A Side Trip

I was planning a series of blog entries on The Prayer of St. Francis, and I will continue that next week. But today, Sunday, I want to write about the Gospel reading I heard at Mass today.
Here is the reading:
A reading from the Gospel of John (9:1-41)
As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth.
His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
Jesus answered, "Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay from his saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes, and said to him, "Go wash in the Pool of Siloam" -- which means Sent.
So he went and washed, and came back able to see.
His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said,"Isn't this the one who used to sit and beg?"
Some said, "It is," but others said, "No, he just looks like him."
He said, "I am." So they said to him, "How were your eyes opened?"
He replied, "The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me 'Go to Siloam and wash.' So I went ther and washed and was able to see."
And they said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I don't know."
They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees. Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a sabbath. So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see. He said to them, "He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see. So some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath." But others said, "How can a sinful man do such signs?" And there was a division among them. So they said to the blind man again, "What do you have to say about him, since he opened your eyes?" He said, "He is a prophet."
Now the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight. They asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How does he now see?" His parents answered and said, "We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. We do not know how he sees now, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age; he can speak for himself."
His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged him as the Christ, he would be expelled from the synagogue. For this reason, his parents said, "He is of age; question him."
So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, "Give God the praise! We know that this man is a sinner." He replied, "If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see." So they said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered them, "I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?" They ridiculed ghim and said, "You are that man's disciple; we are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from." The man answered and said to them, "This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born  blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything."
They answered and said to him, "You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?" Then they threw him out.
When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, he found him and said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered and said, "Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, the one speaking with you is he." He said, "I do believe, Lord," and he worshipped him. Then Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind."
Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him," Surely we are not also blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying 'We see,' so your sin remains."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That is a really long and rich-in-meaning reading. St. Augustine of Hippo wrote (about this passage) that "If we reflect on the meaning of this miracle, we will see that the blind man is the human race ...  you already know, of course, who the 'One sent' is. Unless he had been sent, none of us would have been freed from sin."

I would never pretend to know more than St. Augustine, but here is the thought that occurred to me upon reading the passage in church before Mass started, and after the Gospel was proclaimed at Mass as well. It was so compelling that I actually took one of the pencils in the pew and a scrap of paper and wrote down my impressions. I never do that. Not until today, at least.

For me, and for Catholics in general, salvation is not a moment frozen in time, an instant of revelation that happens and then is gone. It is a lifelong journey of discovery, learning, setbacks and sharing. This gospel reading absolutely reflects that concept. We have a man (the human race or all of us as individuals) who was born blind (unknowing, in sin and subject to the darkness) who, never having seen a thing before because of his birth defect, encounters Jesus. Jesus asks him to follow a ritual that is not the cure, but is indicative of that person's obedience and willingness to step out in a leap of faith, in a sense. The man goes and does as Jesus told him, and upon completion of the instructions given to him by Jesus (who is God), his eyes are opened.

Think about this for a minute. His eyes are opened and he sees, but he cannot yet know what he is seeing; he is simply bombarded with images, light and dark, colors and shapes, that are all foreign to him. He sees, yes, but he still does not understand. He returns to Jesus and acknowledges the gift. He then finds himself talking to Pharisees, the Jewish authorities of the day. They challenge him, asking him who is responsible for opening his eyes, asking how it was done and pointing out that Jesus must not be a man of God because all of these events take place on the Sabbath (no accident there, either). The man at first only responds with the facts: I was born blind, this man made clay and sent me to the Pool of Siloam to wash, and now I can see.

But as the Pharisees continue to question him more deeply, a greater understanding emerges. Who is Jesus? He is a prophet, the man replies - a dawning of understanding, a first step on a journey of the heart, mind and soul. The Pharisees continue to question him, and he begins to respond with some flippance: I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?

Then the man, responding to their declaration that they are disciples of Moses, and they know Moses was a man of God, by saying even more insightfully: "We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything."

Amazing progression of understanding. This is how it is with us, too. Someone who has never heard sounds before may, through modern technology, gain some sense of hearing. But hearing for the first time doesn't necessarily mean understanding. If you took Helen Keller, who was born deaf, mute and blind, and gave her normal hearing and vision all at once, she would have been more lost than she was in her silent, dark world, at least for a time.

The most awesome thing I ever heard, I believe, was when a friend of mine who was born mostly deaf had a cochlear implant and heard things for the first time. She told me one day at lunch that she had been spraying something on her niece's hair and heard a sound. She looked around, but could not figure out what it was. She picked up the spray bottle again, and heard the sound again. She looked at me and said, with all the awe and wonder of a child, "I never knew that a spray bottle made a sound like that!" And she imitated the sound for me.

What an eye-opener that was. She could hear, but it would take her a long time to truly understand everything she heard.

We are no different. Even when we have that conversion moment, that "Aha!" lightbulb-popping moment and we suddenly realize that God is beckoning us, the journey is just beginning.

That is why Catholics do not say they were "born again" in the same sense that many Evangelicals do. We all agree that there is a moment  when the journey begins; for Catholics (and others, too, it's just that I only really know Catholicism in any depth), that first step requires a deep and definitive response, a leap of faith and a setting-off on a lifetime journey sort of response. We are "born again" in the sense that we have had our eyes opened, much as that man did in the Gospel passage. But like that man, who had to respond to Jesus in order to really be changed, we, too, must respond, must become different in a striking and definitive way.