Analysing The Way People Are Blinded by Sin

A Tunisian proverb says, “There is no blindness but the blindness of the heart.” And another American proverb adds, “None are so blind as those who refuse to see.”

Even amid the greatest sorrow, there is always a cause for joy. From the darkest night sparks a ray of light. No obscurity last forever. It is true that COVID-19 confines us outside the churches and plunges us into fear and uncertainty. But the light of Christ will come forth. Life always arises from death. Therefore, the call to rejoice and the invitation of today’s entrance antiphon, “Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all who were in mourning; exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast.”

The Christian life is a journey from darkness to light. It's a journey from blindness to clear vision. The Gospel will be a great catechism on this journey. We hear about Jesus healing a blind man. This excerpt from St. John is one beautiful teaching about Christ Jesus light of the world, a light that can give sight to all those who were previously blind and a poor acuity to those who thought they were well-sighted, and who thus turned away voluntarily from light.

Sin is a reality that blinds us. When someone lives under sin, he deprives himself to see beyond his umbilical cord. Sin curves him on himself, making him see only his ego. Jesus, on the other hand, came to break this bond that we maintain with evil and open ourselves to God. His next passion, which we sniff in this liturgy, will draw those who believe in the Lord from Darkness and bring them into the bright light, while those who refuse to believe, will be forever imprisoned in their situation of sinners.

The worst of all blindness today is when one loses the meaning or notion of sin. Unfortunately, our societies have fallen into this kind of relativism concerning sin. Many people no longer grasp the gravity of their evils. Some people live in a situation of severe adultery but think it is the most normal thing. Others are in a couple without marriage and are approaching the Holy Eucharist. Cases of human trafficking, child abuse, harassment, fornication, pedophilia, homosexuality, corruption, and many other crimes are in increase. It asks only blindness from us to not be able to see it. We all, therefore, need light.

The question of the disciples at the beginning of the gospel is all the more relevant for us to understand the relation between sin and spiritual cecity, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Our sins, from the Lord’s answer, are an occasion for God’s merciful love and power to be manifest. For, because we live in the darkness of sin, we feel the need of light. So, let us not be like those Pharisees who refuse their inner reality of sinners. For anyone who thinks that he does not need Jesus or that he is not blind (sinner), imprisons himself in his sin and condemns himself to live ‘ad aeternam’, into the dark valley of evilness. We, however, will have to rejoice. Because, sinners though we are, the Lord comes to heal and forgive us.