In today's Gospel reading, Matthew pointed out that faith in Jesus is a pre-requisite for healing. It is interesting to note that by addressing Jesus as Son of God, the blind men had already confessed their faith in Jesus as the expected Messiah.

We too are like the blind men, we fail to see, not because of physical blindness but that which prevented us from seeing all the injustices, exploitation and marginalization around us and our failure to respond to such situations. Such blindness may also include our self-centredness, the 'I' more important that 'we', thus neglecting our Christian responsibility to care for others who need our attention.

The blind men after being healed of their sight, went about spreading Jesus; fame throughout the district. Here Matthew wanted to stress his interest in spreading Jesus' fame. In today's context such act of spreading Jesus' fame is revealed in our actions of love to our neighbours.

During this Advent season, actions that bring hope and greater faith is expected of us. This is to show that Jesus' coming is a revelation of Good News in Jesus' Birth. This is reiterated in the first reading wherein Isaiah painted the picture of all that is good that will take place: deaf will hear, eyes of the blind will see, the lowly will rejoice, the poor exult. And all that is evil will be destroyed.