Homily - Saturday Vigil/Sunday Mass
October 24/25, 2015
Bringing light to darkness - The Healing Sacrament of Confession
Mark 10:46-52 Readings
Deacon David Lewis
Saint Charles Catholic Church, Imperial Beach / San Diego, CA
I remember in kindergarten, we had
to pick a science project. I remember it quite well amazingly, since I can’t
remember a name to save me, or a date or time of an event unless I have it written
somewhere, but for some reason I remember 40 years ago and I remember I had
planted some seeds, each planted a day apart for a week, so that on the day of
my presentation you could see the different stages of the seed sprouting. But
the girl I was partnered up with picked something that opened my eyes…
literally. Cathy’s experiment was to close your eyes for a minute, long enough
for your eyes to adjust to the darkness, and then we would open our eyes and
our science partner would look into our eyes, and you could see our eyes constrict
as they adjusted to the brighter light. It was quite fascinating to my five
year old mind just how amazing the human body is in all the details God included.
But imagine if you were to close
your eyes, and when you finally opened them again, your eyes didn’t adjust,
imagine if from that point on you could never see again. Imaging living in a
world of darkness… forever. Without hope of ever seeing again. No way to bring
light into your world again, no more colorful sunsets, no more marveling at the
color of your loved one’s eyes. NO more taking pictures of your food to post on
Instagram, no more looking at pictures of your friends on Facebook or reminiscing
through old photo albums, marveling at how young they were in the picture. Imagine
living without sight.
In today’s world it is still difficult
but much friendlier to those without eyesight than in Jesus’ day put yourself
in today’s Gospel, imagine yourself blind… there was no state disability to
help you pay for things, there were no service dogs, no braille, no Americans
with Disabilities act. You would be at the mercy of the kindness of strangers
to help get you by. And you may have even had your blindness blamed on your sin
or even the sins of your parents.
You would be stuck in this darkness.
But there is Good News! You hear a
crowd approaching and as they pass by and you ask… hey what’s going on? … It’s
Jesus of Nazareth! What luck, you think! Jesus will be passing by the very spot you
have come day after day to beg from others for their kindness and generosity to
help you survive… and you have already heard how he can perform miracles of
healing, healing not just little things, but he is able to heal big things,
like the then incurable leprosy, and blindness … even from birth…
Knowing that he is your only hope you scream for him… Jesus!
Jesus Son of David! Hoping to get his attention over the many others in the
crowd... hoping he stops to heal YOU… of course the crowd tries to push you
aside, you aren’t worthy, you are just a poor sinner, a beggar stuck in the
darkness of being blind… and then… and then Jesus hears you, and calls for you
to be brought before Him… What do you want of me he asks… and you say Lord,
please let me see… and at the moment Jesus speaks the words “Have sight your
faith has saved you” your eyesight is restored.
Where there was only darkness there
is now light, the damage from any sin you committed has been restored. You are
able to see the colors of the rainbow, and all the beauty of God’s creations
alive and vibrant with life. You are whole again…
… What fascinates me about this
story… is what doesn’t happen… Jesus doesn’t say “I will heal you, but it will
cost you five thousand dollars.” Nor does Jesus say, get away you poor beggar,
he also doesn’t say I am busy, can I get you on the way back, and nor does Jesus
say, oh blind you say, sorry I can’t fix blind?
No, Jesus heals him completely…
right there on the spot, without cost to the blind man, without hesitation.
You may already see where I am going
with this…
We can experience one of the greatest gifts of our faith
right back there in the confessional. We can go in there, living a life in
darkness, brought on by our own sins, or own faults. We can call out to Jesus
to heal us, and he will call out to us to come to him, and in the moment that
Father, in persona Christi, as the person of Christ present in the Sacrament of
Reconciliation, in the moment that you hear Jesus say through Father “God, the
Father of mercies… through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled
the world to himself…. and sent the Holy
Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins… through the ministry of the Church
may God give you pardon and peace… and I
absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Spirit” when He speaks the words similar to these, you will be healed
of all the things that block you from the light of Christ.
If you are a baptized Catholic, you
can participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, there is no cost, it is absolutely
worth all the angst and anxiety to just get it done. Don’t let other’s block
you from Jesus, don’t let your doubts, fears, or worries hold you back from
this beautiful healing Sacrament, you are worthy. Imagine if the blind man
hesitated…
I almost forgot, you know what else
didn’t happen in today’s reading? They didn’t carry the blind man to Jesus, he
got himself up and went.
So if something is rebuking you to
stay away from Jesus, if something is telling you that going to Jesus is a sign
of weakness, or something is telling you that Jesus can’t heal your sin because
it is just too big, if you are afraid Father will yell at you, which just won’t
happen, toss that aside and make your way to Jesus in the confessional, and
your faith will heal you. When you walk
out of the confessional it may take a moment of penance for you to adjust to
the light again, but you will be out of the darkness through the miraculous
healing mercy of Christ.
