Hope is Change - but change is personal!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

December 3, 2021: Celebrating St. Francis Xavier

First Friday in Advent: Isaiah 29: 17-24; Matthew 9: 27-31

The first reading today presents a hopeful picture for the people who were so much in suffering and oppression. Today this reading can really mean a lot for a world that is so burdened under pain, stress, suspicion and fear! Would this present situation of crisis and confusion change? The first reading tells us, it will! But in the Gospel Jesus, asks a question: do you think I can do it for you? 

What would be our answer to that question of Jesus: do you think I can do it for you? They, those persons with vision impairment, said, "Sir we do, we do believe that you can do it!" That is the sign of hope! Do we really believe that God can do it for us! There are more and more voices of hopeless despair who keep repeating things like - things are never going to be normal again; this is the end of everything and so on! What is my disposition? Hope is Change! 

Hope is Change! When they said they do believe that the Lord can change, the Lord can cure, Jesus said: 'let it be done to you according to YOUR faith'... Jesus seems to say, "Yes, hope is change; but change is personal! It begins from you!" If at all we wish to see a positive change in humanity, in the world and in the universe, it has to begin from every individual. The first reading too lays that down: the erring spirits will learn wisdom and the murmurers accept instruction!

This is what is witnessed to by St. Francis Xavier - a man who changed himself, who transformed himself from an ambitious young man to a passionate soldier of God. That conversion, that change was translated into hope for multitudes, specially in Asia, who came to know the Lord through him. Hope is change, but change is personal. It depends on each of us, what becomes of the world around us. Are we ready to take that responsibility upon ourselves?