Fourth Sunday of Lent [A]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
March 22, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John 9:1-41<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In healing the blind man, Jesus did something a bit unusual: He spat on the ground, made clay with His saliva, and smeared the clay on the blind man\u2019s eyes. In this time we are battling the Covid-10, the fast-spreading strain of the coronavirus, we are educated that the one of the media of contamination is the human droplets like our saliva, and the entire point of this virus is contact with our eyes. When the infectious saliva meets the eyes, it is the sure reason we fall victim to this terrible virus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Jesus was using the very same means of illness and transforming\nit into the means of healing both physical and spiritual blindness. Indeed,\nthis kind of reversing action is the favorite pattern of Jesus. St. John\nChrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, in his homily, mentioned that three means\nused by the devil to destroy humanity are the same means utilized by Jesus to\nsave humanity. The three means of the devil are the tree of knowledge of evil\nand good, the woman which is Eve who disobeyed, and the death of Adam who\nbrought along all his descendants. Jesus then transformed three means into His\nown ways of salvation: for the tree of knowledge of evil and good, there is the\ntree of the cross, for Eve, there is Mary who obeys, and for the death of Adam,\nthere is the death of Jesus who saves us all. The devil thought he could\noutsmart God, but truly, it is God who has the final victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Genesis 2, when God created the man, He was acting like a craftsman\nor a sculptor. In ancient Rabbinic tradition, God used His own spittle to\ncreate a formable clay from the ground. The act of Jesus in healing the blind\nman brings us back to this story of creation. Jesus is not merely healing, but\nHe is recreating the man into His own image. Even the means of ugliness and\nillness can be transformed into the means of beauty and salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The covid-19 virus has destroyed many aspects of human life. It spreads\nfear and panic. It forces the government to take drastic measures, including\nlocking down cities and stop the economic activities. It separates people from\ntheir friends and loved ones. The faithful are obliged to be far from the\nhouses of the Lord. These are a painful and confusing time for many of us. Even\nsome of us would cry, \u201cEli, Eli, Lama sabacthani?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet, we must not forget that Jesus can always employ the same means of\ndeath and destruction to be His way of salvation. We ask the Lord to open our\neyes of faith to see how God works through this time of crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We thank for the gifts of our medical practitioners who put their lives\non the line to care for those are sick; for our government officials who\ntireless work to contain the virus; for volunteers who spend their own\nresources to help battling the illness; for the priests and Church\u2019s servants\nwho serve the spiritual needs of the people despite many limitations. My prayer\nalso goes for an Italian priest who made the final sacrifice as he asked not to\nbe treated so that the limited respiratory machines may be used by younger and\nhaving a better chance to survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fourth Sunday of Lent [A]
\nMarch 22, 2020
\nJohn 9:1-41<\/p>\n
In healing the blind man, Jesus did something a bit unusual: He spat on the ground, made clay with His saliva, and smeared the clay on the blind man\u2019s eyes. In this time we are battling the Covid-10, the fast-spreading strain of the coronavirus, we are educated that the one of the medium of contamination is the human droplets like our saliva, and the entire point of this virus is contact with our eyes. When the infectious saliva meets the eyes, it is the sure reason we fall victim to this terrible virus. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[57,58],"class_list":["post-9331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-renungan","tag-english","tag-sunday-reflection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9332,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9331\/revisions\/9332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}