October 27, 2024
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
Theme: “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” Mark 10:46–47
Why did Jesus come to the world?
Did Jesus actually come because of you?
We can see from the earthly mission of Jesus as he says,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free,to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Luke 4:18-19.
To bring goodnews to the poor?:
Are we poor? We are all poor, physically, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, financially etc.
You can Imagine the humiliation we get because of our incompleteness.
Humiliation we get when you are financially poor and we have to go and beg in order to survive.
You can imagine the depression you go through because of your spiritual agony. You keep on making effort to become holy but you see yourself going back to those sins you detest.
Today we read about Bartimaeus, the blind begger. His story is a replica of our earthly spiritual journey.
He lived by depending on the charity of others.
Just as we live on depending on one person or another to survive financially, spiritually, emotionally, physically etc.
As a blind man at that time, Bartimaeus was unable to work and support himself.
He depended on the alms he was receiving from others. This made people look down on him.
There’s a saying that a beggar has no choice. He received a lot of insults and curses because of his situation.
Many saw his blindness as a curse from God and the result of his sin or the sins of his parents because of that he was treated as an outcast.
Thus, we can imagine the mental and emotional trauma a blind person experienced at that time.
The story of Bartimaeus symbolizes our earthly Christian journey and teaches us a lot about ourselves.
The First lesson we must learn from Bartimaeus is the act of humility and weakness.
1. Spiritual blindness and weakness.
When we consider our spiritual life, and we want to tell ourselves the truth, we know that we are all spiritually blind and weak because of our fallen natural state, and thus we are spiritual outcasts. This means that we cannot attain Heaven by ourselves. Bartimaeus is a symbol of our fallen natural state. We need to humble ourselves every day and see ourselves as people in dire need who are incapable of saving our own souls.
Secondly, the life of Bartimaeus is also a symbol of what we must do in order to be drawn out of the blindness and misery we experience in life.
Often, we are ashamed or fear to express our desires when we are in an inordinate situation.
Today, we learn from Bartimaeus’ action.
Immediately he heard the crowds moving and commotion of the people, he started asking them what was going on. On hearing that it was Jesus that was passing, he cried out for mercy. He started shouting, “Jesus son of David have mercy on me!!!
Perseverance:
Another lesson from Bartimaeus was his perseverance in prayer.
The crowds:
The people who heard him crying out rebuked him and told him to stop. But their rebukes only made him shout the more, “Jesus son of David have mercy on me.”
The effect of the crowds in our spiritual life:
When we want to pray, we often hear many voices.
We have people who will come to discourage us. Some will start siting instances of those who have prayed but did not get any answer just to discourage us.
We have to be like Bartimaeus by praying and not getting discouraged by distractions.
The prayer of Bartimaeus must become the way we pray. It is very easy to become discouraged in life and to lose hope. When that happens, our prayer becomes weak and ineffective. At times, we will experience many other temptations to give up on prayer. The rebukes by the crowd are a symbol of the many temptations we will experience to give up on prayer. When those temptations come, we must double our effort and strengthen our resolve.
Another lesson from Bartimaeus was his reaction when Jesus called him to come.
When Jesus stopped and told the disciples to bring Bartimaeus to Him, Bartimaeus immediately got up, threw off his cloak and went to our Lord. His cloak is a symbol of everything we need to shed in life that keeps us from immediately and quickly responding to the promptings of grace.
So what is that thing or that person that is hindering us from responding to Jesus’ call? we must be ready and willing to eliminate anything that keeps us from responding to God the moment He calls to us.
Finally, Jesus asked him a very important question.
“What can I do for you?”
Waooo!!!, Bartimaeus’ prayer was perfect. “Master, that I may see.”
We see here the most important desire we should have in life: what is that?
Spiritually speaking, we must work to foster the deepest desire to see God, to see our Lord. If we desire the gift of faith, the ability to see spiritual truths and understand them, then our Lord will answer that prayer. Our Lord will also say to us, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.”
Today we have seen how the physical blindness of Bartimaeus can help us to become better Christians on our earthly journey.
We pray that Almighty God may help us to use all the opportunities we have to come closer to God and receive our spiritual sight.
May Almighty God bless us and protect us from all evils through Christ our Lord Amen.
Have a lovely and blessed Sunday.
Rev. Fr. Ambrose Onyeka Anene SDB is the Parish Priest of Church of the Archangels, Gaduwa, Abuja.
