God’s Chosen People had originally been banished from their
homeland because they had – over many generations -- become gradually more and
more alienated from God by their sinful behaviour; ultimately, they lost the Promised Land He had given them.
Now, in our first reading today from the prophet Jeremiah,
God is showing that divine mercy to His People for which many prophets, holy
men and women, had long been praying: He is bringing them back to their
Promised Land, restoring His gift, and thereby inviting them to return to Him
with their whole heart and mind. This
physical returning home was to be an opportunity for them to become once again
worthy to be known as God’s Chosen People (Luke 1:74-5):
That we, being delivered from the
hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and
righteousness before Him all our days.
However, that physical return had been hard, very hard
indeed, leading over desert and stony ways; food and drink being necessarily in
short supply since, after having had to pay the prices asked for them, they were
then obliged to carry those supplies on their own backs as well as on the backs
of the few animals they possessed. Moreover, backs for carrying were not
plentiful since they were returning with some treasured possessions, above all,
they were carrying their infants; and there were many who could not carry
anything at all because they were either blind, lame, sick, too old, or else
heavily pregnant. For all these reasons
food and drink had been strictly limited for a journey that was long, over
territory that was difficult, and under conditions of great heat during the day
and penetrating cold at night.
Those difficulties, however, had not been the only, nor
perhaps the greatest, encountered by the returning exiles; for that trek had
been completed in a period of months, whereas there had been other difficulties
of rebuilding and restoration which took
years to resolve. And, above all, having
made their return, the very greatest challenge facing them had been that of
their own wayward hearts and minds which still had to return to the Lord their
God in spirit and in truth. The physical
return home was their great opportunity, but a truly successful return would
not to be accomplished without much soul-searching, prayer, and endeavour (Jeremiah
31:9):
With weeping they shall come, and
with pleas for mercy I will lead them back.
That is the experience, even today, of many who, for
whatever reason, left Mother Church, and then are led, by the great mercy of
God, to return to the fold: their absence has changed them, and, during that
absence, Mother Church herself has changed, inevitably, since she is a living
Church relating to a world in constant flux.
And even though such changes might, perhaps, only have been slight,
nevertheless, they are not imperceptible; with the result that some aspects of
Church life may now seem to those returning less familiar, less homely, than
before, whilst other changes might even seem to strike a disturbing, somewhat alien,
chord.
Changes in ones’ self, changes in the Church, however, are
not the only cause of difficulties for exiles returning home: their return can
be made difficult and trying by one thing that does not change, human nature:
the people they find on returning may not appear to be, and some of them may
not truly be, understanding, sympathetic or helpful:
As Jesus was leaving Jericho with
His disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of
Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And
when he heard that it was Jesus of
Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on
me.” And many rebuked him, telling him
to be silent.
The words of the prophet are, indeed, still very true:
With weeping they shall come, and
with pleas for mercy I will lead them back.
Now, it is undeniably the case that all of us -- even those
who have never been separated from Mother Church -- are exiles returning to our
Father, because all of us can experience something of that alienation from God
which sin and worldliness incessantly threaten to bring about in us. In addition to that, we all have set before
us a totally new and unimaginable promise and prospect, for we are now called not
to prepare ourselves for something we know, but rather, to allow ourselves to
be groomed for the supernatural condition of children of the heavenly Father by
the Spirit, Who forms us in the likeness of Jesus by our faith in Him, as the
only-begotten Son of God made flesh for our salvation.
We can only undertake such a pilgrimage thanks to Jesus Christ,
our great High Priest. We were told in
the second reading:
Every high priest chosen from
among men is appointed to act on behalf
men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. No one takes this honour upon himself but
only when called by God.
