Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, October 23, 2021

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Vigil
October 23, 2021

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, when we will travel with Jesus to Jericho, the lowest place on earth, more below sea level than any other location on the planet. Jesus was passing through that place, representative of the moral pit of the human world, in order to ascend from there the 15 mile road up hill that leads to Jerusalem, where he would suffer and die to lift up the human race and us.
• St. Mark tells us that as Jesus was passing through the town,  “Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road side begging.” Bartimaeus was not born blind, but had become blind over the course of time. We see that in the verb he himself uses later — anablepo — asking Jesus in the Greek to “see again.” But he hadn’t just lost his sight. To some degree, he had lost the dignity he would have had. He was sitting by the road side begging. He could not take care of himself. He needed basic help. He had hit rock bottom. He was in the depth of the valley of darkness in the lowest place on earth. But it was precisely in that spiritual poverty that Jesus would come to meet him. When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was passing by, he didn’t cry out for alms, which would have been a small request. He didn’t cry out at that point even for a miracle. He cried out simply for mercy. “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!” He had doubtless heard of Jesus’ reputation for working miracles to the north in Galilee and was responding in faith. The fact that he called him “Son of David” was a sign he believed Jesus was the Messiah. And his prayer would be answered.
• Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” Like rabbis were accustomed to do on all their pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the major feasts, Jesus was teaching the crowds along the journey. When he heard Bartimaeus’ pleas, he stopped in his tracks and ordered that Bartimaeus be brought to him. For Jesus, caring for this man was more important than what he was teaching at that moment, because he was about to show the Gospel rather than just verbally describe it. He was also going to show how he responds to persistent prayer. They said to Bartimaeus, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you,” words of encouragement to anyone. It would have been very easy for Jesus to have come to meet Bartimaeus exactly where he was begging. But Jesus loved him too much and understood the human heart too well to do that. Instead he drew near, he got close, but then he had Bartimaeus get up to come to him, to exercise Bartimaeus’ freedom, to stoke his desire, to grow his faith, and to give him greater participation in the miracle Jesus himself was about to accomplish. It takes courage to get up and leave our comfort zone to respond to the Lord.
• Bartimaeus had that courage and did. St. Mark tells us, “He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.”  The cloak was his outer garment that kept him warm at night. It was in a sense his security blanket. It was quite valuable to him and part of his life. But in crying out, in taking courage and going to Jesus who was calling, he was intentionally embracing a new life and establishing a new security. He left his cloak behind, which is not just a fact but an important symbol of how he was thinking more about clinging to Jesus and the new life for which he was hoping than grasping the past. Even though he was blind, he got up immediately. He raced to respond to his being called by the Lord.
• “What do you want me to do for you?,” Jesus asked him. Bartimaeus replied, “Master, I want to see.” The Latin words for this have become a very popular Christian aspiration, made especially famous by Saint Josemaria: “Domine, ut videam!” “I want to see!” Bartimaeus was saying, essentially, “I want to live in the light. I want to see things as they really are. I want to see you!” The verb used here in Greek is, as I mentioned earlier, is “I want to see again.” He wanted to live in grace again. He wanted to live anew in the light. He knew what he lost and he knew where to find it. To say to Jesus, “I want to see!,” is not just to turn to a healer and ask him to restore his vision. It’s to say, “I want to live in your vision.” St. John would write in his Gospel, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will have the light of life.” That’s the gift for which Bartimaeus was begging. But Jesus gave him something more. “Go your way; your faith has saved you.”  The Lord not only granted his wish to see but heard his initial cry to have mercy on him. Jesus’ generosity far outdid Bartimaeus’ imagination to ask. Faith in response to God leads to salvation, and even though Bartimaeus didn’t dare ask for that, God gave it.  St. Mark tells us, “Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.” Bartimaeus used his freedom to follow Jesus. He left the depth of Jericho behind and followed Jesus up to Jerusalem. He followed him to Palm Sunday. He followed him to the Way of the Cross. He followed him all the way. St. Luke in his version of the scene comments, “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). He spent the rest of his life glorifying God in such a way that others joined him in that divine praise. The essence of the Christian life is encapsulated by that phrase. To glorify God in a contagious way that others join us in doing so is what the Christian life is all about.
