Blind and deaf

In today’s Gospel (Matthew 9:27-31), our Lord heals two blind men and today's first reading (Isaiah 29:17-24) speaks of healing both the deaf and the blind.

On that day the deaf shall hear
the words of a book;
And out of gloom and darkness,
the eyes of the blind shall see.

In some ways, we all tend to be deaf and blind.

We are deaf to the voice of God in our lives and to the cry of people in need, often because we can only hear the shouts of our selfishness, our opinions, and our “needs.”

We are blind to the light of God in our lives and to the path God calls us to walk in this world, sometimes because we are distracted by the glitz of the culture, the lure of the flesh, or carnivorous black hole of depression.

This Advent, we need to ask the Lord to heal us of every kind of spiritual and moral deafness, that we may hear more clearly the voice of the Lord and the cry of our brothers and sisters (especially those we see everyday).

We need to ask the Lord to heal us of every kind of spiritual and moral blindness, that we may pull our gaze away from the distractions and darkness of this world and keep our eyes fixed on God’s path.