Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Agnes Church, Manhattan
Quinquagesima Sunday, Extraordinary Form
February 14, 2021
1 Cor 13:1-13, Lk 18:31-43
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided today’s homily:
- Today on Quinquagesima Sunday, three days before Ash Wednesday, the Church seeks to help us to get our proper orientation for the holy season of Lent. The Word of God proclaimed to us is meant to make us aware of our need for God’s mercy and to come to get it. It’s meant to help us learn how to walk by faith, or, even better as we see in the Gospel, to spring up and run by faith. It’s meant to help us focus on God’s love for us in such a way that we will be transformed to love others by the same standard. Let’s allow what God is teaching us in these readings to sink deeply within so that, like the blind man in the Gospel, we can cry out to Jesus for the help we need and resolve with that assistance to live the best Lent of our life.
- We begin with the Gospel. As rabbis were accustomed to do on the triannual pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the major feasts, Jesus was teaching the crowds along the journey. The blind man, whom St. Mark in his Gospel identifies as Bartimaeus, was sitting by the roadside begging. He was in Jericho, literally the lowest city on earth, a symbol of the depths to which he had fallen. He heard the commotion of the crowd and asked what was happening. Upon hearing that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, he immediately began to bellow. He didn’t cry out for alms. He didn’t cry out at that point for a miracle. He cried out simply for mercy. “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” He had doubtless heard of Jesus’ miracles in Galilee and was responding in faith. The fact that he called him “Son of David” indicated he believed Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah. The word St. Luke used to describe his shouting refers to an animal cry, something that shows the depth of the existential pain he was in, like a dog hit by a car or an elephant with its trunk caught inextricably in a tree. Hearing his agonizing howling, many of those following Jesus and trying to hear what he was teaching responded not with mercy, but with a rebuke, telling him to shut his trap. But that only led the man to shriek all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me!” Jesus stopped and ordered that Bartimaeus be brought to him. For Jesus, caring for this man was more important than whatever he was teaching at that moment, because it was, in fact, the central message of the Gospel he was proclaiming. Jesus had been telling the perambulating crowds that they were ascending from Jericho to Jerusalem and there everything written in the prophets about the Suffering Servant, about the Just Man being beset by evil doers, about Isaac carrying the wood for the sacrifice, about Abel being slain by Cain, would be fulfilled as he would be betrayed to the Romans, mocked, insulted, spat upon, scourged and killed, but rise on the third day. And all of it was taking place so that through his passion, death and resurrection, Jesus could lift us up from our own Jerichos, heal our own spiritual blindness, and respond definitively to our cries for the Messiah to give us God’s mercy.
- Jesus, however, wanted to involve Bartimaeus, just like he wants to involve us, in the process of healing. After hearing the blind man screaming, it would have been very easy for Jesus to come to meet him exactly where he was begging by the roadside. He was blind after all! Instead Jesus drew near, but then he called Bartimaeus to get up to come to him. This was to engage Bartimaeus’ freedom, to stoke his desire, to exercise his faith, to give him greater personal involvement in the miracle Jesus was about to accomplish. St. Mark tells us, Bartimaeus “threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.” The cloak was his outer garment to keep warm at night, like a winter jacket for a homeless person during these cold days of winter. It was in a sense a security blanket. To leave it behind, to wander from such a comfort zone to go to Jesus, would have taken courage and faith, because, being blind, he might never find it again. But Bartimaeus was intentionally embracing a new life and establishing a new security. As a model for the journey each of us is called to make during Lent, he left the cloak and the past behind, “sprang up” and raced to respond to the call of Jesus. Unlike the excuse makers elsewhere in the Gospel who said that they would follow Jesus only after they had buried their father (who might die decades later), inspected their oxen, enjoyed their honeymoon, and so on, Bartimaeus responded immediately. When we came to Jesus, the Lord asked, “What do you want me to do for you?,” and Bartimaeus replied, “Lord, please let me see!” The word St. Luke utilizes — anablepo— means in Greek to “see again,” indicating that Bartimaeus had lost the sight he once had. He wanted to be able to see anew. In Lent we need to recognize that each of us has lost the innocence of faith and the purity of vision we once had. Jesus in this season asks us, “What do you want me to do for you?,” and we’re called to allow him to help us to see again fully, to see things in the light of the truth.
