30th. Sunday (Year B)
(Jeremiah
31:7-9; Hebrews 5:1-6; Mark 10:46-52)
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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Jesus
only used those words:
Your faith has saved you
on four occasions: with Bartimaeus in
today’s Gospel; with the woman suffering from a 12 years-long haemorrhage
(Mt.9:22; Mk. 5:34), with ‘Mary’ the
sinful woman cured in the Pharisee’s house at a meal being held in Jesus’
honour, and with the grateful Samaritan
former-leper (Lk. 7:50, 17:19).
However, in our Gospel reading it was not
the miracle performed for Bartimaeus that is of central importance for us today
but Jesus Himself Who – despite the noise of the surrounding crowd and those
who were shouting down the beggar’s cries -- heard that cry for mercy and
recognized the faith behind it.
God’s mercy and goodness is also the focal
point of the prophet’s celebration of Israel’s deliverance from exile in
Babylon of which we heard in the first reading; a temporal deliverance as it
turned out due to Israel’s abiding sin, but one both foreshadowing and
preparing for Jesus’ definitive salvation:
Behold, I will bring them back as an immense throng from the ends of the
world, with the blind and the lame in their midst, the mothers and those with
child. They departed in tears, but I
will console them and guide them. I will
lead them to brooks of water, on a level road, so that none shall stumble; for
I am a father to Israel, Ephraim is my first-born.
Jesus’ compassionate
understanding is likewise emphasized in the second reading where we were told
that, as our High Priest:
Taken from among men (being
born a human being of the Virgin) He is a priest forever, able to deal
patiently with the ignorant and erring.
Now that is the key for our
understanding and appreciation of today’s readings.
Jesus heard Bartimaeus’ cry
because Bartimaeus was centered totally on the Person of Jesus: deaf to the
words and abuse of the crowd he was ‘locked onto’ the Person of Jesus, and if
we recall the other members of the quartet who were addressed by Jesus with the
words, ‘Your faith has saved you’ we will recognize that all of them were -- each
in their own way -- fixed on Jesus: the woman with the incurable hemorrhage
working her way through the surrounding throng, the Samaritan grateful beyond
measure, going back to Jesus before going home; and Mary oblivious to the
disdain, scorn, and indeed contempt being shown her as she wept for her sins
before her Lord.
The obvious ‘next step’ would
be to say, ‘that is how we should pray … wholeheartedly and personally’, which
would be undeniably true; but I am not sure how helpful it would be to state the
obvious so bluntly. For Bartimaeus – as
indeed all the other three persons mentioned – had most compelling motives
and/or pressing situations spurring them on to meet with Jesus; we, on the
other hand, often start our prayer ‘from cold’ so to speak, having just set
aside our previous business, trying to forget recent distractions, feeling
tired and weary towards the end of the day.
How can we motivate ourselves à la Bartimaeus?
The clearest guidance he
offers us is a most important consideration for all seeking Jesus: the need to
be independent of public, ‘peoples’, opinion.
It is, indeed, a ‘dogma’ of classical spiritual teaching that dependence
on, active membership of, a crowd is inimical to the moral well-being of
whoever would be a serious disciple of Jesus.
This is contained in those remarkable words of Jesus to His Father:
I gave them Your word and the world hated them, because they do not
belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. (John 17:14, 17)
Jesus’ disciples can have
perhaps innumerable relationships with, for, before, the world, but they cannot
belong to the world any more than
Jesus did; and ‘people’s opinion’ is no guide for, nor should it hold any
terrors for, such disciples.
There is something else that
can be helpful for us as regards Bartimaeus’ healing. To human eyes, he just happened to be humbly
positioned by the roadside with his begging bowl as Jesus was passing by:
As Jesus was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a sizable crowd,
Bartimaeus, a blind man, sat by the roadside begging. On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he
began to cry out.
Now, when we want to pray, it
is most helpful and – out of reverence – essential, to put oneself, deliberately
as best we can, in the way , as it were, of Jesus. Bartimaeus was indeed just sitting there; but
he had put himself in the right place, where he was able to hear Jesus Who was
not directly looking for Bartimaeus but just in the vicinity, passing
by. Such patient, humble, hanging
around, in a ‘place’ where Jesus might come near – perhaps even stumble over
us, so to speak -- is essential for prayer. Our Lord does not book appointments
when people can come to Him, discuss with Him, and learn from Him, rather He
hears, infallibly, those who, like Bartimaeus, cry out to Him in patient faith
and sincere humility, with true reverence and persistent endeavour.
There is yet another aspect of
Bartimaeus’ relationship with Jesus: he recognized the unique presence
of God in the otherwise much disregarded humanity of Christ. His was a distinctly Christian faith. We too believe that the all-holy God is
uniquely present in something, someone, so weak and frail as a creature of God,
part of His creation: the Church and the Eucharist:
Saul persecuted the Church and the voice of the risen Lord said to
him: ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute
ME?’
Jesus commanded us to receive the Eucharist saying: ‘He who eats ME,
shall live because of Me.’
Both the Church and the
Eucharist are called Jesus’ Body in the Scriptures; and we should ever more
clearly realize that we are worshipping here today because we, like the blind
beggar in our Gospel, believe that the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ with us
today in the Church -- despite whatever individual scandals may momentarily
disfigure and betray her -- and in the Eucharist, is the unique, ultimately
sublime, presence of God here on earth for the salvation of mankind. People of God, never be complacent or careless
with regard to such treasures; seek to know and appreciate the Faith more, and
try to deepen your love and reverence for Our Lord in the Eucharist as the Holy
Spirit inspires you.
