This Sunday’s Gospel recalls Christ’s miracle to remove the spiritual and physical blindness of the man who encountered Him. The temptation can be to make any such account so “spiritualised” as to be very much beyond the human experience of most of us, or similarly, to contort the encounter entirely in terms of humanitarian liberationism, a Marxist trope to “pie in the sky”. Both such excesses miss the point not only of the historical encounter between Christ and the blind man, but why this encounter enters the pages of The New Testament.
The Incarnation is always that extraordinary moment in human history when Almighty God taking human flesh from the immaculate womb of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, becomes man, Jesus Christ Our Lord and Saviour. It is in the person of Jesus Christ, Who having two natures, human and Divine, Redeems us (this fulfilment of the Old and New Testament prophecies can be overlooked in the simplicity of its perfection as it is no longer in anticipated symbol or ritual but the Beloved Son who is worthy of our attention and Worship as learnt by Peter, James and John on Mt. Tabor). The Incarnation is not “rocket science” and so beyond our immediate comprehension, nor theological wordplay, it is Salvation in “real Time”.
The call of Christ, is always to challenge us to new horizons, newness of discipleship each day. To be a Catholic is never to succumb to the thralls of the dull, the beige or the common place, though we may be coarsened by surrendering to personal sin and living in a place that appears a long way from the Holy Family. Yet never forget You, yourself are wonderful. God created and sustains you in that same love that is the Most Holy Trinity’s mode of existence. The Incarnation is not a “closed in” action of the Trinity but enthrals and embraces each one of us aspiring to live a holy life through prayer and virtue.
You as an individual Baptised and Confirmed member of this Catholic Parish would do well always to be conscious personally of the sublime moment of encounter with the passionate heart of Our Saviour in the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass in which Jesus is offered to the Eternal Father and adored by angels and humanity. Your own personal challenges, apparent inconsistencies, sinful habits, excuses and weaknesses that make up the modern family cannot be absolved as societal. This excuse has suffocated the very life out of parishes, religious houses, schools and families; the outcome of failure to turn to Christ and repent ends in a spiritual death all too evident in the grandstanding bitterness of those who when confronted with the beauty of holiness respond with snide cleverness or personal criticisms.
The call to holiness and the awareness of one’s need of Repentance is not a contradiction or hypocrisy: the shepherds at Bethlehem; the adulterous woman’s encounter at the well, Mary Magdalene, Peter’s repeated betrayals; the good thief, the list could go on… all reminds us, that my sins are not who I am, but who I am not. Christ’s invitation to follow, is a call in the knowledge “Your sins are forgiven you”. It is this fundamental truth of the Gospel, “Repent and Believe” that is the Catholic Faith. Repentance comes about through encounter with Jesus Christ Our Lord. This encounter is Divine gift (Grace) and our response to this unceasing Trinitarian invitation is the Faith. I hope in these twelve months sharing our journey together will be reminiscent of the encounter of the Risen Jesus Christ at Emmaus, and when we come to bid each other farewell, that we too shall reflect how in the worthy and reverent offering of Holy Mass “our hearts burnt within us”. I assure you all, particularly the sick and housebound, of the daily prayers of the Fathers and Brothers of the Cardiff Oratory. God reward you!