The Courage to See In the Dark

Homily

Scripture: John 9:1-41 (The Man Born Blind)

Setting: A Parish in Middle Tennessee

Date: Sunday, March 15, 2026

The Question of "Why?"

"Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

It’s the first question the disciples ask when they see suffering. It is a very human question. We want to find the cause so we can distance ourselves from the effect. If we can blame someone’s sin—their politics, their heritage, their "wrongness"—then the tragedy feels orderly. We feel safe.

But Jesus disrupts that safety immediately. He tells them, "Neither... it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him."

Today, as we gather here in Tennessee, we are surrounded by a different kind of blindness. We are living through a season of shadows that feels like it’s stretching from the global stage right into our own backyards in Franklin and Nashville. And if we are honest, our first instinct is the same as the disciples: to point fingers, to look for who "sinned," and to wonder why the world feels like it’s coming apart at the seams.

II. A World in the Dark

In just the last few weeks, the "light of the world" has felt dim. We have watched as a preemptive strike by Israel and the United States on February 28th turned into a full-scale conflict with Iran, a war that has already claimed thousands of lives and upended the stability of the entire region (Wikipedia, "2026 Iran War").

Closer to home, the tremors of that violence have reached our own soil. We remember the three lives lost at Buford's Backyard Beer Garden in Austin on March 1st (FBI.gov). Just days ago, on March 12th, the peace of a Michigan morning was shattered when a man rammed his truck into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield (CBS News). That same afternoon, at Old Dominion University, a classroom—a place of learning—became a battlefield for an ROTC instructor and his students (Military.com). And in New York, we saw the home of Mayor Zohran Mamdani targeted with improvised explosive devices during a clash of ideologies (The Guardian).

It is easy to look at these events and feel a paralyzing fear. Fear is a form of blindness. It narrows our vision until we can only see "us" vs. "them." It makes us retreat into our comfortable, enclaves, hoping the darkness won't find us here.

III. The Shadows in Our Backyard

But for us in Tennessee, the darkness has found us. It didn't come from across the ocean; it walked down our streets.

In recent months, we have seen groups like the Patriot Front and the "Blood Tribe" marching through downtown Nashville with swastikas and Confederate flags, stopping neighbors to ask if they are Jewish (The Guardian). They claim they are "protecting" a home that belongs only to people who look like them.

As followers of Jesus, as Catholics, this is a moment that demands we open our eyes. When these groups march, they often use the language of "tradition" or "heritage"—sometimes even distorting the language of faith. They want us to believe that they are the "seers" and everyone else is the problem.

But Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel: "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains." The greatest danger to our souls isn't being unable to see the truth; it's the arrogance of thinking we already do, while we ignore the suffering and the hate festering in our own zip codes.

IV. The Mud and the Washing

We need healing? We need an interventions.how can healing come to us?

How does Jesus heal? He doesn’t just wave a hand. He spits in the dirt, makes mud, and rubs it on the man’s eyes. It’s messy. It’s gritty. It’s uncomfortable.

Christianity is not a religion of "looking away." It is a religion of the Incarnation—of God getting His hands dirty in the mess of human history. To be healed of our blindness today means we must allow Jesus to rub the "mud" of our reality into our eyes. We have to look at the photos of the Michigan synagogue. We have to look at the faces of the marchers in Nashville. We have to acknowledge that the peace we enjoy is fragile, and it cannot be maintained by silence.

Jesus then tells the man: "Go wash in the Pool of Siloam." For us, the "Pool of Siloam" is the courage to act. It is the refusal to let white supremacy represent "us " or "Tennessee." It is the commitment to stand with our Jewish and Muslim neighbors who are feeling the weight of this "wave of terror" more acutely than we are. It is the decision to say that our "home" is not defined by who we exclude, but by the radical hospitality of the Gospel.

Conclusion: Walking as Children of Light

The man born blind didn't start out as a hero. He was just someone who was tired of being in the dark. By the end of the story, he is the only one who sees Jesus for who He truly is, while the "experts" remain blind.

We are being called to that same clarity. In a world of preemptive strikes and domestic attacks, in a state where hate groups are trying to claim the ground we walk on, we must be the ones who refuse to be blind.

Let us pray for the grace to see the "works of God" made visible—not in the power of weapons or the rhetoric of hate, but in the courage of those who choose to love when it is most difficult.

The Pool of Siloam: The Altar of Our Healing

So, where do we go from here? When the world feels like a succession of sirens and shadows, where do we find the water to wash the mud from our eyes?

Jesus tells the man, "Go wash in the Pool of Siloam"—a name that means Sent. For us, in this very moment, that pool is not a distant landmark in Jerusalem. It is right here. Our Pool of Siloam is this Altar, and the water that clears our vision is the Most Holy Eucharist.

When we say "Amen" and receive the Body and Blood of Christ, we are immersing ourselves in the life of the "Sent One."

Is the Eucharist our Siloam today?

* It humbles our pride: We stand in line as beggars, acknowledging that we are blind without Him.

* It dissolves our divisions: There is no "us" vs. "them" as we come to communion There is only the Body of Christ, broken for a broken world.

* It clarifies our mission: We receive Him so that we can see Him—in the victim of the shooting, in the neighbor being intimidated by a flag of hate, and in the stranger across the world.

If you are tired of the darkness, if you are weary of the fear that has gripped our country these last few weeks, come to the water. Come and wash in the Body and Blood of Jesus. Let this Sacrament scrub away the scales of indifference and the cataracts of fear.

Receive the Lord, let Him heal your sight, and then—as people who have truly been "sent"—let us walk out of these doors and into the streets of Tennessee, not as people hiding in the dark, but as the very Light of the World.

Go wash. Open your eyes. And let us walk as children of the Light.