Well we have reached the halfway point of the solemn and penitential season of Lent which means we dedicate a day to joy, a day to rejoice. It is called Laetare Sunday, where the Church expresses hope and joy in the midst of our Lenten fasts and penances.
The day’s theme comes from the entrance antiphon reflecting on Isaiah 66:10-11: “Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all who were in mourning; exalt and be satisfied…” The word “Rejoice” in Latin is Laetare.
We symbolize that joy and rejoicing outwardly by wearing the festive color of rose, but I’d like to reflect on how we do that inwardly. How do we live joyfully in this world? Do we take time to rejoice or is it all doom and gloom? I’d like to propose that like our Gospel reading, it has to do with our sight, it has to do with how we see.
Think about the man born blind. Yes, he received his physical sight in this story, but he also received his spiritual sight, gradually. When he was first asked about who healed him, he responded “The man called Jesus.” The next time he was asked about Jesus, he said, “He is a prophet.” The third time he says Jesus is “from God.”
Finally Jesus asked him if he believed in the Son of Man and he called Him “Lord,” and he worshiped him. Like our faith increases over time, the faith of the man born blind increased, and he was able to spiritually see the truth that the Pharisees could not.
The Pharisees were looking for faults, they were trying to build a case against Jesus, of course with the whole healing on the Sabbath thing, but also they were trying to discredit the man born blind, I mean why else would they ask someone to tell a story twice, except if they were trying to find discrepancies to discredit him?
Here’s the point: people see what they want to see. If people want to see the good in others, to see the light in every situation of darkness, they will, and they will have joy in their lives. If people want to find fault in others, if they want to focus on the darkness, focus on every negative, then their lives will reflect that.
In this, I am thinking about both people and situations. It’s been three years since the world shut down for covid, and that was a dark situation, so people had to look for the light and the good moments in all of it to have joy.
Another example, you are all quite aware of how tough my last three months have been. To add to it, last weekend my Grandma, my mom’s mom, suffered a stroke. She seems to be doing better now, she needs some rehab, but it is tough when we are faced with sickness and death. And there are always difficulties and darkness.
In talking to Grandma, it seems like the stroke and some other recent health issues were brought on by her sadness over losing a daughter and a great grandson and a nephew last week.
And then my other Grandma has been struggling with more health issues than usual, which really seems to be caused by her sadness over losing my mom and this continued war in Ukraine, she gets so worried about this stuff she can’t control. So we try to tell her to turn off the news and focus on the good things, try to seek out the light in life.
Earlier this week I was with my dad going through lots of mom’s accounts and I found that the last book that mom bought for her church was called Living Joy by Chris Stefanik. She bought 500 of them for their parish like I do here, but she had given me one, and I pulled this book off my shelf and there was a bookmark in the middle of it that I don’t recall putting there, so I started there and I want to read a paragraph from the first page I read and what it said in regard to Friendship, which the author said is a key component to Living Joy.
Chris Stefanik said, “You tend to find and focus on the flaws of the people in your life, don't you? That's because your brain is hardwired for self-preservation and survival. We're good at finding and avoiding things that might hurt us. I'm not saying to be blind to the flaws in other people, but to choose to let it go more often. The only way to grow in friendship over time is to forgive easily. Refuse to let unforgiveness destroy your friendships and your joy.”
It’s like Chris wrote that for us today… So my encouragement is this: like the man born blind, recognize God is in our midst and grow in His love, then look for the good things, and choose to forgive the bad things. Seek the light in the darkness. In this way we will let the joy that only God can bring break into our lives!