8th Week, Thursday, May 30
Once you were not God's people; Now you are God's people.
1 Peter 2:2-5, 9-12
Starr Daily was a hard-core criminal, who ended up in solitary confinement. One day, when he was lying on the icy floor, something strange began to stir within him. He suddenly began to wonder what would have happened had he devoted his vast reservoir of energies to doing good, rather than doing evil. What happened next is hard to describe. As best he could piece it together, he experienced the powerful presence of Jesus.
About the experience's effect on him, he said, "I had never felt such love as I did then. