Today’s readings place before us two very different responses to God.
Fear.
And faith.
In the first reading, Jerusalem is under threat.
The king of Judah, Ahaz, hears that enemy armies are advancing.
The situation looks serious.
The future looks uncertain.
And Isaiah tells us:
“The heart of the king and the heart of the people trembled as the trees of the forest tremble in the wind.”
It is a striking image.
Trees shaking in a storm.
That is what fear does.
It unsettles us.
It weakens us.
It makes us lose perspective.
And so God sends Isaiah with a message:
“Keep calm. Have no fear.”
Or, as one translation puts it:
“Take care to remain tranquil.”
The danger was real.
The armies existed.
The threat was not imaginary.
Yet God wanted Ahaz to trust Him rather than panic.
Then comes the key sentence:
“If you do not stand by faith, you will not stand at all.”
That is not only a message for Ahaz.
It is a message for every age.
Because every generation faces reasons to be afraid.
Illness.
Financial worries.
Family difficulties.
The future of society.
The future of the Church.
The future of our children and grandchildren.
Fear asks:
“What if everything goes wrong?”
Faith asks:
“Where is God in this?”
The saints are not people who never faced difficulties.
They are people who learnt to trust God in the midst of difficulties.
That brings us to St Camillus de Lellis.
At first glance, nobody would have predicted sainthood.
He was a soldier.
A gambler.
A man who squandered opportunities.
A man who repeatedly made a mess of his life.
His gambling became so destructive that he eventually lost almost everything.
Yet at the age of twenty-five he heard a sermon.
And something happened.
Grace broke through.
His life changed direction.
One of the encouraging things about the saints is that many began badly.
St Augustine.
St Camillus.
St Ignatius.
St Margaret of Cortona.
Again and again we find people whose early lives looked nothing like holiness.
That should give hope to every sinner.
The future is not determined by the worst thing we have done.
Grace can rewrite a life.
After his conversion, Camillus tried to become a Capuchin friar.
Twice.
And twice he was rejected.
Many people would have given up.
Many would have concluded that God had other plans.
Or perhaps no plans.
Instead Camillus discovered his true vocation.
He had spent enough time in hospitals to know how dreadful they could be.
The sick were often neglected.
The dying were often abandoned.
Conditions were appalling.
And so he dedicated himself to serving the sick.
Not simply treating illness.
But treating people with dignity.
Seeing Christ in the suffering.
Bringing both physical care and spiritual care.
What changed him?
Faith.
The same faith Isaiah was urging Ahaz to have.
Trust in God.
Trust that God can work through weakness.
Trust that God can bring good even from failure.
The Gospel reveals another tragedy.
Jesus reproaches the towns where He had worked most of His miracles.
Chorazin.
Bethsaida.
Capernaum.
The problem was not lack of evidence.
The miracles had happened.
The preaching had happened.
The grace had been offered.
Yet people refused to change.
That is why Jesus says that even Tyre and Sidon would have repented had they seen what these towns had seen.
The danger is not ignorance.
The danger is indifference.
And perhaps that is the point where today’s readings come together.
Ahaz saw God’s help and would not trust.
The towns saw Christ’s miracles and would not repent.
Camillus heard God’s call and responded.
One life closed to grace.
Another life opened to grace.
That is ultimately the great dividing line in the spiritual life.
Not intelligence.
Not talent.
Not success.
Not failure.
But our response to grace.
When God speaks, do we listen?
When God calls, do we follow?
When God offers mercy, do we accept it?
Camillus reminds us that nobody is beyond conversion.
Nobody is too far gone.
Nobody has failed too badly.
The gambler became a saint.
The wastrel became a servant of the sick.
The sinner became a founder.
And Isaiah reminds us how that transformation begins:
“If you do not stand by faith, you will not stand at all.”
The world tells us to place our trust in ourselves.
In our plans.
In our strength.
In our resources.
God says something different.
Trust Me.
Stand by faith.
And you will discover, as St Camillus did, that God can do far more with a surrendered life than we could ever do on our own.
St. Mary's, St. John Bosco and St. Edward's 