in darkness!

In our First Reading from the Book of Samuel, we hear,

“Not as man sees does God see … (He) sees into the heart.”

God knew which of Jesse’s son’s to anoint, because He saw into the heart of David.  God knows us inside out. There’s no hiding from Him because as John tells us in his First Letter, “God is Light … and in Him there is no darkness.”

If we’d only remember that God sees everything, then we’d be very reluctant to do anything that is wrong and we’d strive hard to always do what is good.

I remember the times Mom would correct us boys from misbehaving by saying,

“I wonder if you’d be doing that if Father Paluch was here!” Fr. Paluch was our Pastor and it helped us to see right away that no, I wouldn’t be acting this way if our Parish Priest was there. I wouldn’t want him to see me misbehaving!

Well, if we wouldn’t want to be caught misbehaving by the Pastor,

then we sure wouldn’t want to be caught misbehaving by Jesus.

And we need to realize that He’s watching all the time.

He sees us in light and He sees us in the dark,

So, who is Jesus? Jesus is the light of the world!

And as the light, He wants to enlighten our lives so we see clearly  … like He sees!

St. Paul exhorts us today,

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

Just as it’s hard to continue sleeping when the sunlight starts streaming through your bedroom windows,

it’s similarly hard to continue wallowing in the darkness of sinful habits when we have the light of Christ breaking into our lives.

That’s why it’s so important to keep coming back to the Lord and receiving His light which will scatter the darkness of our sin and bring us back to life.

In our Gospel today, Jesus performs a wonderful miracle; He gives sight to a man who had been blind from birth. No one had ever heard of such a thing!

This is after Jesus proclaims, “I am the light of the world.”

Since John is very aware of the many “I am” statements of Jesus, it’s especially interesting that John records the blind man’s response to the people after he has been healed by Jesus.

When the people ask him if he’s really the man born blind, he says, “I am.”

How powerful and meaningful!

These are the very words Jesus Himself says later in John 18 when He is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and the guards ask Him if He is “Jesus the Nazorean”,

Jesus simply says, “I AM.”     

John notes that the guards fell to the ground … momentarily blinded by His light!

That’s exactly what happened when Jesus revealed His divine glory at the Transfiguration and His 3 Apostles fell to the ground … momentarily blinded by His light!

And all of this harkens back to the day that God first revealed Himself to Moses in the Burning Bush and Moses asked Him who he was to tell the Israelites sent him; God said, “Tell them “I AM” sent you!

God is the Great I AM.            And Jesus is God so He too is the Great I AM.

As we say in our Creed, “God from God, Light from Light.”

You see, once the blind man is cured by Jesus, he carries the light of Christ in Him.

He carries the great “I AM”.

You know, this man in the Gospel isn’t the only one who was blind from birth.

All of us are born blind!

We all come into this world with souls blinded by Original Sin.

So, thanks be to God for the waters of Baptism!

For just as the waters of Siloam washed away the man’s physical blindness,

The waters of Baptism wash away our spiritual blindness!

Thanks to Jesus and the gift of Baptism, our vision is perfectly clear.

God does not want us to be deceived. He wants us to see clearly to follow Him.

This truth rings through in the Responsorial Psalm we just prayed … where Psalm 23 says, “The Lord is my Shepherd … He guides me in right paths.” 

Whenever we let the Lord be our Shepherd, we know that we’ll choose the right path and make the right decision.

Paul says, “Live as children of light.” In other words, live as children of God.

Today we see the how blindness is removed by following Jesus’ commands.

Jesus sent the blind man to wash in the Pool of Siloam.

And by listening to Jesus … the man received his sight.

The same thing happens to us when we listen to Jesus. We receive our sight … we come to see clearly what is good and pleasing in the eyes of God and we’re guided to make wise, life-giving decisions.

Jesus says, “I came into this world … so that those who do not see might see.”

Let’s not remain blind. Rather, let’s accept His offer to heal our vision.

One of the best ways to remove our blindness and improve our vision is to go to the Sacrament of Confession.

It’s there that Jesus, who is the Light, removes all the sins that keep us in darkness.

It’s there that we are spiritually healed of our sins and our vision is restored for goodness and righteousness and truth.

Lent is an especially good time to having our spiritual vision restored in Confession.

So who is Jesus? He is many things!

He is the Bread come down from Heaven, He is the Gate to Heaven; He is the Way, to Heaven; He is the Vine of life and He is … the Light of the world.

Jesus is the light of the world. And He wants to share His light with us …

So that we see clearly where we’re going and what we need to avoid.

Let’s pray to always live in the Light of Christ so we are motivated to listen to Him and ultimately get to see Him one day … face to face!

“I am the bread of life. (John 6:35).

“I am the light of the world. (John 8:12).

I am the door. (John 10:9).

I am the good shepherd. (John 10:11).

“I am the resurrection and the life. (John 11:25).

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:6).

“I am the true vine, you are the branches, (John 15:1).

“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 

⁵⁹ So they picked up stones to throw at him,

 but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. – John 8:48-59