Fourth Sunday of Lent – Cycle A
Reflecting on John 9: 1-41
Let us now consider Plato. You remember him. He’s the Greek philosopher who wrote that beautiful “Myth of the Cave,” in his Republic, around 350 years before Christ. He gives the example of prisoners in a cave, whose only connections with the outside world are the flickering images on the cave wall. One of the prisoners, however, escapes, and returns with fanciful stories of light, and life, and warmth outside the cave.
He’s crazy, of course. They know that the only reality is their chains, and the cold, and the dark, and those amusing images on the wall. Remind you of anyone?
Those Pharisees, and the man’s neighbors, were so deadly intent on disproving the healing of that Man Born Blind that they came up with every possible disclaimer:
No, you just LOOK like the guy who was blind from birth!
No, I’m the guy.
But he healed you on the Sabbath! That makes him a sinner!
Well, I don’t know anything about that, but here’s what I do know: I was blind, and now I see.
I don’t ever want to be like the Pharisees, or the prisoners in the cave. I want, always, to look to the Light that is always flickering outside the rigid and sad structures of our sophisticated and cynical world. Miracles? I absolutely believe that Jesus Christ is still healing. But here’s your part. It’s the task of the baptized to help prisoners, blind to the goodness of God, step out into the Light.
What experiences have you had of healing? Have you even taken the time to notice them?
Kathy McGovern ©2023