Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

My grandfather was blind.

Whenever the family got together for Sunday dinner, I was given the responsibility of walking him from his chair in the living room to the dining room table. The distance was only a matter of feet, but I could have been a mile as far as I was concerned. I was a small boy then and my grandfather was very tall, well over 6 feet. He would take my hand and the long journey to the table would begin. I became very aware of the small but potentially dangerous obstacles along the way, the edges of carpet, a newspaper left on the floor by a recliner. Once I got him to the table and in his chair, he would pull me close and pat me on the head as his way of saying thank you. I just breathed a sigh of relief that I got him there safely.

To call this event at Siloam a “cure” is misleading. It is, in fact, an act of creation. Using elements drawn from the book of Genesis, Jesus creates sight for someone who has never seen. From the earliest times, this text was used as an instruction on baptism. It is Christ who is the world’s true light. It is Christ who creates sight in us through washing. This event, however, will have consequences both for the man who now sees and for the Pharisees. The man who now sees, sees Jesus. He is awakened to faith in Him. On the other hand, the Pharisees harden their hearts to Him. The text forces us to consider the question of who is really blind and who really sees. And isn’t that always the question we should take to heart when it comes to the things of God?

One thing we should consider in answering this question is found in what Pope Francis calls the “art of accompaniment”. If you’ve been to the Holy Land and walked from the Temple Mount down to the pool of Siloam, then you know it is about a half a mile away from where this event takes place. How did the man get there? (Remember, he is still blind with a face-full of mud). Someone had to take him there. Someone had to “accompany’ him on the journey to healing and new life.

Francis tells us what he means by the “art of accompaniment” in his encyclical, “The Joy of the Gospel”. He says, “We need a Church that is capable of walking at people’s sides, of doing more than just listening to them, a Church that is capable of accompanying them on the journey…” But it’s not enough just to walk by another’s side without the Gospel. He goes on, “Joy demands to be communicated. Love demands to be communicated. The truth demands to be communicated… That is why we speak of Jesus, we witness to Jesus, we guide others to Jesus, especially in this strange and difficult moment. Because “we feel the need to transmit the joy that has been given to us.” (B. XVI Letter to the Pontifical Urbaniana University, October 21, 2014)

Jesus accompanies His Church throughout time and in every place. He is ever-close to us and faithful to His people. It is He who walks us to the waters of Siloam, opening our eyes to a reality that is now illuminated, not by fear, but by a confidence and love born out of a renewed faith. We are not forgotten, alone, or left to stumble aimlessly in darkness. Jesus walks with us and says to us what He once said to Jairus before calling his daughter back from death, “Fear is useless, What is needed now is trust.”

But there are many people who need us to walk the journey to Christ with them; family or friends who have grown far from Christ and the Church who are waiting to be invited back, the poor, the sick, the suffering, and the forgotten. Accompanying them means that we must serve them in such a way that they find hope and come to know that God is with them.

I learned one important thing from walking my blind grandfather to the dining room. To get him there, I had to pay attention to what was right in front of me, to where the next step was. The same is true in Christian accompaniment. People who need us to walk with them are right in front of us. When we begin to pay better attention to them and begin to transmit the joy of the Gospel, only then can we say “we see”.