Mothers and Seeing, 4th Sunday of Lent, Year A

Jn 9:1-41
Today's readings are about seeing, true seeing, spiritually seeing the truth of things.
And about blindness, inner blindness, spiritually failing to see the truth of things.

The blind man who was cured, started physically blind.
He wanted to see physically.
But, he also wanted to see spiritually, he was open to the truth.
And so he spoke to Jesus, and listened to Jesus in a way that was seeking the truth: seeking the truth about whether Jesus was the One who fulfilled that ancient title reserved for the Messiah, the title, "The Son of Man". And he came to see this spiritual truth, not just to see physically.

In contrast, the Pharisees both started and ended spiritually blind.
They started with a spiritual blindness that wrongly blamed the man's sins for his illness, saying to him, "you, a sinner through and though from your birth".
And they also ended spiritually blind, failing to recognize Christ for the Messiah that He is.

Let me make a diversion for a moment and mention mothers, today being Mothering Sunday.
It occurred to me when reading the first reading that mothers often see in a way that is different to how others see things, in particular, they see their own children differently.
Our first reading said, "God does not see as man sees, man looks at appearances, but the Lord looks at the heart".
How often have children found others reject them, others look at "appearances", but then found their mother look at them and see something more, see something loveable? (Of course, we can't pretend that all mothers are perfect, that all mothers do this, but we can acknowledge that by and large this is the experience of mankind -mothers, and a mother's love, sees something more than just the "appearances".)

Let me consider that from another angle, namely, generosity, thinking of the fact that we are called to generosity especially in this season of Lent, this season of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
Generosity changes how we look at people, how we see them.
Do we see Christ in the needy?
Recall the parable the Lord told in Matthew 25, about those who saw Him in the needy, the hungry, thirsty. “In as much as you did it to the least of my brethren you did it to me”(Mt 25:45).
This is a form of spiritual sight, to see Christ in the needy, something that a generous person is able to do.

BUT, it also works the other way, BEING generous changes our capacity to see, habituates us to look outward not inward, and enables us to see Christ in ALL kinds of needs and people.
So, in our Lenten almsgiving, and we’ve had two retiring collections in Lent, this outward orientation changes our capacity to see the truth. An open heart is open to the truth about reality, especially the ultimate truth about Christ.

So, to conclude. We are considering all this in Lent, when we are applying the three ‘remedies for sin’ of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
These actions not only atone for past sins, not only free our heart from present and future sin, they also enable us to SEE with that spiritual sight that is Faith: to see Christ.
They enable us to see, the way a good mother is able to ‘see’ her child beyond mere ‘appearances’, to see her child with love and see what he is called and able to be, not just what he is already.