When Paul told the story of his conversion, he recounted the words of God: “I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness of what you have seen [of me] and what you will be shown. I shall deliver you from this people and from the Gentiles to whom I send you, to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.”
There’s no denying that our world is full of evil people doing wicked things. One glance through a news site will confirm this. And day after day, as we read stories of murder, mayhem, abortion, incompetent leaders, sickness, and greed, we might begin to get incredibly depressed. We may even lose hope.
But as Peter taught: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Christ is our hope! He conquered death for us. When we begin to lose hope, we need only remember this immense act of love.
We must also remember that Christ wants us to find hope in Him. But we know this isn’t always easy. That is why He is there to guide us—with saints like Paul and others. With His words. Through prayer. Through the Mass. In addition, we must be proactive in sustaining the hope He has given us. We must surround ourselves with faith-filled people. We must do good works.
We cannot—and should not—shut our eyes to the world’s evils, but we can close our hearts to them. That means that we refuse to allow them to permeate our minds and change our behaviors. We refuse to let these evils harden us, for when they do, we will get so bogged down in the things of Satan that we lose the things of God.
As we contemplate God’s words to St. Paul, let us reflect on the importance of opening our eyes to God’s will. Let us reflect on our own lives and on how we see the world around us. And let us strive to see the world as God wants us to, not as we want to.
So let us pray that we can acknowledge the evils of the world and then work toward overcoming them. Let us pray that we open our eyes to the goodness of the Lord rather than becoming steeped in today’s evils. And let us pray that the eyes we now open to God will one day see the beatific vision we long so desperately for.
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