We all love certainty and sometimes we have our doubts.  There are things we want to know, things we need to know but we do not know. This can be very troubling; in our family life, in our work, and in our plans for the future and even in our faith in God and in the church. We can have doubts, fears and moments of depression. When this happens, we should not think that we are alone,  we are in very good company.  Some of the greatest saints had their moments of darkness. St. Francis of Assisi as a young man went through some powerful moments of anxiety and sadness.  He did not know which way to go or what to do. Then one day kneeling before the crucifix in Assisi he heard the voice of Jesus, which gave him the courage and wisdom he needed. In Assisi on another occasion, Pope St. John Paul II was adressing a group of young people and they gave him a standing ovation and he turned to his secretary saying that he needed this affirmation. In today’s gospel, we have the figure of St. John the Baptist, he has a great personality and is afraid of no one, yet he too has his moments of dobut and anxiety.  We find him in prison and he knows he will die soon. He sends messengers to ask Jesus if he is really the Messiah or should we wait for another. Jesus sends the answer back. The blind see, the  lame walk the deaf hear and the dead rise again. The blind can see again. Blind people cannot see where they are going, they need supports. There are many blind people out there today, people who are blind to what christmas is really all about.  Yes,  we have to rejoice, yes we have to exchange gifts, yes we have to be merry, but, of course, it’s not all there is. And this is what is forgotten in the commercial celebration of Christmas. Christmas stripped of meaning is a dreary run on a treadmill. Jesus becomes a bystander in his own birth and God’s salvific entry into time and history, a quaint story from long ago. Maybe the grace that Jesus wants to give us is to repair our spiritual blindness.The deaf hear again. We all can hear so many voices out there, Media, Facebook, Tik Tox, Instagram; Twitter, and we perfectly hear these voices, but we can’t seem to hear the voice of our conscience which John Henry Newman calls the Vicar of Christ in the soul. There are lots of people who are deaf when it comes to the most important questions in life. Maybe Jesus wants to restore our spiritual deafness. The lame walk again. There are a lot of Catholics who are paralyzed, unable to move, frozen in regard to Christ and the Church. This might be from doubt, from fear, from anger, from old resentment, from ignorance, or from self-reproach. Some of these reasons might be good; some might be bad. Maybe Jesus wants cure our lameness. Some years ago I visited India and had a chance to visit many of the places where the great Ghandi spent his life. Ghandi has a great admiration for Christ but found Christians very mediocre. He went down to the Ganges River one day with his followers, put his hand into the river, pulled out a small stone and when he broke it open, he noticed it was dry on the inside. This is symbolic of the life of many Christians. For years they are immersed in this wonderful spirituality of Christ, but it fails to penetrate their lives. The answer that Jesus sent to John was all that John wanted to hear, darkness gave way to light, fear gave way to courage, depression gave way to joy.   We too will have our moments of anxiety, doubts and depression. We don’t have to send messengers to Jesus,  he is always at our side, especially at this time of year. Let us be patient and share our worries and fears with him. He will never let us down.