Out of the Shadows

By Fr. Paul Scalia
HERALD Columnist
(From the Issue of 3/7/02)

Outside the Oratory Church in Birmingham, England, the memorial tablet for Cardinal John Henry Newman bears the inscription Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem: "Out of the shadows and images, into the truth." The phrase summarizes well Newman’s discovery of the truth and his subsequent entrance into the Catholic Church. But it should also apply to every person, whom God desires to bring "out the darkness and into His marvelous light" (1Pt 2:9).

Christ’s healing of the man born blind demonstrates this desire of God. His external miracle reveals an internal truth: Christ has come to heal our spiritual blindness, so that we may see with the eyes of faith.

We do not see clearly. As St. Augustine observes, "the blind man here is the human race. Blindness came upon the first man by reason of sin: and from him we all derive it." This spiritual blindness, something far worse than physical blindness, prevents us from seeing the truth about God and others. Instead of seeing God as the origin and end of our lives, we see Him as merely an "important part" of our lives or even an imposition on our "freedom."

Instead of seeing others as persons created in God’s image and likeness, we see them as things to use for our own pleasure or power. Consequently, we are blind to sin, not seeing what a grave evil it is to reject God or to hurt our neighbor.

Christ has come to heal this blindness. In the words of St. Gregory, the healing of the man born blind symbolizes "the soul’s enlightenment, and restoration of the human understanding from its original blindness." Our Lord first sends the blind man to "wash in the Pool of Siloam," to show us that the soul’s illumination begins at baptism. But it does not end there. After his initial healing, the man born blind progressively gains more spiritual insight: as the story unfolds he sees Jesus first as a "man," then as a "prophet," then as one sent "from God," and finally as "Lord."

The recovery of our spiritual sight follows that of the man born blind. Baptism infuses into our soul the gift of faith, which is itself a way of seeing the truth. By faith we know God and the mysteries He has revealed. But, to see more clearly, we must, like the man born blind, continually grow in God’s grace. The more we progress in the spiritual life — through the sacraments, prayer and penance — the more clearly we see. Holiness brings to the intellect a grasp of reality that no worldly power can replace or duplicate. It is no coincidence that history’s two greatest philosophers — Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas — are also saints.

The greatest threat to our spiritual sight is sin. Just as the sin of Adam brought blindness to the whole human race, so also each personal sin darkens the individual’s intellect and deadens his conscience. Each sin a man commits leads him away from God’s truth and deeper into darkness and shadows. The proliferation of sin in our culture has darkened minds to such an extent that many no longer see the reality of sin or their need for a Savior.

To fight against this, we need frequent reception of the sacrament of penance, which frees us from sin and therefore draws us away from darkness and closer to the truth. St. Irenaeus wrote that, "the life of man is the vision of God."

Through His grace, most especially in baptism and penance, Christ restores this vision and grants us new life. He brings us "out of the shadows and images, into the truth."

Fr. Scalia is parochial vicar at St. Patrick Parish in Chancellorsville.

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