Restoring others’ dignity, faith, and hope
March 15, 2026 – Fourth Sunday of Lent
Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Psalm 23, R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.; Ephesians 5:8-14; Gospel – John 9:1, 6-9, 13-17, 34-38
There are two contrasting conversations in today’s Gospel. The first is between the healed blind man and the Pharisees, and the second is between Jesus and the man at the end. The third point for reflection, I will mention at the end.
The Pharisees asked the man, “What do you have to say about him, since he opened your eyes?” To which we responded, “He is a prophet.”
You would think the Pharisees really wanted to know the truth about the encounter, but far from it. “‘You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?’ Then they threw him out.”
The Pharisees were simply indifferent to the plight of the blind man and were so wrapped up in their world of rules and regulations that they could not rejoice over the healing of the blind man.
Moreover, they were arrogant and mean. They asked the man what he thought about Jesus, and when he responded—“He is a prophet”—they berated him with an insult. Then the final act in dealing with him was to throw him out.
Contrast this with Jesus’ conversation with the man after the above incident. Jesus, upon hearing about the man’s ejection from the synagogue, sought him out.
When he found him, he asked the man, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” Jesus was about to give the man something to believe in and to hope for.
The man responds, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”
So typical of Jesus’ encounter with people, he always inspired faith and hope in the people he encountered.
Then the revelation: “Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.’”
This was a life-changing moment of grace for the man, “‘I do believe, Lord,’ and he worshiped him.”
This Gospel focuses on the plight of those who have less in life, whether materially or physically. They are the poor, the marginalized, and the excluded.
It shows us two attitudes towards them. One is to treat them as non-persons, the way the Pharisees treated the man, like a pawn in their conflict with Jesus.
We have seen this in our own time so often. Persons in authority who power-trip and treat others in an arrogant and mean way.
One way I gauge the character of people is how they treat those who, for lack of a better term, have a lower rank than them in the community, e.g., household staff, security guards, janitors, etc. This is a good measure of a person’s character.
The opposite of this is how we can be life-giving to people. Jesus was this to the man. After the man was thrown out, he went out of his way and sought him. He gave him hope and restored his faith.
The man believed Jesus was a prophet, and this was why he was thrown out by the Pharisees.
Jesus restored the man’s dignity, faith, and hope by proclaiming he was correct. Not only did he show the man that he was a prophet, he also showed that he was the Messiah.
There is no one greater than the Messiah that the man can believe and hope in. The man proclaimed his faith in Jesus and worshipped him.
Do we treat others in the same way?
In our work with out-of-school youth, giving them the chance to finish senior high school and open doors of opportunities for them, this is the grace of our work.
We give young men and women who have lived in a dark world for years a glimmer of hope, the light of possible opportunities.
It takes so little to make a tremendous difference in the lives of these out-of-school youth. In the two years that they studied with us, you could see how their faith in themselves and in life in general changed.
There is a different aura, a radiant glow in them because their hope was renewed.
Finally, Jesus’ sensitivity as we saw it in the opening line of the Gospel: “As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.”
The man did not call out to him. Jesus felt his need and his pain. He noticed him—the forgotten, the unseen, the voiceless of society.
This is another virtue of Jesus we can emulate. How often do we not notice the last, the lost, and the least of our society? Unless we do, we cannot be one with them in solidarity and fraternity, and render life-giving, loving service.
