December 05, 2014
Friday, 1st Week of Advent
1st Reading: Is 29:17–24 Gospel: Mt 9:27–31
As Jesus moved on from Capernaum, two blind men followed him,shouting, “Son of David, help us!” When he was about to enter thehouse, the blind men caught up with him, and Jesus said to them, “Doyou believe that I am able to do what you want?” They answered, “Yes,sir!”Then Jesus touched their eyes and said, “As you have believed, solet it be.” And their eyes were opened. Then Jesus gave them a sternwarning, “Be careful and let no one know about this.” But as soon asthey went away, they spread the news about him through the whole area.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE (Daily Gospel in
the Assimilated Life
Experience)
The gospel theme on blindness fits the advent season to a tee. Advent is a time to prepare for the coming of the Lord. Because it is a time of preparation for his coming, repentance is in order so that when Jesus comes he will find us attuned to the things of the Spirit. But the glaring floodlights of materialism may have blinded us to the things of the Spirit. Blind to the values we used to observe when life was simpler our judgments are easy preys to bias towards materialism. The Advent Season too loses its power to attract us. In effect we miss the opportunity to prepare every Advent Season for the coming of Christ and keep postponing our spiritual preparations till we find ourselves at our deathbeds. We need to recover our sight. But do we have the faith to ask God for the power to see the things of the spirit again?
Faith is a major requisite in spiritual recovery. “Do you believe that I am able to do what you want?” Jesus asked the blind man who had approached Jesus for recovery of sight. When one goes to the Lord asking for vision, Jesus will likewise look for traces of faith. But what if faith is also gone with the vision? Healing will be impossible, for the person will be insisting he is not blind at all. He will continue with his dangerous experiments of the flesh and desecrate love at the altar of indulgence. “Those who are faithless”, wrote Oscar Wilde in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, “know the pleasures of love; it is the faithful who know love’s tragedies.” With faith gone, one’s taste for love will be adjusted to the lower standard – the standard of the hedonists. God then becomes totally irrelevant and the person won’t seek him out at all.
Let us seek the Lord while we still have the faith to do so. In thisseason of Advent, the Lord can remove the scales from our eyes thathave blinded us to the things of the spirit. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM . Email:[email protected]. Website:www.frdan.org.
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