Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “Jesus reveals to the blind man whom he had healed that he had come into the world for judgement, to separate the blind who can be healed from those who do not allow themselves to be healed because they consider themselves healthy. Indeed, the temptation to build himself an ideological security system is strong in man: even religion can become an element of this system, as can atheism or secularism, but in letting this happen one is blinded by one's own selfishness. Dear brothers and sisters, let us allow ourselves to be healed by Jesus, who can and wants to give us God's light! Let us confess our blindness, our shortsightedness, and especially what the Bible calls the "great transgression" (cf. Ps 19[18]: 13): pride. May Mary Most Holy, who by conceiving Christ in the flesh gave the world the true light, help us to do this.” (Benedict XVI, Angelus, 2 March 2008). With these words the Holy Father concluded his Angelus reflection on the 4th Sunday of Lent, calling people to let themselves be healed by Jesus who, as the "light of the world", came to set us free from the shadows of our selfishness.
In fact, Lent is a time in which the Lord wishes to work in every believer, inner healing, authentic liberation from the evils which afflict our poor humanity: selfishness, materialism, relativism, protagonism, individualism… “isms” which cause blindness typical of the spirit which prevents us from seeing the real meaning of life, meaning which is not only referable to what is worldly but to what is heavenly.
Man is created for the infinite, this is why he feels “restricted”, “imprisoned”, in the things of the world and of the flesh and unable to free himself, He needs Someone stronger than the world and human selfishness, he needs Jesus! Like the man born blind, we are unable to “see” unless the Lord gives us the “sight” of faith. In other words, “we see”, but only with the eyes of the flesh, which are unable to see beyond mere appearance, unable to “see inside”, these eyes stop at the surface of things, where there is confusion and disorder …
Instead, realty, the reality from which Jesus comes and moves, is quite different, it is the reality of the Spirit, where the poor are blessed, the afflicted are comforted, the meek are heirs, the just are redeemed, the merciful are loved by God… In this reality of the Spirit it is the pure of heart who “see God”: all those who have let themselves be touched by Jesus, putting aside the pride which cluttered up their soul and suffocated the dimension of spiritual childhood.
Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, the great Teacher of the spirituality of becoming like children or, precisely of “spiritual childhood”, was proclaimed Doctor of the Church by John Paul II in 1997. A person is recognised as a “Doctor of the Church” if his or her doctrine is universal: if it is valid for all people, of all times. The fact that St. Teresa of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face was given to us as “Doctor”, precisely in our day, should make us reflect: in times of great pride, of "great sin" in which man is more than ever tempted by the Evil One to do without his Creator, Divine Providence through the Church offers us singular remedies, exceptional medicines, such as “spiritual childhood”, more correctly known as the “Little Way”, taught by this saintly young Carmelite.
The Servant of God John Paul II, had this to say about her on the day she was proclaimed Doctor of the Church: “ Thérèse of Lisieux did not only grasp and describe the profound truth of Love as the centre and heart of the Church, but in her short life she lived it intensely (…) She counters a rational culture, so often overcome by practical materialism, with the disarming simplicity of the "little way" which, by returning to the essentials, leads to the secret of all life: the divine Love that surrounds and penetrates every human venture. In a time like ours, so frequently marked by an ephemeral and hedonistic culture, this new doctor of the Church proves to be remarkably effective in enlightening the mind and heart of those who hunger and thirst for truth and love”.
The Samaritan woman, or the man born blind are living icons of this “existential dissatisfaction”, as Benedict XVI called it when he commented the Gospel of the Samaritan woman, constitutive of human existence. Only God can satisfy the human being, only the Spirit of God can nourish the human person, matter cannot, earthly goods cannot satisfy the hunger for happiness. So there appears on the existential horizon of every man and women of goodwill, the Lord Jesus, the Saviour of the world, who rather than impose himself, offers himself to us whom he created free! When a person opens to His Presence, then the light enters, the truth makes its way into our heart and God's love gently invades our human existence which was, without grace, in danger of succumbing to matter, to flesh, to selfishness and instead, is now reborn: and the blind see! (Agenzia Fides 5/3/2008; righe 55, parole 837)