- When Jesus replied to Bartimaeus, “Have sight; your faith has saved you,” he was not only granting his wish to see again but the far greater initial appeal, “Have mercy on me!” Jesus’ generosity far outdid Bartimaeus’ imagination to ask. Bartimaeus’ faith that led him to persevere in crying out when the crowds were telling him to be quiet, his trust in Jesus as the Messiah, his courage to leave his precious cloak behind to seize the pearl of great price, his candor in asking for a miracle with faith it could be granted, were all rewarded. Faith in response to God, we see, leads to salvation, and even though Bartimaeus didn’t dare ask for that, God nevertheless gave it. Bartimaeus used his restored sight and his growth in freedom, St. Mark tells us, to follow Jesus. He left the depth of Jericho behind and followed Jesus up to Jerusalem. St. Luke’s words, “He immediately received his sight and followed him, giving glory to God, and when they saw this, all the people gave praise to God” (Lk 18:43), suggests he spent the rest of his life glorifying God in such a way that others joined him in that divine praise. Coming on Quinquagesima Sunday, we see how Lent is the time during which, no matter what pits we’re in, however deep or dark, we cry out to the Lord for mercy, and Christ approaches, calls us to arise and come to him, wanting to restore our vision and strengthen us to live by the faith that saves, so that we, too, might follow Jesus fully and spend our lives glorifying God.
- That’s the first lesson we learn, about approaching God with faith, recognizing our blindness and our need for God’s mercy. The second is equally important. It’s about the love in which we’re supposed to grow in Lent. St. Paul, in his famous passage from his First Letter to the Corinthians today, describes for us that if we speak the word of God in tongues, if we have the gift of prophecy and understand every mystery, if we have faith more than a mustard seed to move mountain ranges, if we give away everything we have as alms and even hand our body over as martyrs, but don’t do so with love, then we gain nothing. Nada. Rien. Niente. Nichts. Nihil. In Lenten terms, if we rigorously fast all 40 days and six Sundays, if we give over 99 percent of what we have in alms, if we pray from dawn to dusk but don’t do so with love for God and love for others, then we will gain nothing. Loving God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength and loving our neighbor as God has loved us is that essential.
- Very often Lent is marked by a minimalism unworthy of someone who really loves God with all his mind, heart, soul and strength and truly loves one’s neighbor in need. As Lenten penances, people often give up something small for their fasting, like chocolate and sweets, or alcohol, or chewing gum; frequently put some loose change in a Rice Bowl box for almsgiving; and commit themselves to praying the Stations of the Cross on Fridays for prayer. These are all good practices, they’re all steps in the right direction, but they’re small steps. They’re a little like a husband’s picking up a generic card for his wife today on Valentine’s Day. It’s certainly better than nothing — at least the old man remembered! — but they stand in contrast to those husbands or boyfriends who seek to show, on Valentine’s Day and beyond, just how much they love the woman in their life through the thoughtfulness and time they put into demonstrating why, how and how much they cherish her. Real love is shown in a capacity to sacrifice for the one loved, even to the point of laying down one’s life. Stinginess, whether in terms of cheapness or a general lack of effort, is often a sign of a weak love. The same thing goes in the spiritual life and in the way we approach Lent. As Christians, we should love God more than any man has ever loved a woman. We should be willing to sacrifice for him more. We should be willing to make more time for him than those in love make for each other. We should be more passionate about pleasing him than any boyfriend seeks to make happy the woman to whom he intends one day to propose. Just as people who love each other want to spend time talking to each other, so we should long for time to converse with God in prayer. Just as those in love eat together, we should sit at table with the fasting Lord. Just as a husband and a wife sacrifice for each other and their children, we should sacrifice for the Lord and for others. Lent is not about making minor course corrections in our life, but about experiencing a radical and total conversion. It’s meant to be a moral exodus in which we give up the easy superficiality into which we fall and resolve to adopt faithfully, step by step, Christ’s own path of total self-giving. It’s meant to be a Passover from mediocrity to sanctity, from lukewarmness to ardor, from being a part-time disciple to inserting ourselves fully into Christ’s paschal mystery, dying to ourselves so that Christ can truly live within us.
