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March 8, 2018
Sister Eloise Rosenblatt, RSM
That Ash Wednesday, I was cunning. After Mass, before the bell rang for start of school, scores of students, boys, girls, grade levels all mixed, rag-tagged into four lines in back of church, then rambled up the center and side aisles to get their ashes. To get us through the ritual, the Dominican sisters were not supervising us as closely as they did during Mass. I watched which students had the biggest ash marks on their foreheads. Then, counting on not getting caught, I crossed into the line where that particular Redemptorist priest was dispensing the blackest crosses. Bigger the cross, bigger the merit?
John’s Gospel features a remarkable anointing with dust that restores a man’s power of sight – physically and spiritually – which is why this story is part of the catechumens’ preparation for baptism at the Easter Vigil. After Jesus fends off any suspicion that the man’s disability is punishment for sin, Jesus leans down toward the ground, spits on the dust near his feet, rolls the dirt between his index finger and thumb, makes a grimy dark paste, maybe spitting on it again once it’s between his fingers so it’s malleable. Then he smears his dirty thumb first across one of the blind man’s closed eyes, then across the other eye.
Jesus tells him to go bathe in the Pool of Siloam. His companions have to lead him there. In remarkable narrative economy, John says: “He went and washed, and came back able to see.” At what moment did he realize he could see his reflection in the water – see himself – and see his companions? What was the reaction of his companions at realizing he could now see them?
At the time of Jesus, according to 2005 archeological excavations, the Gihon spring outside the walls of Jerusalem flowed into the sprawling holding pool of Siloam. It was 225 feet across, with five stairs on three sides going down into the pool so a person could stay at ankle level, or descend deeper into the water. So how deep did the blind man go? It would have been a public gathering place for both city residents and pilgrims on their way to worship at the Temple.
The blind man’s recovery was thus a public “coming out” – and it must have been an overwhelming sensory and intellectual ecstasy. After he bathed and washed the dirt off his face, he could see his world and everyone in it. It’s his own Genesis re-creation – he can separate light and dark, see the ground and water he has only known by touch, see the animals and birds he’s only known by hearing their sounds and feeling their shapes. The most significant vision is recognizing himself, his parents, his companions—and Jesus. But all these implications involve only seven verses of a 41-verse story.
Verses eight to 41 describe the hard facts of personal change, what happens when Jesus opens your eyes. The man’s healing does not make his life easy. Everyone who knew him as their blind neighbor is not convinced this is the same person. He has to explain himself, insist that’s he’s been healed, and hold to the truth of who he was then, and who he is now. There’s no way for him to escape public scrutiny and return to a private, dependent life of begging. He keeps telling the story of what Jesus did for him, but the story provokes different effects he can’t control.
His healing triggers a dispute among the lay religious leaders about whether Jesus is a good or bad person. His story puts both him and his parents at risk. He has to explain himself without index-card notes, without the silent, safe submission of younger child to older relative, or student deferring to teacher. Instead, he’s been healed into adulthood. “Ask him. He is of age. He can speak for himself.” It’s the hour for him to live his own story, account for his own experience, speak for himself, formulate his own position, speak his own mind, and work out his own future.
If people knew that this would be the effect of Ash Wednesday ashes on your forehead – or on your eyes – would there be such a crowd lining up?
Eloise Rosenblatt, RSM is a Sister of Mercy, a Ph.D. theologian, and a family law attorney and litigator in private practice. She lives in San Jose.