4th Sunday of Lent, Cycle A (2026)

The Gospel story we hear today, takes place at a place called the Pool of Siloam, located in Jesus’ time, in the southernmost part of Jerusalem. The pool was an engineering feat in its time and the aqueduct that supplied its water was formed through solid rock. As we heard, Siloam means ‘sent’, because the water was sent from the Kidron Valley, just to the east of the city’s ancient walls, through the aqueduct, into the pool.

But unlike last week's gospel, this story is not primarily about water as a means of quenching thirst. Instead, it's about water as a means of providing illumination, and from that: the capacity of sight.

It's interesting that in this healing story, neither the blind man nor anyone else asked Jesus to heal him; he simply wanted to do it. Jesus had an ulterior motive: to bring people to belief and to a new way of seeing. We’ve all heard the expressions “seeing is believing” and “I’ll believe it when I see it”. But St. John’s Gospel reveals that with Jesus, the opposite is true: I’ll at last see it when I believe. This movement, from blindness to seeing, is not only about seeing physically, but also spiritually.

Think of the sacraments Jesus left us: Our earthly senses can see the elements, but belief is necessary to encounter and draw upon the grace of God. As you know, some of our brothers and sisters have been moving towards knowing and seeing over the past several months, preparing for their encounter with Christ at the Easter Vigil: the Sacraments of Initiation.

The early Christians saw a connection between this story and baptism, although baptism is not mentioned. To describe the effects of baptism, ancient Christians used the Greek word photismos, meaning illumination. And like the washing in the pool of Siloam which moved the blind man toward seeing, toward knowing, toward the light of the world—Jesus Christ—our candidates and elect have formally begun their life-long process toward illumination, preparing and discerning the Lord’s path for them. That they are here today indicates their belief and desire to move toward seeing more fully.

But what about us who have already been ‘illumined’ by baptism? Like the experience of so many—as one ages, sight becomes dimmed and less clear—we can live as though spiritually blind. The ashes, blessed with holy water, applied to our foreheads on Ash Wednesday, are not so different from the soil mixed with Jesus’ spit, applied to the eyes of the blind man.

In these three remaining weeks, ask yourself: How are you still blind? Let us not lie, telling ourselves otherwise. What does the Lord wish you to see and you still do not? And in what way does your unbelief keep you from seeing?