The Lord goes looking for us when we’ve been tossed aside

In the middle of the long Gospel about Jesus healing the man born blind from birth, we hear powerful words about light and darkness. We’re reminded how Jesus, “the light of the world,” banishes the dark. He then does that — literally — through this remarkable miracle, bringing sight to a man who has never seen.

JOSEPH First century

The husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the legal father of Jesus according to Jewish law, Joseph is a model of humility and obedience to God’s will. He followed God’s instructions, given by angels in dreams, and took the pregnant Mary into his home as his wife, protected her and Jesus from the child’s birth in Bethlehem through the family’s sojourn in Egypt, and provided for them as a carpenter in Nazareth. This feast, which was celebrated locally as early as the ninth century, became a universal feast in the 16th century. Pope Pius IX named Joseph patron of the universal church in 1870; he is also the patron saint of carpenters, the dying and workers.

But I think there’s another kind of light in this passage and it’s something we might easily miss because it is mentioned almost in passing. Jesus doesn’t just heal the man and move on, no. He follows up. He comes back.

After he has been given sight, the formerly blind man is utterly alone, rejected by his community,

Deacon Greg Kandra

his religious leaders, his family. He’s been thrown out into the streets. The man who was scorned when he was blind is scorned again, even after he’s been given his sight. The world just wants to write him off.

The only one who doesn’t is Jesus.

In what may be the only instance like this in the Gospels, Jesus goes to seek out someone he has healed. And we come to realize that this man has been given more than just sight — he has been given consolation and affirmation. Christ gives him reassurance. He gives him a new life, and hope.

It’s really a remarkable encounter. It tells us that amid all that happens to us, God does not forget us.

As we turn the corner into the last weeks of Lent, that may be something we all need to hear. On this Gaudete Sunday, these readings — and this episode of healing — remind us that there is, literally, light at the end of the tunnel. Our time of penance, penitence and prayer is nearing an end.

And we have a companion on the journey. Jesus is with us, through everything. He is there for anyone who struggles or suffers. Anyone who is rejected, mocked, dismissed. He is there for the outcast and the isolated.

He is there for those who feel they have been thrown out. And to them, and to us all, Christ offers this ongoing miracle: light! Brilliant, bewildering light. The light of compassion and mercy and hope.

And in that light, we see what we have never seen before. We see that we are not alone. Jesus’ treatment of the man he healed is a lesson that says we are not abandoned. The Lord goes looking for us when we have been tossed aside.

The message this Sunday is one of abiding hope. It is a message to anyone who has ever felt alone or unloved. To anyone who has ever felt abandoned or betrayed or left out. This week, take time to think about that blind man who saw and believed, but was rejected by the world. Jesus didn’t just let him go. The Son of Man went looking for him, and found him. He let him know he mattered. God feels that way about every one of us. He remembers us, especially when we feel most forgotten.

To be Christian is to share God’s love, pope says at audience

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The mission to spread the Gospel message of God’s love and of salvation in Christ is entrusted to all the baptized who are called to work together and never set out alone, Pope Francis said.

The “ecclesial” dimension of evangelization “is binding and guarantees the authenticity of Christian proclamation,” the pope said at his weekly general audience March

8 in St. Peter’s Square, the first audience held outdoors in 2023.

At the end of the audience, Pope Francis noted the day’s celebration of International Women’s Day, thanking women “for their commitment to building a more humane society through their ability to grasp reality with a creative gaze and tender heart. This is a privilege only of women.”

The pope not only offered “a special blessing for all the women in the square,” but asked the crowd to join him in “a round of applause for women. They deserve it!”

Continuing his series of audience talks about evangelization, Pope Francis said the support and confirmation of the church in mission work is necessary “because the temptation of proceeding alone is always lurking, especially when the path becomes impassable, and we feel the burden of the commitment.”