Homilies > 17th Annual Rose Mass Homily

17th Annual Rose Mass HomilyMost Reverend William Lori, Bishop of Bridgeport, CT

03/02/2008| Church of the Little Flower, Bethesda, Maryland

 

I. Introduction: Sight Restored by Surgery

Not long ago, a life-long priest friend underwent delicate eye surgery . . . though I must confess I would regard any form of eye surgery as delicate. If I remember correctly, the procedure is called “epiretinal membrane peeling” and, with such a title, both that priest and this bishop were pretty worried about the outcome. While the surgeon was performing the operation, a small army of his friends were saying our prayers. 

Thank God, the surgery was successful; over time, the priest’s vision improved. I visited my friend shortly after surgery. As best he could, he described for me the intricate procedure. Using a very tiny forceps under high magnification the surgeon carefully peels away the intruding membrane from the retina. In the case of my dear friend, the surgeon had to make a few tiny stitches to complete the operation.

Throughout the procedure, the surgeon’s natural vision was greatly enhanced in order to see so clearly that he could move the forceps with great precision. In that way, a wonderful surgeon was able to restore the sight of a wonderful priest while giving the rest of us a lesson in vitreo-retinal surgery.

II. Jesus Heals the Man Born Blind

In contrast to that procedure, Jesus’ healing techniques, as described in this morning’s Gospel, were decidedly “low-tech”! Out of love for the man deprived of sight from birth, Jesus made a mixture of dust and spittle, applied that compound to his eyes, and then asked him to wash.
Unlike a modern-day surgeon, Jesus did not have the benefit of up-to-date magnification techniques with which to guide a tiny diamond-dusted forceps.

Nonetheless, the Divine Physician, ‘the light of the world’ (John 8:12; 9:5) and ‘the true light enlightening everyone,’ (John 1:9) could see into his patient more clearly and deeply than even the best contemporary eye surgeon . . . for Jesus could see “beyond appearances” (1 Samuel 16:6) into the very core of the blind man’s being.

For that reason, Jesus refuses to identify sin as the source of his affliction. Nor does Jesus regard the man, as did his neighbors, to be a beggar bereft of human dignity. Rather, Jesus looks into the man’s heart and finds him capable of that deeper, broader, and more penetrating sight we call faith. To echo our second reading from St. Paul to the Ephesians, (See Ephesians 5: 8-14) Jesus called him out of darkness into the clear light of holiness and truth. Indeed, Jesus’ miraculous cure was but the outward sign of the inward miracle of grace, the light of faith, which the Holy Spirit produced in the eyes of that man’s soul. By faith he was able to see the Son of Man.

III. A Lightsome Ars Cooperativa Naturae
 

Isn’t this what happens to us as the result of Baptism? Through the action of the Holy Spirit, the gift of faith is given us,
as it were, in embryonic form. When we renounce the works of darkness, embrace the Church’s faith, receive the sacraments, and develop a life of prayer, virtue, and good works, our eyes of faith grow stronger. As a result, we grow in our capacity to look upon Jesus and thus to become more like our Creator and Redeemer by generously loving our neighbor.

. . . But how does this Gospel passage shed its light more specifically on those of you who devote your lives to caring for the sick?

Let me suggest two ways: first, by showing how you minister to nature and then by showing how you help the Church articulate the Gospel of Life. Allow me to explain.

First, in the cure recounted in today’s Gospel, Jesus ministers to nature by granting the man his natural powers of sight. The Lord stands before the blind man as the one through whom the world was made. He stands before him as the one who came to restore creation. More than anyone else could, Jesus recognizes that that the blind man was wonderfully made, as Psalm 139 would have it, fashioned by God’s creative design in his mother’s womb (See Psalm 139:13 ff). And what nature lacked, Jesus lovingly supplied by giving sight to eyes that could not see.

. . . The philosopher Jacques Maritain observed that physicians also minister to nature.

They do so . . . “by imitating the ways of nature herself in her operations, and by helping nature . . . by providing appropriate diet and remedies that nature herself uses, according to her own dynamism . . . In other words, medicine is ars cooperativa naturae, an art of ministering, an art subservient to nature.” (Jacques Maritain, Education at the Crossroads, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1960, p 30) Today we can minister to nature in ways only vaguely envisioned half a century ago when Maritain penned those words. The quest to imitate nature so as to overcome illness has greatly accelerated and all of us benefit from what continues to be accomplished. But there are dangers when medical progress is pursued without moral vision and restraint. As the noted author, Francis Fukuyama, puts it: “The impulse to master nature out of simple ambition or on the basis of ideological assumptions about the way people ought to be is all too common.” (Francis Fukuyama, Our Postmodern Future, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002, p 94) One has only to think of abortions committed against Downs syndrome babies or the permissive cloning laws enacted in the UK and other places, or the various states pouring taxpayer funds into the type of stem cell research that destroys human embryos. Our quest to master illness and stave off death must display the same respect Jesus showed for his own creature, the blind man, and for nature herself. ‘In making the works of God visible through this man’, (See John 9:3) Jesus treated the blind man’s body as the living symbol of his soul. And by virtue of his spiritual soul, the afflicted man possessed inherent dignity, even in his body that stood in need of healing. (See Karl Rahner, “Theology of the Symbol,” Theological Investigations, Vol. IV, 1974, New York: the Seabury Press, pp. 245 ff; John Paul II, Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences: On Evolution, October 22, 1996, n. 5)

There is a second way today’s Gospel passage might apply to you, the dedicated health care professionals present this morning. In the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ has given you light, by enlarging and sharpening your vision. But how does the Lord do this? To the best of my knowledge, Catholic healthcare professionals do not possess magnification technology unavailable to others. Yet in the light of Christ you focus on the scientific prowess of your profession so that you can artfully apply it in protecting and fostering the God-given life and dignity of those you serve . . . thus proclaiming the Kingdom of God by word and deed. You’d expect me to say that the combined light of faith and reason enables you to see more clearly the inviolable human dignity of your patients, including those whom you cannot cure or those whose sufferings you cannot fully alleviate. But I will go further. Without you and the light you shed by your faith, science, and art, the Church herself cannot effectively proclaim the Gospel of Life, a proclamation that must be applied in the real-life situations you face on a daily basis. For while ethics must outpace technology, medical ethics cannot be adequately developed and articulated without reference to you, to your faith, your knowledge, and your expertise. Thus you are called to play a crucial role in the proclamation of the Gospel of Life by helping to develop and articulate the Church’s ethical and medical teaching as scientific and medical progress poses new ethical questions. Among other things, teaching well includes also knowing both what it means and how it works. At this Rose Mass we rejoice and give thanks to God for you and the crucial role you play even as we ask the Holy Spirit to continue enlightening you with the truth of Christ as it comes to us through the Church.

IV. Conclusion: A Word of Thanks and a Prayer

I thank Archbishop Wuerl for the privilege of returning to Washington to address you ― and with him and with your John Carroll Society Chaplain, Msgr. Vaghi, & with my brother priests . . . I gratefully entrust you and your ministry to Christ, the Divine Physician. May God bless you and keep you in his love.