Conversion – from darkness to light
THE WORD IN LENT 2026 – MONDAY FOURTH WEEK
March 16 – Isaiah 65: 17–21; John 4: 43-54
Lent as a time of Conversion, is the underlying theme during this
week which invites us to rejoice. Isaiah gives us a reason to rejoice in the
first reading today: because the Lord rejoices in us and the Lord wants us to
rejoice in what God is creating for us – the new heavens and a new earth! That
is the promise of the Lord. But every time we hear such a promise, we begin to
suspect it. That is because, we do not believe.
The Word raises a very pertinent question today – do we believe
when we see miracles? or we begin to see miracles when we believe? The new
heavens and the new earth – the Lord deigns to create, but it remains on our
part to behold it. And it happens on a daily basis… the Lord keeps offering us
moments, experiences and circumstances to behold the new heavens and the new
earth.
The experience of conversion is beholding this gift that God
offers. To look at what God has willed into existence for us, including us. It
takes to look at what God continues to offer us in God’s holy will. All these
can happen only if we have enough light to behold! I am the light – Jesus
declared in the Gospel we reflected upon yesterday! The question remains – Yes,
Jesus has declared, but how ready am I to receive that light, to behold that
light?
Jesus in the Gospel points to us how unprepared we are and how
obstinate we are in refusing to see, in refusing to behold what the Lord is
doing for us. There could be two major reasons for it, or three.
Firstly, our obstinacy not to see… because we want every thing the
way we want, anything different we are not ready to see. That is the merit of
that official who approaches Jesus – he wanted Jesus to come to his house, but
Jesus told him to go and he will see the miracle… he did not insist, he turned
and went, went towards the miracle and he beheld it!
The second reason is our impatience… we want things when we want
it, we cannot wait for God’s own time! We want it then and there, and when it
does not happen we start looking for other channels…as we surf on a TV or by
now on our mobiles…and we miss the real miracles prepared for us… we are not
there to behold them.
And a third reason, is the most disturbing and we need to avoid: that we are already blind, blind because we are overpowered by evil and negativity. God forbid! May this not be so in our case! Let us take to heart our call to conversion: the call from darkness to light, to behold the new heavens and a new earth.