The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

In preparation for His Great Sacrifice on the Cross, Jesus tells His Apostles very plainly that they are going up to Jerusalem where He will be delivered to the Gentiles, mocked, scourged, spit upon, and put to death, and on the third day, He will rise again. Yet, they understood none of these things that He told them.

We are about to enter into the Season of Lent. God and the Church call upon us to begin mortifying ourselves and doing penance. We are to spiritually follow Jesus into Jerusalem and suffer and die to this world and this life so that we may rise glorious with Him at the end of time. Yet, most Catholics seem to be unable to comprehend what the Church asks of them or why She is asking it.

The ways of God are very different than the ways of men. Most often, we do not see the wisdom of God in the things that He does. The problem is not with God but instead with our limited intellects. Or maybe more precisely, it is the limitation of our ability to love God completely. Faith tells us that we do not need to comprehend God's reasons; we simply need to obey Him in everything.

The Apostles remained in the dark, despite Jesus speaking plainly and openly to them because it was inconceivable to human intelligence that God, Who is all-powerful, should ever be put to death. We are no longer in the dark after the fact because everyone has perfect hindsight. History has borne out the facts for us, but it does not yet open up our minds to comprehend the limitless wisdom and power of God.

Through faith, the blind man in today's Gospel reading comprehended the dual natures of Jesus. He called out for Jesus, Son of David (human nature), but then requested a Divine action from Him – the gift of sight. What we need is not so much understanding as faith. Faith must come first, then understanding will follow. Most of the time, we strive to understand so that we may believe, and our intelligence and faith remain weak and impotent. The proper course is to submit our intellects to faith, thus enlightening our minds. It is in believing that we come to understand. We are often trapped because we act like it is in understanding that we come to believe. We remain indefinitely trapped in our intellectual and spiritual blindness with this outlook.

Now the world and the devils appeal to our "reason," asking us what use is it to mortify ourselves and do penance. They suggest that denial and self-sacrifice cannot bring forth anything positive or good. It follows that we have passed most of our Lenten Seasons in half-hearted or begrudged self-denial, mortifications, or penances. We seek to understand before we will give ourselves entirely and blindly to the Will of God. God and the Church are asking us to give ourselves entirely and blindly to the Will of God so that we will then be able to see and understand.

Generally, only after we do something do we begin to understand the good that comes from it. Children learn by first memorizing and believing the facts taught to them. It is a simple act of faith or trust in their teachers. Once they accept the taught facts, they gradually understand or honestly know them.

This Lenten season is our next opportunity to trust God and our Holy Mother, the Church, and blindly give ourselves over to our mortifications and penances with as much enthusiasm and solicitude as our weak faith will allow. We need to push and expand our faith as much as we can. Then, when the Lenten season has passed, we will see and appreciate the value of what we have done.

Before constructing a building, we first plan, measure, and calculate. Then we spend even more time preparing the site and organizing the needed materials. Many young or inexperienced workers are too eager to begin construction, even before they know what to construct or where to build it. They make many mistakes and waste more time, energy, materials, and resources. If we allow the architects, engineers, financers, and contractors to do their jobs before the first shovel ever touches the ground, things will generally go much smoother. We typically have to struggle through many jobs the hard way before we learn that we need to trust and have faith in the practices that others tell us are necessary. But once we finish the job, we then understand the value of all the things that before seemed unimportant or unnecessary.

The same is true in the spiritual life. God and the Church have laid out for us the requirements for obtaining the eternal happiness of Heaven. We need to trust Jesus when He tells us that to be His disciples, we must deny ourselves and take up our daily crosses to follow Him. It is only in blind faith that we come to vision and understanding.

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