• The same Jesus who asked Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?,” asks us that question. We’re called to learn from the blind man in Jericho how to beg Jesus for the gift of sight.  We want to see Jesus in prayer. We want to see Jesus in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. We want to see Jesus in others, in the faces of those we love, in the faces of those we find so difficult to love. We want to see Jesus behind the distressing masks of the poor, the sick, the lonely, the homeless, the abandoned, and the blind. We want to behold Christ’s face in the beauties of creation. We want to see him behind each of the commandments, teaching us how to love. We want the eyes to see his will in our daily life, in the present and for the future. Ultimately we want to see him forever face-to-face in heaven, smiling on us with love. But so often we’re blinded. Sin blinds us. Worries blind us. Pain and suffering blind us. Hatred and prejudices blind us. Others, including those we love, can sometimes get in the way and remove our line of vision. This Sunday is an occasion to ask the Lord to take out whatever planks are in our eyes so that we may see him clearly and follow him, like Bartimaeus before us.
• There’s also a very important application of this Gospel to our Christian mission in the modern world. In 2012, Pope-emeritus Benedict used this scene of the cure of Bartimaeus to describe what we need to do to help the blind men and women of our day encounter Christ as he is passing by. He commented, “The state of blindness has great significance in the Gospels. It represents man who needs God’s light, the light of faith, if he is to know reality truly and to walk the path of life.  It is essential to acknowledge one’s blindness, one’s need for this light, otherwise one could remain blind for ever. Bartimaeus, then, at that strategic point of Mark’s account, is presented as a model.  He was not blind from birth, but he lost his sight. He represents man who has lost the light and knows it, but has not lost hope: he knows how to seize the opportunity to encounter Jesus and he entrusts himself to him for healing.  … Bartimaeus represents man aware of his pain and crying out to the Lord, confident of being healed.  His simple and sincere plea is exemplary, and indeed … it has found its way into the tradition of Christian prayer. … From this perspective, Bartimaeus could represent those who live in regions that were evangelized long ago, where the light of faith has grown dim and people have drifted away from God, no longer considering him relevant for their lives.  These people have therefore lost a precious treasure, they have ‘fallen’ from a lofty dignity, … their lives have lost a secure and sound direction and they have become, often unconsciously, beggars for the meaning of existence.  They are the many in need of a … new encounter with Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God (cf. Mk 1:1), who can open their eyes afresh and teach them the path.” He concludes that we, “who have had the experience of being healed by God through Jesus Christ” are called to go out to the present culture of the west, which is like ancient Jericho, where so many blind men and women are crying out for meaning and mercy, perhaps without explicitly realizing it, with the light of Christ, lived in daily life, in the hope that we may guide them to the source of that light, Jesus himself, who wants to lead them from the depths of the darkness of the modern Jericho to the radiant heights of the celestial Jerusalem.
• At Mass this Sunday we, like Bartimaeus, will cry out, over and again, “Kyrie, eleison! Christe, eleison, Kyrie eleison!” “Lord, Christ, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!” Jesus will come and ask, “What do you want me to do for you?” In response to our petition to see, dwell and live in his light, he will seek to illumine us by his word, and then he will give us a greater gift even than he gave Bartimaeus. He will give us himself, on the inside. No matter what difficulties we’re experiencing, no matter the depths to which we may have sunk, Jesus will be passing by. Let us take courage because Jesus is calling us. Let us throw off our security blankets and attachments, spring up and come to him. And let us, like those following and listening to Jesus along the journey, go to those who are on the sides of the modern road, begging for meaning, and tell them, “Take courage. Jesus is calling” you, too.

The Gospel on which the homily was based was: 

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