Thursday, December 6, 2012

1st Week of Advent, Friday, 07-12-12

Isaiah 29:17-24 / Matthew 9:27-31

It is quite difficult to imagine what it is like to be poor and powerless and lowly and face rejection and even opposition.

Even children can get the attention of their parents by their cry of distress, and the cry of children can be difficult to ignore.

Yet the cry of the poor and powerless and those rejected and ostracised may be muffled and even silenced. "Silenced by who?" we might ask.

By tyrants and scoffers and those who are disposed to do evil; those who gossip to incriminate others, those who try at the gate to trip the arbitrator and get the upright man's case dismissed for groundless reasons.

But as much as the 1st reading pointed out those who do evil, yet it also proclaimed that the lowly will rejoice in the Lord even more and the poorest exult in the Holy One of Israel.

In the gospel, it seems that the two blind men were shouting after Jesus as they followed Him along the way.

It was only after He reached the house that He asked them if they believed that He could heal them.

Yes, God will listen to the cries of the poor and powerless, those rejected and ostracised and He will look into their needs.

So if we feel poor and powerless, rejected and ostracised, then like the two blind men let us keep calling for the Lord and keep walking in the ways of the Lord.

When the Lord speaks, we will rejoice and exult in the Lord and we will see what the Lord will do for us.