{"id":3283,"date":"2026-03-13T09:00:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stpaulmacomb.com\/church\/?p=3283"},"modified":"2026-03-11T10:52:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T15:52:49","slug":"fourth-sunday-of-lent-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stpaulmacomb.com\/church\/fourth-sunday-of-lent-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourth Sunday of Lent (2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear brothers and sisters, today\u2019s Gospel reveals to us the frightening amount of darkness that exists in the world. This darkness is not only physical; it is mainly spiritual. Many people struggle to move from doubt to simple faith. The Gospel invites us to reflect on the growth of faith in our lives. The climax of the story comes when the man who was born blind, after being healed, makes a beautiful profession of faith. He says to Jesus, \u201cI do believe, Lord,\u201d and he worships Him.<\/p>\n<p>The journey of this man, from blindness to sight, symbolizes the journey from unbelief to faith, from darkness to light. In the second reading, Saint Paul reminds us that we too once lived in darkness, but now we are called to live in the light of Christ: \u201cOnce you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.\u201d Now that Christ has enlightened our lives, we are invited to live in a way that reflects this new light. Our words, our actions, and our choices should show that we belong to Christ.<\/p>\n<p>One of the sad moments in this Gospel is the reaction of the Pharisees. While the man born blind slowly opens his heart to the light of faith, the Pharisees, who can physically see, become more and more spiritually blind. The Pharisees judged by appearances (like Samuel did in the first reading): they saw only a man who had been blind and someone who broke the Sabbath. But they failed to see what God was doing through Jesus. Meanwhile, the blind man, who had nothing impressive in the eyes of the world, had a humble and open heart. Because of that, he was able to recognize Jesus and believe in Him. The above reminds us that sometimes the world<br \/>\ndiscourages us when we try to hold on to our faith and serve the Lord. Like the man who was healed, we must persevere. We must not give up on our faith. By giving sight to the blind man, Jesus shows us that He truly is the Light of the world.<\/p>\n<p>Dear friends, when Christ enters our lives, everything changes. Those who have been enlightened by Him can no longer see life in the same way as before. Faith helps us find our way through the chaos, confusion, and darkness of our world. Today, let us ask the Lord to open our eyes, just as He opened the eyes of the blind man. May He help us to see with the eyes of faith, to walk in His light, and to remain faithful to Him even when the world tries to lead us away. And may our lives reflect the light of Christ so that others, through us, may also come to believe. Amen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scripture Readings:<br \/>\n<\/strong>1Sam 16:1b \u2022 Ps 67:10\u201313 \u2022 Eph 5:8\u201314 \u2022 Jn 9:1\u201341<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear brothers and sisters, today\u2019s Gospel reveals to us the frightening amount of darkness that exists in the world. This darkness is not only physical; it is mainly spiritual. Many people struggle to move from doubt to simple faith. The Gospel invites us to reflect on the growth of faith in our lives. The climax of the story comes when  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-homilies"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Fourth Sunday of Lent (2026) - St. Paul Church Macomb, IL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/stpaulmacomb.com\/church\/fourth-sunday-of-lent-2026\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fourth Sunday of Lent (2026) - St. Paul Church Macomb, IL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear brothers and sisters, today\u2019s Gospel reveals to us the frightening amount of darkness that exists in the world. 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