Homily: Fourth Sunday in Lent

March 15, 2026

My dear brothers and sisters, we are celebrating the liturgy of the fourth Sunday of Lent. With this fourth Sunday of Lent we are half-way on our Lenten Journey. This fourth Sunday is normally called the Laetare Sunday, Laetare means rejoice. This is taken from the entrance antiphon of today from Isaiah 66:10, “Rejoice Jerusalem, and all who love her.” In essence, the liturgy of the word of today is calling on us to rejoice. Our Lenten fast and abstinence is not just a sorrowful journey, it is also a joyful and glorious journey. We should not get tired midway, instead we should put some smile on our faces and keep on marching for we are marching and getting closer to God who cares for us more than we could ever imagine.

In both the first reading and the gospel reading of today, we see instances of this God’s abundant care for His holy people. Beginning from the first reading, we see in this reading how God sent the prophet Samuel to go and anoint David as king. David was the king of Israel whom God promised that his dynasty would last forever. Jesus the everlasting king of kings descended from this tribe of David. So, from the time of choosing David, God was already planning for us; in choosing David, He was choosing the royal ancestor of the kings of kings, a thousand years before even Jesus came on earth. The day God sent Samuel to Bethlehem to search for David, He was planning in advance how you and I will belong in this everlasting lineage. His thoughts were on us from eternity. Our Lenten practices are positive endeavors on our part so that this eternal good plan that God has for us from eternity will be fully realized.

In the gospel reading, we see another instance of Jesus’ superabundant care and love for humanity more than we could ever imagine in this cure of the man born blind. This miracle was done totally out of Jesus’ own initiative and love because the man could not see and never knew whom Jesus was, so the man did not request for the miracle. However, Jesus has seen that the condition of the man was deplorable. The man has been enveloped in darkness from birth not having been able to make meaning of even how the world looked like because of his permanently impaired eyesight from birth. However, Jesus the light of the world was there for him, to liberate him from darkness and make the light of Christ to shine on him. This is Jesus’ central mission on earth to make the light of God to shine on us. It is for this He died on the cross of Calvary. This is the reason for our Lenten mortification, that we might remove every blockade which prevents the rays of this divine light from touching us.

From this gospel reading, we can see that in Jesus’ time, there were different black umbrellas that blocked this ray of divine light from shining on different groups of people. From one end, we can see the Pharisees, their own blockade was stubborn pride. This humongous pride in them prevented them not only from not seeing in this humble Jesus, the ‘son of a carpenter’ the long-expected Messiah, it also made them incapable of seeing and acknowledging the miraculous manifestation of the power of God that was evident to everybody else in the neighborhood. From another side, we could see the parents of this man born blind, their own blockade was fear of both the Jewish authorities and fear of not belonging to the community. They were afraid of public acknowledgement of their faith in Jesus. The man born blind was remarkedly different, notwithstanding all pressures from all angles, He acknowledged Jesus as the Lord and worshipped Him.

Brothers and sisters, both the Pharisees, the man born blind and his parents have long disappeared from the earth. In our time, as we continue in our Lenten journey, have we reflected on what may be our own blockade from divine light? Is it the Pharisaic pride and prejudice? Is it the quest to belong, the fear of acknowledging our faith among our peers? Is it the growing and popular modern day anti-religious climate? No matter what it is, let us always remember that Jesus is for us, in 2 Tim. 2:11, the word of God tells us, “if we have died with Him, we will also live with Him, if we endure, we will also reign with Him, if we deny Him, He will also deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful for He cannot deny Himself.”