All three readings today are about seeing.
And about how easy it is to miss what is right in front of us.
In the first reading Samuel is sent to Bethlehem to choose a king.
He sees Eliab — tall, strong, impressive — and immediately thinks:
“Surely this is the Lord’s anointed.”
Samuel sees the natural qualities — strength, height, confidence.
But the things that matter most he cannot see.
So God stops Samuel and says:
“Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
One by one Jesse’s sons pass before Samuel.
None of them.
Finally Samuel asks: “Are these all your sons?”
Jesse replies: “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.”
The future king of Israel is not even invited to the meeting.
He is out in the fields.
But God sees him.
“Arise, anoint him, for this is he.”
Already we learn the lesson:
God sees differently from the world.
And that prepares us for the Gospel.
A man is blind from birth.
He has never seen the sky.
Never seen a face.
Never seen the light.
He sits by the road and begs.
Jesus sees him.
The disciples ask the question people still ask today:
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
They want a cause.
Someone to blame.
But Jesus refuses that way of thinking.
“It was not that this man sinned or his parents.”
In other words, suffering is not always punishment.
Then Jesus does something strange.
He makes mud.
He places it on the man’s eyes.
And He says: “Go and wash in the pool of Siloam.”
The man goes.
He washes.
And suddenly — he sees.
For the first time in his life the world appears before him.
Light.
Colour.
Faces.
Everything he has never known.
You would expect joy.
Instead there is argument.
The neighbours begin debating.
“Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”
Some say yes.
Some say no.
The man simply answers: “I am the man.”
Then the Pharisees step in.
And here the story reveals something deeper.
The facts are obvious.
A man born blind now sees.
But the authorities refuse the conclusion.
Because if the miracle is real, then Jesus must be from God.
And that threatens them.
So they question the man again and again.
Eventually he says something wonderfully simple:
“One thing I do know:
though I was blind, now I see.”
That sentence cuts through all the arguments.
Truth does not always need complicated explanations.
Sometimes it is simply recognising what is plainly in front of you.
The man goes further: “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
It is simple reasoning.
A real miracle points to God.
But the Pharisees refuse to see.
Not because the evidence is weak.
But because pride gets in the way.
Pride does not want truth.
Pride wants control.
So they throw the man out.
Then Jesus finds him. “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
The man answers: “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”
Jesus replies: “You have seen him. It is he who is speaking to you.”
And the man says: “Lord, I believe.” And he worships.
The miracle is not only about the man receiving sight.
It is about recognising who Jesus truly is.
Look at the movement.
First he receives sight.
Then he recognises Christ.
Then he worships.
Sight leads to faith.
Meanwhile the Pharisees travel the opposite road.
They begin with sight.
But they end in blindness.
Because they refuse the truth.
Jesus says: “I came into the world that those who do not see may see,
and those who see may become blind.”
Light always forces a decision.
The Catholic faith teaches something very simple.
God has shown us the truth.
Truth is not something we make up.
It is something we are receive from God.
The blind man understood that instinctively.
“One thing I do know: though I was blind, now I see.”
St Paul says the same thing in the second reading:
“At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.”
Without God we do not see clearly.
We confuse good and evil.
We chase things that cannot satisfy.
But Paul says: “Walk as children of light.”
Live according to what you now see.
That is why today is called Laetare Sunday. Rejoice.
Not because Lent is over.
But because the light has already appeared.
In baptism Christ opened our eyes and brought us into His light.
Like the blind man we were told to wash.
And we came back seeing.
But sight brings responsibility.
Light must be lived.
The most dangerous blindness is not being blind.
It is thinking you can see perfectly well without the light Christ gives through His Church.
Imagine someone walking across a field at night with no torch.
If they admit they cannot see, they will move carefully.
But if they insist they can see perfectly well in the dark, they will walk straight into the ditch. Not because the ditch was hidden.
But because they refused the light that would show it.
That is what happens when people begin to think: “I will decide truth for myself.”
It sounds clever.
But it is really like switching off your headlights while driving at night.
You are not becoming free. You are becoming dangerous.
Christ did not leave us like that. He gave His light to the world.
And He entrusted that light to His Church so the world would not lose its way.
So the question is very simple. Christ has opened our eyes.
The real danger now is pretending we can see better without His light.
The world will offer many lights. But most of them are only reflections.
Only Christ gives the light that is true.
And He has given that light to His Church so that we do not lose our way.
So hold on to that light. Walk in it. Live by it.
Because the greatest freedom in the world is simply this:
to see the truth and follow it.
St. Mary's, St. John Bosco and St. Edward's 