We are called, appointed, anointed by God to see the light and lead others out of darkness.

This week's readings offer several points of contact with the lives of those in the assembly: the restoring power of God, the call to life in the Spirit, and living in Christ's light as a way to goodness and truth. Another, perhaps less obvious theme in scripture this weekend is discernment.

IF THE CHURCH didn’t give us Lent, we’d probably have to invent it. We might even spare some compassion for those who don’t have an annual season for reflection on themes as human as they are forbidding: desert, thirst, the need for rescue, darkness, suffering, and death.

In the story of Jesus' curing of a man blind from birth, the blind end up being the ones who really see "while those who do see . . . become blind." The great 20th-century German organist Helmut Walcha had remarkable vision--inwardly.

I was at a friend's house, and his young son was doing a school project on a topic I happen to know something about. I offered my assistance, and at first the son seemed to welcome any help he could get.

When my niece was about 12 years old, she brought some friends with her to visit her grandma. While there, she showed them the pictures of her uncles on my mother's dresser, commenting on each of them. "That's my Uncle Dominic," she said, pointing to my picture, "he's the ugly one so he had to become a priest."

The Disciples were certain that when a man was born blind either he or his parents must have sinned. People can hold a lot of false ideas about how God works, which gets in the way of our relationship with God.

God's light makes everything visible. Let us ask for God's presence shine into both the light and darkness of our lives.

Go wash in the Pool of Siloam. Jesus had gone up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7:2, 10) when he encountered the man born blind. Tabernacles is a harvest festival.

He who restored the man to health by anointing his eyes with clay is the very one who fashioned the first man out of clay, and . . . this clay that is our flesh can receive the light of eternal life through the sacrament of baptism. --Ambrose of Milan (339-397