4th Sunday of Lent

SHARING SPIRITUAL FOOD: St. Catherine of Siena, Ripon, WI

Lent IV [A] (March 22): I Sam 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a;   Eph 5:8-14;   Jn 9:1-41

“Lead kindly Light”: St. John Henry Cardinal Newman was a professor at Oxford University. When he was an Anglican priest, along with the other scholars, he started the Oxford movement. When he was thirty-two years old, his health was bad, and he took a break from his writings and went to Europe to recuperate. But unfortunately, he contacted a deadly fever. He wanted to return to England, but no transportation was available. As he waited, his life became lonely and tedious; he was experiencing great physical and emotional despair. It is then that he penned a beautiful hymn asking God for light: “Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on; The night is dark, and I am far from home; Lead thou me on: Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene-one step enough for me.” In his confusion and distress, Newman prayed to the God of Light to lead him from darkness to light, from confusion to certainty, and from sickness to health. God heard his prayer and led him home safely. In 1845, he was converted to the Roman Catholic faith.

Scripture is our “Lead kindly Light” for daily life specially in challenging times.

Scripture lessons: By describing the anointing of David as the second king of Israel, the first reading, taken from the First Book of Samuel, illustrates how blind we are in our judgments and how much we need God’s help. In the second reading, St. Paul reminds the Ephesians of their new responsibility as children of light to live as children of the light, producing every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth.” In today’s Responsorial Psalm, (Ps 23), we celebrate the care of God, our Good Shepherd, who keeps us safe in the darkness of this world. Presenting the miracle of Jesus’ giving of sight to a man born blind, today’s Gospel teaches us the necessity of opening the eyes of our mind by Faith, and warns us that  those who assume they see the truth are often blind, while those who acknowledge their blindness are given clear vision. In this episode, the most unlikely person, namely the beggar born blind, receives the light of Faith in Jesus, while the religion-oriented, law-educated Pharisees remain spiritually blind.   To live as a Christian is to see, to have clear vision about God, about ourselves and about others.  Our Lenten prayers and sacrifices should serve to heal our spiritual blindness so that we can look at others, see them as children of God and love them as our own brothers and sisters saved by the death and Resurrection of Jesus.

Prayer to Mary against Coronavirus: “Most glorious Queen of Heaven and Mother of God, whom the Blessed Trinity has crowned with unequal glory.  You are the Sovereign Queen over all God’s creation.  I place myself and the people of the world under the power, protection and sovereignty of your crown.  Under the protection of your crown, I fear nothing, not even pandemic and through your immense intercessory power I ask you to spare us all from the effects of the coronavirus.  Dear mother and queen, we, the children of your son Jesus, ask you to obtain for us and end to the spread of this virus.  Amen”                        Fr. Davies Edassery Sac