Are We Living in Darkness?

In Sunday’s gospel Jesus proclaims that He is the light of the world, just before restoring sight to a man blind from birth.  This man had spent his entire life in darkness and after his miraculous cure, the Pharisees accused Jesus of sin for having healed on the Sabbath.  In response, Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.”  (John 9:4)

Jesus is referring to the spiritual blindness caused by sin, and yet He died for our salvation, despite our sinfulness, so that we might be forgiven and receive spiritual sight.   As St. Paul says in Sunday’s epistle, “Brothers and sisters: You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth.” (Eph 5:8-9)  This infers that living in darkness makes us susceptible to lies and untruth.

In his first Encyclical, The Light of Faith, Pope Francis explains that:

 “Faith transforms the whole person precisely to the extent that he or she becomes open to love.  Through the blending of faith and love we come to see the kind of knowledge that illumines our steps… because love itself brings enlightenment.  The immense love of God transforms us inwardly and enables us to see reality with new eyes.”

Sadly, our world is growing darker as the light of faith slips away from so many people.  In their blindness, people have come to believe more and more lies while denying the truth as revealed by God in scripture, in the life of Christ, and in nature itself.  Natural law has been transmuted by the notion of “natural rights.”   In a terrible example of this blindness, Belgium recently expanded their euthanasia laws to include children.  Although children in Belgium cannot drive a car until the age of 18, they now have the right to request assisted suicide.   In Holland where euthanasia has been legal for more than 20 years, the law started with acceptance of suicide for the terminally ill, and over time was expanded to include euthanasia, then expanded again to include the chronically ill, then psychological illness was accepted as a reason to choose euthanasia, now it can even be performed without the patient’s consent.  It has become so common in Holland that a recent report estimated nearly half the assisted suicides are not even reported.  The so-called “right to die” has now been made legal in 5 U.S. states with several more preparing to vote on it.  It’s a slippery slope.

In another example of darkness, Planned Parenthood has bestowed Nancy Pelosi with their highest honor, the Margaret Sanger award “for her outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and women’s rights movement.”  The foremost of those rights is apparently the right to kill unborn babies.  Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was an avowed racist and anti-Semite who promoted birth control, abortion, and mandatory sterilization for people considered “undesirable.”  Pelosi continues to describe herself as a practicing Catholic, but in a recent speech staunchly supporting the HHS mandate she said, “I am a devout Catholic and I honor my faith and love it … but they have this conscience thing.”  Apparently, in her mind, human will trumps Catholic teaching on moral issues.   Could she be more mistaken, or more blind about what it means to be Catholic?  

When the Hobby Lobby case came before the Supreme Court last week, liberal pundits and protestors where howling about employers “denying women the right to contraceptives,” despite the fact the Hobby Lobby had agreed to pay for contraceptives, but not the abortion-inducing morning after pills.  Our government, in their blindness, is going to great length to force employers to pay for contraceptives and morning after drugs with no deductible and no copay, despite the fact that these medications are universally available at little or no cost.  Conversely, Obamacare requires people to incur huge out-of-pocket expenses if they need life-saving surgery.  Where is the outrage at the monumental increase in the cost of health insurance and health care which is affecting virtually everyone?  What sense does any of this make?  Our government filed suit against the Little Sisters of the Poor over this issue, but no one takes them to task over the fact that millions of people lost their health insurance because of Obamacare or because the cost of health insurance is going through the roof as a result of all the new requirements imposed by the new law and it’s 20,000 pages of new regulations.  Is everyone blind to the harm being caused by Obamacare?  Is the fuss over contraceptives just a ruse to take attention away from the very real problems caused by the new law?

As I write this blog, today is the last day to enroll in Obamacare this year without paying a tax penalty, if you remain uninsured.  At last count fewer than 6 million people have enrolled in Obamacare coverage, but it has been estimated that about half those people already had health insurance and simply changed over to take advantage of the government subsidies.  The original goal was to expand coverage by 23 million people.  The goal was dropped to 14 million early on, and today HHS Secretary Sibelius said that if 7 million enroll, they’ll consider it a success.  It seems everybody is anxious to describe Obamacare as a success, despite the myriad of problems is it creating for health care and for our economy.   I guess Democrats are counting on the fact that people will believe anything is it’s said with enough conviction.  The old adage “the blind leading the blind” comes to mind.

At mass Sunday, the first Prayer of the Faithful at our Church was for the overturn of the HHS mandate.  I wonder how many parishioners heard and understood what we were praying for?   It pains me to know that even regular attendees are still so blind as to not realize that voting for a pro-abortion politicians is to participate in grave evil, and thus sinful.   But then, you have to know you are committing sin, to be culpable, and sadly, darkness has pervaded so many hearts that a great many of us are blind to the truth of what’s going on around us.  As we approach Holy Week, let’s pray for an awakening of faith, and for the light of Christ to open the eyes of the faithful to the truth of what is going on in our country… before it’s too late.  And finally, let’s all strive to live as “children of light.”