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Friday of the First Week of Advent
Isaiah 29:17-24
Psalm 27:I, 4, 13-14
Matthew 9:27-31
Summary
There is no need to be afraid, fear is a lack of trust in the Lord, as the response
to the Psalm today says,
“
The Lord is my light and salvation
”
.
Do I believe this
and
,
more importantly
,
live it? God is always present to us as he was to the two
blind men.
Reflection
When I look at this gospel two things strike me, pity and faith. Jesus is walking
by some blind men and they ask him to have pity on them. Pity is the feeling of
sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of another. I
wonder if Jesus has pity all the time, with every person he met. It seems that al-
most everyone has something troubling in their lives. If it is not them personal-
ly it is the misfortunes of someone they love deeply. Recently I attended a re-
treat and one of the other retreatants was sharing her sorrow for her son who
was being a prodigal. I could tell by her expression the pain was huge. Her face
was screaming “Lord Jesus have pity on my son who has lost his way!”
Secondly there is the word faith. Perhaps faith can be described as a wondrous
event or change we could never have imagined without the hand of God. The
lowly may find comfort in faith, the poor rejoice because the impossible can
happen with the slightest thought of our God. The blind men must have been
waiting a life-time for sight. When Jesus showed compassion on the blind men,
they must have been drawn into a relationship with Jesus. Can you imagine if
someone gave you something you had hoped for all your life? I think I would
be forever changed and forever grateful to that one who gave me this gift. Then
it occurs to me...the thing I want most in life is to be loved unconditionally for
who I am. I think when I experience that kind of love I am able to love others.
Of course that is the promise of our God who loves us all so completely.
The words Jesus used when healing the blind
men were,“Let it be done for you according to
your faith.“ These words remind of us of the
words Mary used when she agreed to be the
mother of Jesus. Jesus also saw this kind of
faith when he asked a few fishermen to aban-