Our Lady Of Perpetual Help

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Reflection -   Weekend of Mar. 14 & 15

Question of the Week:



     That’s what the disciples are wondering when they ask Jesus why the man in today’s Gospel is blind. Is his lack of sight a physical manifestation of his sinfulness? Or his parents’? Is God punishing him for some transgression? No, Jesus says. Our Father is loving. Just as our parents would not wish us ill, neither does our Heavenly Father. Pain

and suffering exist, but not because God actively wills it. Sorrows in this life are an opportunity to experience God’s grace, to draw closer to Him, to identify with the suffering Christ endured on the cross for us. The man’s blindness—and cure—helped advance Jesus’ ministry in making God known on earth: “it is so that the works of God might be

made visible through him.”

     Funds raised by the Catholic Ministries Annual Appeal help ease suffering by making God’s love and mercy tangible through the Church’s ministries and programs that the Appeal supports. Please prayerfully consider easing others’ burdens with a gift to the Catholic Ministries Annual Appeal. There are two types of blindness in John’s Gospel today. The man to whom Jesus restores sight is physically

blind. But the Pharisees are spiritually blind. Threatened by Jesus and his growing number of disciples, they look for ways to dismiss the miracles that point to Christ’s divinity. They resort to legalities, attributing Jesus’ curing of the man’s blindness on the Sabbath, as a sign that Jesus is a sinner. Someone who does not keep the tenets of their religion couldn’t possibly be a good Jew, let alone a prophet or the long-awaited Messiah!

     Jesus came to bring light to the world. He is the bearer of truth, God’s truth. The blind man sees this light; the Pharisees refuse to. When we sustain ministries that bring Christ’s compassion to those who need it most, like the ministries the Catholic Ministries Annual Appeal supports, we are saying that we believe Jesus is the light of the world and has the power to heal afflicted.