- Lent, in short, is supposed to be a season of love. Making the time for prayer shows how much we love the Lord. Almsgiving shows how much we really love our neighbor. Fasting shows how much we really hunger for what God hungers, which involves not only our self-mastery but our hunger and thirst for holiness. Jesus calls us to a different standard of love than we find in the world. In the world we find love, but in general, a limited love. People think they love because they love some family members, or friends, or a spouse. But Jesus tell us in the Sermon on the Mount, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them” (Lk 6:32). You’ll find some love among thieves, among Mafiosi, among narcissists. We’re called to love by a different standard, namely Christ’s. The love we see in him is patient and kind. It’s not jealous, pompous, arrogant, rude, self-seeking, quick-tempered, or self-pitying. It focuses and celebrates not the wrong we can others do, but rejoices in the truth, in what’s right, in the good people do. Our love is supposed to be similar. Each of the attributes St. Paul lists, which are able predicable of Christ, are meant to describe us, not just toward our best friends and closest family members but toward those who have made themselves archenemies. We’re living at a time in which many people, including Christians, are not only not loving, but feeling justified in living in states of hatred, animosity and total dismissal of others. People are being consumed with enmity not for the devil — as God calls us to — but with enmity, spite, contempt for those with whom they disagree, like the devil calls us to. One metastasizing manifestation of this is “cancel culture,” which is about erasing people. It’s a cut-throat, cold-blooded, spiteful destruction of other people’s livelihoods. It seeks to punish and ultimately annihilate people first in one’s heart and then in the social order. And this anti-Christian culture, which flows from the culture of death, is growing. Jesus tells us, “Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do to me,” and people who seek to cancel others are, in essence, cancelling Jesus, because Jesus out of love died for for those supposedly cancelled. Beyond cancel culture, we see this anti-loving animus in the polarization that has taken place in our society with regard to politics. Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount, “Whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment… and whoever says, ‘You fool!,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna” (Mt 5:22), and yet we see this principle violated routinely by Catholics in the way they approach POTUS 45 or POTUS 46, the way they approach the Speaker of the House or the Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate, the way they lacerate the Governor, the Mayor and many others. This does not mean we can’t criticize others’ flawed positions and sinful, unjust actions — with charity and out of charity, as salt, light and leaven we must — but at the same time we must be praying for those who advance such positions and commit such actions. Jesus calls us to love even those who have made themselves our enemies, to pray for those persecuting us, to do good to those who seek to harm us. Dorothy Day here in this city used to say, harrowingly because it’s true: “We love the Lord to the extent that we love the person we like the least.” Whether in our case that means nasty relatives, or vindictive co-workers, or maleficent politicians, we must love them, with patience, kindness, self-control and the other virtues St. Paul lists. It’s never justified for us to become pompous, inflated, rude and quick-tempered. It’s never justified to brood over injuries or to rejoice in their wrongdoing or falls. When true, St. Paul says, “love never fails.” And if our love fails when tested, especially when we think we are justified in not loving those we don’t like or who do evil, then we’re not living by a Christian standard. Even when we must criticize and call to conversion, we must do so not with battery acid in our hearts and lips but in such a way that they get the sense that we love them even more than we hate the evil they are engaged in. Our loving begins with not hating. It begins with praying sincerely for those who are hard to like or whose positions we could never support, that God not hold their sins against them. Because if we don’t love like this, all of other spiritual practices will in the final analysis amount to nothing. Like Jesus in the Gospel, we must have compassion for those who are blind — and even greater compassion on those who haven’t yet realized they’re blind. As a child, we may have behaved differently, but now as adults, we, like Paul, must put away childish ways.
- Today Jesus asks us as he asked Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” Let us each ask him, for ourselves, for each other, and for all Catholics, especially those in most need of God’s mercy, to help us to live Lent with the trusting faith and passionate, all-consuming love God desires and deserves. Let us ask him so to transform us that we, like Bartimaeus, may come to experience the depth of God’s saving love and spend the rest of our life giving glory to God so that all others may praise him.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
A reading from the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians.
Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
The continuation of the Gospel according to St. Luke
Jesus took the Twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem and everything written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon; and after they have scourged him they will kill him, but on the third day he will rise.” But they understood nothing of this; the word remained hidden from them and they failed to comprehend what he said. Now as he approached Jericho a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging, and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” He shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” The people walking in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent, but he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me!” Then Jesus stopped and ordered that he be brought to him; and when he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He replied, “Lord, please let me see.” Jesus told him, “Have sight; your faith has saved you.” He immediately received his sight and followed him, giving glory to God. When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God.
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