Blame or Beauty?

Today's gospel (4th Sun. Advent) shows Jesus healing a blind man, and incurring the enmity of the Pharisees for doing so. Our homilist offered an interesting comparison to explain the homily: Hercule Poirot and Vincent van Gogh. The former looks for the criminal -- like the disciples who asked Jesus, who is to blame for the blind man's condition -- and parses all things narrowly to get to the answer. Van Gogh looks at each thing to see it as it is, and paints it in its beauty and mundaneness. A chair, a room, a flower, a haystack, a pair of shoes . . . each is seen in its haeccity (as Hopkins and Scotus would term it), its beauty and uniqueness.

This, the homilist said, was how Jesus means to cure blindness. His "good news" is that this vision is possible, through eyes of love.

Listen to Don McClean's tribute to Vincent van Gogh, "Starry, Starry Night"

Listen to "Starry, Starry Night" by Chyi Yu.

Listen to "Through the Eyes of Love" by Regine Velasquez