4th Sunday of Lent, A March 15, 2026
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
Can you see joy? Maybe. There’s one trend in short internet videos that I enjoy which captures the change in someone’s expression before and after they see someone or something they love. One version involves professional photographers who do something to get a more genuine smile. I’ve seen one kick their shoe at the person to make them laugh. My favorite involves a guy who suddenly breaks out a literal sword for them to hold. You should see the way people smile when they’re holding an actual sword, men and women. I know I would.
Perhaps the most touching version of this trend is men who spot their girlfriend or wife before she sees them. In those, they show a woman kind of downcast or bored or worried as she wanders around. When she spots her man across the room, her whole countenance lights up. Smiling, waving enthusiastically, even running towards him… it’s obvious that seeing the one she loves brings her some kind of joy.
So, does that mean we can see joy? Perhaps, but we should take to heart God’s words to Samuel: “Do not judge from… appearances… Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the LORD looks into the heart.” If you look more closely at the people posting those before-and-after videos, you’ll find plenty of examples where the seemingly happy couple broke up. And for every video posted of someone smiling when a shoe is thrown or a sword handed out, how many don’t get posted because they didn’t get a good reaction?
Appearances can be deceiving. Samuel was so impressed with the height of Jesse’s oldest son that he wants to make him king… but the Israelites have already made that mistake. In the biblical story, our first reading is during the reign of King Saul. Samuel anointed Saul as king years earlier in part because Saul was the tallest and most handsome man around. God chose Saul because he knew the people would be caught up in his appearances. God knows Saul will turn out to be a disastrous king, but he lets them learn the hard way that good looks and height don’t make a good king. Now that the people have seen that, they are more likely to accept a less impressive-looking king, to look past appearances. That’s when Samuel finds David, a much shorter man who is the youngest in his family and too scrawny to even wear armor.
Throughout the rest of the story, though, David is described as a man after God’s own heart… the same heart only God could see while everyone else saw only appearances. And, despite his very serious sins, David remains the top example of a good king for the entirety of scripture, even to the point that Jesus being called the “Son of David” is a key part of how God reveals himself to the world.
Not that the heart and appearances are always contradictory. David may have been short, but he was also handsome and a good musician. Two priest professors when I was in seminary were in their 80s and the joy you could see in them was profound, deeply rooted in a lifetime of intimacy with God. Mother Teresa and John Paul II were both described as visibly radiant with joy and their holiness is undisputed. God loves a good paradox and a poignant reversal, but it’s not always just opposite day for him. Still, to know real joy, to know God we must be deeply aware of the difference between appearances and what’s in the heart.
In no place is this distinction more important than searching for joy. The world promises an endless stream of things that supposedly “spark joy.” Cuteness, fancy cars, stylish clothes, secrets to fitness, clever ways to make money, sensuality and pleasure, access to powerful people… we have a trillion dollar industry on this planet dedicated to selling us stuff using the appearance of joy. “Do/buy this to be happy!”
Now, it’s not like all the things being sold to us are evil, just that the people offering them cannot see the heart. But God can. And in our gospel, this contrast comes out dramatically. Everyone looks at the man born blind and, judging by his appearance, thinks he is a sinner. Maybe that seems dumb to you, but every culture tends to misunderstand cause and effect in some way. For 1st century Jews, blindness was a sign of sinfulness. For other cultures, it was being left-handed or having certain eye color, hair color, or health conditions… there are all sorts of ways we let appearances fool us into thinking we know more than we do.
In this case, Jesus uses the irony of a blind man seeing the truth better than those who can see to make a point. What’s worse is that the Pharisees even put real effort into investigating it. They appear to be actively looking for the truth. So many people who don’t know the truth are ignorant because they refuse to try. You know, like when you ask a child a question and they immediately say “I don’t know” instead of taking 5 seconds to try to think of the answer? But we can’t accuse the Pharisees of not looking. They do look, they just refuse to actually see.
The blind man wasn’t looking, he couldn’t look, but when the truth is shown to him, he sees and accepts it. And it brings him joy; joy that’s greater than suddenly being handed a sword, greater even than a lonely girl spotting her boyfriend across a crowded airport. This man’s joy is so great he falls down to worship Jesus right then and there. According to tradition, this man’s name was Celidonius and his joy was so great that he spent the rest of his life as an evangelizing disciple of Jesus Christ.
But if you only saw the appearances, you may not have recognized his joy. Celidonius went from being a blind, but well-known beggar to being an outcast, thrown out by the most influential people in his culture. He never got to enjoy the standard model of a good life; he was never wealthy, popular, or able to just enjoy daily life. From beggar to outcast to missionary, his life would not look joyful to many of us.
So why did he choose it? Once he regained his sight, he could have just kept his head down and tried to live a normal, comfortable life. Why didn’t he? Because he saw the one he loved. Even better, he was seen by the one he loved. Though he was unable to look for the truth, once it was shown to him, he accepted it. How many of us don’t even bother to look for the truth? Even worse, how many of us try to avoid recognizing the truth because it would force us to see past the appearance of joy to see that in our hearts, we are actually blind and alone?
Can you see joy? Maybe. Certainly, you can see… even the blind can “see” in the intellectual sense. But, whether or not you recognize true joy depends on whether or not you learn to see not as man does – judging by appearances – but as God does, who looks into the heart. How can we see as God does? By learning from him. He is your Father; you are “children of the light” as St. Paul tells the Ephesians. Actually living as children of the light, however, requires us to “take no part in the fruitless works of darkness.” Every sin offers the appearance of joy. Do not fall for it! Instead, “try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord” so you can produce “goodness and righteousness and truth.”
The key word there is “try.” We are all born blinded by original sin. We are all undeservedly and sometimes surprisingly saved by his grace, given the chance to see. But once we do see, once our eyes are opened to recognize Jesus as the one we love… when the world questions what we see as the Pharisees questioned Celidonius, it will cost us something if we want to keep seeing the one we love. Notice that it is not until the man born blind is thrown out by the pharisees that Jesus comes to him again and offers him the chance to be his disciple.
If the only time you “try to learn,” if the only time you actually look for ways to produce truth and righteousness and goodness is the 12 minute homily you hear once a week and the one hour spent at Mass, can you really say that you’re looking into the heart? Or is that rather the sign of a faith that is still caught on appearances, a faith that still sleeps?
Take to heart what St. Paul says to us all: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” Light to see that, despite all appearances, the only joy that truly lasts is the joy of loving and seeing the one we love, the one who first loved us. Then we can say – and mean it – “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.”