Candles provide a wonderful atmosphere. Their soft glow and warm light soften the colors and give us a sense of comfort. Even in a large room that is illumined by other lighting, when there are candles around we feel that we are drawn in closer, because the candlelight itself casts just a small footprint, almost asking us to huddle together. Modern lighting can flood every nook and cranny with a brilliance that surpasses the light of a single candle. But we won't lean in to be close to a light bulb the way we might to a flickering flame. More than a century and a quarter after light bulbs were first introduced in the 1880s, we still use candles for light in some of our most joyous and most intimate moments.
The man born blind in today's Gospel has no experience of light at all. He would have felt the sun's warmth, but known nothing of its brilliance. He likely knew flame, and the heat generated by the fire of a hearth or the burning of an oil lamp. But he had no idea of the glow of illumination shed by these lights. He was completely in the dark. That is what makes his cure all the more amazing. This man has never seen light! Even if we close our eyes for an extended period of time, we can still imagine what something is like, because we have seen it before. This man in the Gospel has never seen!
The light that the man born blind sees is not so much the brilliance of the day, as it is Jesus, the light of the world. Like a room illumined by electric lights in which candles are burning for atmosphere, the man is drawn to the light that gives him comfort and solace, that is Jesus. The man's single-hearted gaze on Christ is a reminder to us not to be distracted by other lights.