Homily for the Sunday Mass of March 15: “Walking towards Jesus”

Sunday 15 March 2026
4nd Sunday of Lent – ​​Year A

Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab

1^st reading: 1 Samuel 16, 1b.6-7.10-13a
Psalm: 22 (23), 1-2ab, 2c-3, 4, 5, 6
2^rd Reading: Ephesians 5:8-14
Gospel: John 9, 1-41

This man, initially blind, using his reason and intelligence, will gradually take a stand, refine his understanding of the event and ultimately make a second act of faith.

I say a second act of faith because there is initially a first act of faith.

Try to imagine the scene from the perspective of the blind man:

He can see nothing; he is blind from birth. He is sitting; someone approaches, asks him nothing. He hears him spit on the ground, and a few seconds later, he feels mud being put on his eyes and is told, “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam.” To get to the Pool of Siloam is as if, starting from the basilica, one had to go straight down to the Orbiquet River. It is not a practical path for a blind man, and it is not nearby. And yet, this man does what he is told; this is the first act of faith… for faith is not primarily a feeling: it is first and foremost doing what God says or what Jesus says.

This man doesn't know; he hasn't seen the one who put mud on his eyes and told him to go wash in the Pool of Siloam. He does, he regains his sight, and he has never seen Jesus. And through the adversity he encounters in the Pharisees' interrogations, he will gradually come to understand:

• The man called Jesus.
• How can a sinful man perform such signs?
• He is a prophet.
• Is he a sinner? I don't know. But there is one thing I do know: I was blind, and now I see.
• God, as we know, does not answer the prayers of sinners. If he were not from God, he could do nothing.

And finally:

• Do you believe in the Son of Man?
  • And who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?
    • You see him, and it's him who's talking to you.
      • I believe, Lord!

This man experienced a gradual deepening of his understanding of Jesus, of his understanding of what happened to him.

Ultimately, this is the story of every person present, and in particular the story of all catechumens and those who seek God. And I can only rejoice if, in this assembly, there are catechumens or people who have come through the door because they are seeking God.

Each of us, if we are here this morning, it is because something has happened in our lives. Something where God has touched us, where Jesus has touched us. And in our journey, this relationship with God, this relationship with Jesus, is constantly evolving. It is not static. Why is it not static? Because Jesus is alive and we are alive, and a relationship between two living beings is a living relationship that never ceases to live and therefore to evolve. We are invited, like this blind man, to deepen our understanding of the mystery of Christ: this was the prayer of the first Sunday of Advent, where we asked God for the grace to “grow in the understanding of the mystery of Christ,” as this blind man did.

And why is there a progression? It's because that's how we are made. We are created in time, and if we live in time, it's because we are beings of becoming who gradually grow, who gradually deepen their understanding of the meaning of existence. Thérèse is well aware of this dimension; she notes it in manuscript A:

Since receiving the habit, I had already received abundant insights into religious perfection, especially concerning the vow of poverty. During my postulancy, I was happy to have simple things at my disposal and to find everything I needed readily available. “My Director”—this is how Thérèse refers to Jesus at this point—patiently endured this, for He does not like to reveal everything to souls at once. He usually gives His light little by little.

And she gives another example:

(At the beginning of my spiritual life, around the age of 13 or 14, I wondered what I would gain later, for I believed it was impossible for me to better understand perfection; I quickly realized that the further one advances on this path, the further one believes oneself to be from the end, so now I resign myself to seeing myself always imperfect and I find my joy in it…) (Ms A Folio 74, r°)

Ultimately, this man progresses from one act of faith to the next. I said that the final line, "I believe, Lord," is the second act of faith, but in reality, it might not be the second… Perhaps in every controversy, it is an act of faith that is being performed.

When this man said: He is a prophet,

when this man said: I don't know if he's a sinner, but he opened my eyes.

when this man said: God does not answer the prayers of sinners. Therefore, this man is not a sinner. And so on…

These small acts of faith help him progress in his spiritual life, but at the same time as he progresses in this life, he finds himself stripped bare. He has been enriched by the vision, but he is, in a sense, deprived of his community. The Pharisees will eventually cast him out. His relationship with his parents, one might say colloquially, "takes a hit" since they distance themselves from him. Ask him, he's old enough we don't want to comment. And I know well, having accompanied catechumens, how for some their path to Christ is painfully experienced in relation to their family: for some, the family really rejects them.

Growth in faith involves a stripping away of possessions, and Thérèse clearly recognized this stripping away. She mentions it in a letter to Céline. She tells him:

Jesus delights in bestowing his gifts upon some of his creatures, but often this is to win over other hearts, and then, when his goal is achieved, he makes these outward gifts disappear, he completely strips the souls dearest to him. (LT 147 of August 13, 1893)

When we set out towards the Kingdom of God, when we set out in the light of Christ, seeing our world progressively, more and more, as God sees it, as God looks at it, as God contemplates it, then we allow ourselves to be stripped and we understand well that on the day of our death, we will have to allow ourselves to be stripped even of our own body which we will find again at the resurrection of the dead.

The path of faith is not a path where we accumulate wealth, the path of faith is not a path where we become rich: on the contrary, the path of faith is a path where we become poorer if we allow ourselves to be guided by the Lord. If the good news is announced to the poorThen, those to whom the good news is proclaimed enter a path of impoverishment: an impoverishment that is first and foremost spiritual, where we increasingly understand that, left to ourselves, we are incapable of walking toward the Kingdom. This is our great poverty. It is this very poverty that can receive the richness of the Savior. And if we embrace this poverty, and if we seek to find salvation in Jesus, then we will rely less and less on what we possess, and more and more on him, the one and only Savior.

May this second half of Lent, this journey that remains until Easter, lead us to a closer relationship with Jesus, perhaps in a greater inner and why not outer impoverishment, so that we may rely more and more on Jesus.

Amen.