Homily for 4th Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
4th Sunday of Lent

March 15, 2026
Eph 5: 8-14
John 9: 1-41
Villa Maria, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

(by James Tissot)

“Live as children of light” (Eph 5: 8).

Today’s the 2d of 3 Sundays when we break from St. Matthew’s Gospel and take up 3 important (and long) stories from St. John which have to do with water, light, and life.  They’re preparing the Church’s catechumens for Baptism and preparing the rest of us to renew our baptismal commitment to follow Jesus.

Last week’s gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well focused on the living water that Jesus offers to believers—the living water of the Holy Spirit, who enables us to worship God in spirit and truth.

This week’s story features an anointing, washing, and light.  “The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’  So I went there and washed and was able to see” (John 9:11).  How baptismal is that?

The reading from 1 Samuel also involved an anointing, “and from that day on, the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David” (16:13), which I think is one of the most magnificent lines in the entire Bible.

The 1st and essential part of Baptism is being washed with water and the Holy Spirit (cf. John 3:5).  But almost as important is the anointing with sacred chrism, an anointing repeated in Confirmation—another sacrament of our initiation into Christ.  As the name suggests, chrism conforms us to Christ, the Anointed One of God; it indicates the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Christian—one who bears the name and sacramental seal of Christ—just as the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus at his baptism.  That was his anointing for his sacred ministry as the Father’s beloved Son.  When he pours that Holy Spirit onto us, we become the Father’s beloved children.

The blind man who was anointed and then washed had his eyes open to the light.  His perception gradually enabled him to see who Jesus is:  the man called Jesus, a prophet (9:17), a man from God (9:33), and the Son of Man who is to be worshiped (9:35-38).

The Eastern Catholic Churches, and the Orthodox also, have a 2d name for Baptism:  enlightenment or illumination.  The Holy Spirit gives light to our eyes to recognize and follow Christ.

That recognition is only the beginning.  It has to lead us to worship the Father and Jesus in Spirit and truth, as it did the man born blind.  St. Paul tells us that we “were once darkness,” i.e., dead in sin, “but now you are light in the Lord.”  Consequently, we must “live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth” (Eph 5:8-9).  Darkness no longer belongs in our lives:  “take no part in the fruitless works of darkness” (5:11):  in lies, theft, impurity, greed, rash judgment, slander, and gossip.  “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead” (5:14), and walk in Christ’s light.  Speak truth, be honest, pray, treat everyone with respect, offer your bodily and spiritual sufferings to God as sacrificial offerings, imitating Christ our life.  Cling to him as the man born blind did, even at the cost of a social penalty:  “they threw him out” (John 9:34).  People who adhere to Jesus’ teachings—and the Church’s—don’t ordinarily walk in elite circles, as for example, the powers-that-be ignore the Pope and bishops when they teach about war and peace and human dignity.

But “Christ will give you light” (Eph 5:14)—eternal light, eternal peace, eternal life.