Jesus offered His gifts and His unique sacrifice to the Father
for us, and He envisaged not only our redemption from sin but even our being
with Him in heaven as He had been with us on earth. The price for the attainment of such an
unimaginable purpose, however, could only be itself unimaginable, unimaginable love -- the love that caused Jesus to
offer His life to His Father, from the Cross on Calvary, for our salvation (John
10:17-18):
For this reason the Father loves
Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of
My own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority
to take it up again. This charge
I have received from My Father
If Jesus was to give supremely human expression to that
infinite fulness of divine love enjoined on Him by His Father, it had to be in
and through His human body, and inevitably, by His bursting the limitations of
that body: totally embracing divinely filial obedience for His Father’s supreme
glory and showing unimaginably compassionate love for our human waywardness, both
aspects to be glimpsed in and through His crucified Body and His pierced Heart.
In such a way Jesus won for all of us exiles, that first
gift of the Spirit: that original inspiration, to start us out on the way back
to our Father.
Thanks to the supreme prayer of Jesus and His sacrifice of
self on Calvary -- the sacrifice made available and effective for all ages in
Mother Church’s continuous offering of Holy Mass -- we too can gain a hearing
when we pray, as His disciples, ‘Lord have mercy on us.’
Having, in the name of Jesus, gained a hearing, and having
begun our return in Him and with Him to the Father, we have to persevere
throughout a long, and at times difficult, journey, overcoming -- as did those
returning exiles in the first reading -- trials from both without and within
ourselves. Thanks be to God, in Mother
Church at Holy Mass, all of us who are, to whatever degree, alienated from the
Father by our sinfulness, can draw near and call out to Jesus -- as did
Bartimeus on hearing the noise of the crowd -- because Jesus at Holy Mass is
close at hand to hear our cries and answer us, as He did so long ago:
Jesus said to him, "What do
you want Me to do for you?" And the blind man said to Him, "Rabbi,
let me recover my sight!"
What would you have asked for in such a situation, People
of God? What do you, in fact, ask of
Jesus today at Holy Mass? Each of us is
making his or her own journey to the Father, and each and every one of us has
his or her own difficulties to deal with
and overcome; but whatever our needs and whatever the request we might
ask of Jesus, let us remember and learn from what we are told about Bartimeus,
for Scripture says that:
Many rebuked him, telling him to
be silent; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on
me!"
Is anyone telling you to shut up? Perhaps it is you yourself, your worldly
self, suggesting that you are tired of praying … it never seems to be heard; telling
you that you are weary of making efforts which don’t bring any visible results. Such psychological ‘voices’ may not, however,
be all that tends to discourage you, People of God; for in our present
situation here in multi-cultural Britain under a positively secular-minded and
anti-religious government there is much opposition and ridicule both public and
in private, for those who would serve God and conscience first and foremost. We are now surrounded by people who profess
themselves satisfied by what they think they know about life in today’s world, people
who think themselves able to do all things necessary to sufficiently advance
their own purpose and achieve their own goal; people who acknowledge no realms
beyond what their own eyes and mankind’s technical abilities tell them, no truths beyond their ken. Consequently, they cannot understand and
indeed tend to dismiss or despise those of us who, as Christians, look to Jesus
to give us, by His Spirit, sight to recognize what is ultimately true, and
strength to walk along His way towards its attainment and enjoyment in His
Father’s Kingdom.
Whatever opposition you may encounter, whatever the trials
and disappointments you may experience, keep your hopes fixed on Jesus,
dear People of God, like Bartimeus, and pray
that despite all, through all, you might be enabled to see well enough to
follow Jesus faithfully along the road
that leads ultimately into the presence of the Father; for that drawing closer
to Jesus – by endeavour and intention – is, indeed, the grace of salvation.
This process of becoming one with Jesus in love for the Father and in the service of our fellows, is never-ending while we are still on earth, and it is one that can only be accomplished in us by the Holy Spirit guiding, strengthening, and crowning, our co-operation. We are always able to win -- with the Spirit of Jesus -- that fulfilment which the heavenly Father has long planned and prepared for us: our becoming His true, heavenly children, adopted in Jesus, by the Spirit.
