First reading (1 Samuel 16:1, 6-7, 10-13). This passage tells the story of how Samuel identified and anointed David as the future king of Israel. The story shows the depth of God’s seeing. While people look at appearances, God looks at the heart. This is illustrated in the fact that God chose David, the last and most insignificant of Jesse’s sons, to be king of Israel. Seeing is the connection with the Gospel.
Second Reading (Ephesians 5:8-14). Paul tells the Ephesians that now that Christ has enlightened them, they must live in keeping with their new state. They must shun the works of darkness and live as children of the light.
Gospel (John 9:1-41). On the surface this is a story about a man born blind receiving sight. But on a deeper level it is a story about a man coming to faith in Jesus. The man’s journey from blindness to sight symbolises the journey from unbelief to faith, which is a journey from darkness to light, as St Paul tells his converts at Ephesus: ‘Once you were in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord’ (Second Reading).
In particular, the story illustrates growth in faith. There is a beautiful progression in the man’s understanding of who Jesus is. At a first stage, he calls him ‘a man’. Then he calls him ‘a prophet’. The climax of the story comes when he calls him ‘the Lord.’ Notice how his faith grows stronger and deeper the more he is called upon to defend it.
In the story Jesus is proclaimed to be ‘the light of the world’. Not only does he give sight to the physically blind, but the light of faith to the spiritually blind. Sadly, while the blind man opens more and more to the light, the Pharisees, who are physically sighted, become more and more spiritually blind.
There is a clear baptismal dimension to the story. As the blind man got sight by washing in the pool of Siloam, so we are enlightened by washing in the waters of Baptism.