A Homily for Quinquagesima Sunday

+ On this final Sunday before we commence the annual great and solemn fast of Lent, Our Holy Mother, the Church, in her Sacred Liturgy places before us for our contemplation and for our instruction the plea of the blind man of Jericho: Domine, ut videam: Lord, that I may see.
 
We may be tempted this morning to marvel once again at this miracle of healing and to find reassurance in the divine power it manifests. But most of us are not blind, and whilst we are certainly happy for the man in Jericho and for the great sign that this miracle is, it may have little other import for us.
 
But, my dear friends, this is not the reason that the Church recalls this miracle. The liturgical proclamation of the Gospel is neither a series of happy stories to comfort us, nor a set of apologetical texts to assert Christ’s divinity. No. Rather, the Gospel is proclaimed at Mass so that we may encounter Christ anew, here, this morning, living and acting in the Sacred Rites of His Church in a unique and privileged way as we, this year, prepare on Quinquagesima Sunday for the great fast of Lent.
 
And what better way can we do this than to borrow the blind man’s words-- Domine, ut videam—and make them our own? For whilst our eyes may be wide open and functioning well, whom amongst us does not need the gift of sight that our Blessed Lord alone can give?  
 
Preaching on this very Sunday in the ancient basilica of Saint Peter more than 1600 years ago, Saint Gregory the Great taught his people that the blind man:
 
“…was asking neither for gold nor for riches of any kind, but for light, since, without this gift, all other goods could not satisfy him. Let us, then, beloved brethren, imitate this man in his prayer, for he received therewith the health both of soul and body. Let us beseech the Lord not for the riches of this world, nor for the perishable blessings of honour and fame, but for the true light, and not for the limited light, which for a moment only interrupts the long night, and is common to us with the unreasonable animals. Let us ask for the uncreated light to be seen in the company of the elect, that light having no beginning and being eternal in its duration. Faith will lead us to this light, according to the words of Jesus to the blind man: Receive thy sight ; thy faith hath made thee whole.” (PL 76: 1081-86)
 
Whom amongst us in this world does not need the gift of an increase in this supernatural light in which faith grows? Only the truly spiritually blind would assert that they do not!
 
Perhaps here we can find a good, even a fundamental, Lenten resolution: to ask for the gift of supernatural vision and to clear away all that obscures my sight of the eternal truths of God and of His Salvation brought about through Jesus Christ. Most certainly we can do so through the traditional disciplines of increased prayer, fasting and almsgiving, but they are means to an end, not the end in itself. The end is that we come to enjoy the beatific vision; that we live forever in the light of Christ, rejoicing in His victory together with all the saints who have gone before us and all those who will come after us.
 
In this sense, then, let us make these words our prayer this Lent: Domine, ut videam. We could even add nunc, et usque in aeternam--now, and forever! Of course, it is the ‘now’ that we must tackle. The ‘forever’ will only follow if we do what we must, now. We must use the disciplines of Lent to see clearly and act decisively in respect of what prevents us from seeing God. Our little vices—as well as our big ones!—our deeply engrained bad habits, the situations in our lives that demand conversion—we need the grace and the faith to see these for what they are and to uproot and correct them as necessary.
 
So too, in our monasteries, in our families, in our parishes, our homes—even in the Church—we must dare to look and to ask for the grace to see clearly what it is that needs correction in the light of God’s Truth. Looking the other way and pretending that all is well when it is not, does not lead to salvation. Ostriches are interesting birds, certainly, but they do not receive the reward of eternal life!
 
As we look on the Sacred Host in this Holy Mass, let us dare to ask for the grace of the sight we need with the blind man’s words Domine, ut videam. But let us do so knowing that this gift shall require much of us, especially in the coming days of Lent. +