Another time, Jesus smeared God like mud on the eyes of a man born blind and pushed him toward the pool of Siloam. The blind man splashed his eyes and stared into the rippling reflection of the face he had only felt.  First he did a handstand, then a cartwheel and rounded off his Joy with a series of summersaults.   He ran to his neighbours, singing the News.  They said, " You look like the blind beggar but we cannot be sure." 

The problem was never that he was blind and could not look out, but that they could see and did not look in.

" I am the one, the seeing blind!"  
They seized him in mid cartwheel and dragged him to the authorities.
" What do you think of the man who made the mud?" 
But the man born blind was staring at a green vase, his mouth slightly open as if he was being fed by its colour.
"He is a sinner," said the priest who knew what pleased Gods eyes.
"Can One who lights candles in the eyes of night not have the fire of God in His Hands?"

The priests murmured and sent for his parents who looked their son straight in his new eyes and said, " Looks like our son but he is old enough to speak for himself." Off the hook they hurried home.

" All I know," said the man with the green vase tucked under his robe, " is that I was blind and now I see."

But with his new eyes came a turbulence in his soul, as if the man who calmed one sea turned another to storm,

So, before those who locked knowledge in a small room, and kept the key on a string around their neck, he launched into a theology of sin and salvation.  It was then that the full horror of the miracle visited the priests.  " You, steeped in sin, lecture us!!"

They tore him from the podium and threw him into the street where a man was rubbing mud from His Hands.

" How did it go?" " I talked back."

The man with new eyes took in every laughing line on the face of the Son who was as happy as a free man dancing on the far side of the Red Sea.

(A snapshot from 'The Son Who Must Die' by J Shea)

Poor old Nicodemus! Life has taught him to rely only on externals. If you get to sit at the top table, dress well, have time to polish the outside of the cup and be treated as special, and a little better than everyone else, you've got it made!  But the internal will not be ignored. Like a child in need, calling day and night until her need is met. 

Under cover of darkness, he moves hungrily towards the Teacher of the World.  The Teacher tries to move his gaze to
the inside, but nothing in his experience can let this happen. Jesus suggests he spends some time in the company of the wind to loosen him up a bit.

Watching Nicodemus wrestling with God might allow us the chance to be more open to the Master. Others claim to have ascended to heaven, and without fail the teaching they return with is about judgement and condemnation. But the Son of Man only descends with a graciousness that is hard to take in at first.

We are all bitten by losses and death. The Son of Man comes down and becomes death.   Lifted up so all can see Him. Like a poultice, he draws the toxin and hurt from our hearts, for all who gaze upon Him. And seeing the beautiful truth they could never have imagined, they begin to believe, to risk their heart to the One who enters human life at the exact point where life has failed us. He kisses all who must go through the dark door and holds them till their eyes open on the other side.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who (gives their heart) to Him may not 
perish but may have eternal life!  Indeed, God did not send His Beloved Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that through Him the world might be made safe"
  
So there it is! God is Love. And in Love He sends his Beloved Son to enter human death and carry us beyond it!

In Christ there is NO condemnation. This sentence will give light to even the most darkened of places and awaken us to the true movement of the Holy Spirit in whom we live, move and have our being. Perhaps that is why the Eastern image of the Spirit is neither fire nor dove. They speak only of the eternal kiss.

I have a couple of requests to make. First, I wanted to ask you, especially during Lent, to make every effort to keep your church open, if you don’t do this already. (Stephen Morgan assures me that our diocesan insurers entirely approve of this, although obviously we need to take prudent security measures). Keeping the church open will be a great help to everyone with that third Lenten work, prayer. Before Christmas, in one of his morning Masses in the Vatican, Pope Francis said we should always keep the doors of our Churches open:

‘When we are on the street and find ourselves in front of a closed church we feel that something is strange. Sometimes they give us reasons as to why they are closed, excuses and justifications, but the fact remains that the church is closed and the people passing by cannot enter. Even worse, the Lord (is locked up and) cannot be close to His people’.

Recently, I had an overseas priest visiting me and we went by one of our notably beautiful churches. I suggested we stopped off to pay a visit, but to my embarrassment, we found it locked.

To be able to come and visit the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is one of the chief and most consoling practices in our Catholic life. We come to adore Him. Yet as we kneel there in prayer, He also looks at us, His creature. He remakes us; He refreshes us; He renews us; sending us out again into our daily life to carry our Cross, through the strength and joy of the Resurrection. I wonder if during Lent, if you don’t do this already, you might consider putting on an hour of Eucharistic Adoration before your weekday Mass, and being there yourself?

My second request is that you do all you can this Lent to encourage the faithful to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This Sacrament is essentially a One-on-one encounter in which the penitent meets Jesus personally to receive his mercy, love and forgiveness. I am aware, of course, that for many of our faithful the celebration of this Sacrament is in crisis. The issue here touches very deeply on people’s theology of God and on their understanding of sin and redemption. I hope in a later year, we might address this matter together as a Diocese. But for 2014, thank you for all you do to encourage everyone to grow in their spiritual life and to come and meet Our Lord in this sacrament.

Forgive me mentioning the ‘blindingly obvious’, but please do not offer people a General Absolution (GA) or ‘Rite Two-and-a-Half’. Some theologians suggest that because the conditions for GA are rarely present, such celebrations are not only illicit but invalid! I know from experience they cause confusion and dissension, and undermine the practice of individual confession. Instead, please draw people’s attention to that beautiful paragraph of the Catechism about Christ addressing each sinner personally ‘My son, your sins are forgiven’ (1484).