Hoping against hope

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle B
Gospel: Mark 10: 46 - 52

The very thing I admire about our religious conviction is that despite our sinfulness and fallenness, this God hopes against all hopes and puts his entire trust for us to take part in the work of salvation.

This is the very essence of this Sunday's readings. Jeremiah explains God as one who builds despite man's capacity to destroy; and Jesus being God's gift in the book of Hebrews.

In the case of the blind man Bartimaeus, Jesus didn't let his cries go to waste; he immediately went and brought back his sight. As God builds and heals, so we should also be the same in this world.

The only key is to recognize our own blindness. The affairs of this world has been run by people in conflicting ideas with one another and of a set of people swayed by one thought to another. Too much is placed on personal freedom that the greater good is sacrficed; in the end not only persons are in conflict with one another, but countries as well. Philosophies and ways of seeing things become too relative and hope becomes a long way off.

Let us hope that our Christian conviction would lead us to remove the blindness from our eyes. Pray too that this conviction would pour over to our children that they would be able to see what is fleeting and what lasts till eternity, not from this world but also from the heavens above, not what is for the self but would redound for the good of all and for the greater glory of God.

Let's hope as God hopes for all of us that one day, we will attain true freedom in Him.