[stephenkhoo]

Friday, 2 December, 2011, 1st Week of Advent
EXPECTANT FAITH IS DEPENDENT ON A HUMBLE HEART THAT SEEKS THE LORD

SCRIPTURE READINGS: ISA 29:17-24; MT 9:27-31

Winter can be a very trying period as it is wet, cold and the sky gloomy. One does not feel like going out of the house. One tends to be pensive and reflective during this time as activities are greatly reduced. Some of us can also get depressed and despondent as we come to the end of the year, reflecting on our failures and unachieved goals. If we are feeling abandoned and disappointed, then we are just like the Israelites and the blind men in today’s scripture readings. Instead of turning to God for help, we turn away from Him. We become resentful of Him and blame Him for the situation we are in. Some even leave the Church, believing that God does not care.

This of course is a wrong perception of the mercy and love of God. Contrary to what we think, God is always loving and merciful. He feels more with us in our sufferings than we think. In the first reading, we are assured that God will come to us in just “a very little while” when “Lebanon become fertile land and fertile land turn into forest.” This prophecy is fulfilled with the coming of Christ, for He is the compassion of God in person. He came to lift us out of our misery and restore us to fullness. This is concretized in Jesus’ healing of the blind men. His desire is to save, to heal and to release us from our sins and misery. In the responsorial psalm, the psalmist declares, “The Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear? The Lord is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid?”

So if we perceive Him to be otherwise, it is because we lack the right perspective in our relationship towards Him, which we call faith. What we need therefore is to cultivate an expectant faith. Perhaps, our blindness has kept us from seeing the wisdom of God in the way He helps us in our troubles. So what could be hindering us from seeing the face of God, from seeing “the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living?”

We might be afraid to see the truth about ourselves, which is the cause of our suffering. Man is very good in deluding himself. We put up our defence mechanisms and avoid confronting the real truth and desires in our hearts. Indeed, some of us never get out of our rut and predicament, simply, because we have no real will to change our lives. Secretly, we might even be happy to lick our wounds and dwell in our sorrows so that we can gain sympathy from our friends. We rather depend on them and feel loved than to rely on ourselves. So it is important to ask what fears are preventing us from seeing our true self so that we can be freed from our unconscious fears.

Not only do we fear that we would have to face life once we are given sight, but many of us are not ready to give up our sins. We are afraid to live in the light. We want to continue with our sinful life, sinful desires and vices. Instead of choosing Christ, we choose darkness. Instead of making Christ the center of our lives, we make things of the world the center. This is just what the psalmist is asking of the Lord when he prayed, “One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: To dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life that I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate his temple.” Indeed, if only our eyes are fixed on the Lord, we would no longer have to walk like blind men in the valley of darkness. Without walking the truth, our lives can only be one of darkness and fear, as we ignorantly perceive that happiness lies in what we have and who we are rather than in being loved and being loving. The blind men saw the state they were in and that Jesus could cure them. We are physically able to see but we do not have the spiritual sight to see the pathetic state of our soul and hence prefer darkness to the light.

Perhaps the main obstacle preventing us from seeing the face of God is that we lack humility, unlike the blind men who came to realize that they could no longer depend on themselves. They did not allow their pride to prevent them from coming to Jesus to receive healing. We read that they followed Jesus persistently, shouting “Take pity on us, Son of David.” They were not afraid of being looked at, or even of being driven away by others who considered them a nuisance. We read that they even followed Jesus all the way to the house when Jesus did not stop to attend to them. If we are desperate for God to help us, then we will find every means to be healed. Otherwise, we will give all kinds of excuses not to come to the Lord. In reality, we are too proud. We want to rely on ourselves. Prophet Isaiah makes it clear that the condition for the Lord’s coming is that we be humble. “The lowly will rejoice in the Lord even more and the poorest exult in the Holy One of Israel.” Without humility we are not able to receive His grace, otherwise we think that we do not need God. Only the poor like the blind men could get the attention of our Lord.

The lack of humility is also the main reason why many of us lack faith and trust in Him. The trouble with us is that most of the time, God is only our last resort after we have exhausted all other resources. We set limits on the power of God. We only turn to Him because there is no other choice left. But we should be turning to God in all things, big or small, in times of prosperity and adversity. This explains why when the blind men came to Jesus, He helped them to search their hearts for what they really wanted and whether they believed it was possible. He queried them, “’Do you believe I can do this?’ They said, ‘Sir, we do.’ Then He touched their eyes saying, ‘Your faith deserves it, so let this be done for you.’ And their sight returned.” Truly, it is faith in Jesus, not just faith, as that would be auto suggestion, that saves us. Faith removes the blocks from our lives so that we can meet the Lord and become receptive to His grace. Only faith can make us fully receptive to His healing grace and the power of His kingdom at work in us. Like the psalmist we must say, “I believe that I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living.”

Again, the lack of humility causes us to see life and our problems from a narrow-minded perspective. Instead of looking at a bigger picture of life, we are fixated in our views on how God should work in our lives. It is quite telling that Jesus not only explicitly told the blind men but sternly warned them to “take care that no one learns about this.” However, we read that in their enthusiasm, “when they had gone, they talked about him all over the countryside.” Perhaps, they could not control their enthusiasm and joy of being healed but in the process of telling others, they could have prevented others from coming to know Jesus and only seek Him as a miracle worker rather than coming to know Him as the compassion of God in person. Without a personal experience of the Lords’ love and mercy, no amount of knowledge about how God loves us and is merciful to us can change our lives.

Of course, by extension, many are not able to see the wisdom of God at work in their lives, especially when they are going through difficult times. They only see their pain but cannot see beyond their sufferings. When in fact, through our sufferings, the Lord wants to bring us closer to Him and most of all, to see the essentials of life and not be caught up with all the worldly pursuits, forgetting that love of God and of our loved ones, and service to others, is what that makes us truly happy and joyful. So physical illness, personal failures and disappointments are meant to help us see life in godly perspective. If we want to be truly happy, faith must be complemented by obedience and surrender of our will to the Lord, doing what He wants of us, not reluctantly but freely and happily, because we know His will is His divine wisdom. Sometimes, we are more concerned about being healed physically than being healed spiritually and coming to see the face of God. Happiness in the final analysis is “to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life that I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate his temple.” The real joy of being healed is more than just the physical healing itself but the regaining of trust and confidence in the Lord, leading the person to radically change his life and start living the life of God, walking in the light and truth of the Lord, bearing the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Today, let us turn to the blind men in the gospel to lead us to faith. They waited for the Lord and when He was available, they asked Him to heal them. Like them, Isaiah urges us to have patience. He said, “In a short time, a very short time, shall not Lebanon become fertile land and fertile land turn into forest? The deaf that day will hear the words of a book and, after shadow and darkness, the eyes of the blind will see.” We must therefore persevere in following Jesus and never cease coming to Him till our request is answered.

When the journey is long and tiring, we need support and company. The two blind men helped each other to persevere whilst waiting for Jesus to come by. We too, like them, often lose hope whilst waiting. That is why we need to have good Catholic friends who are also pilgrims like us in faith to encourage us to stay focused and never give up hope. The psalmist says, “Wait for the Lord with courage; be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord.” The journey of faith cannot be travelled alone but we need the community to journey with us. That is why those who have travelled that journey before will come to the help of those who are also suffering.

So let us keep our hopes high during the season of Advent, knowing that the Lord will come and in fact He is coming at every moment in our lives, every day and not just as Christmas. We only need to open our eyes of faith, our hearts of love and with a humble mind, we will see His face and His light will shine upon us leading us to the joy of contemplating the face of the Lord in His Holy Temple and especially in the hearts of every man and woman.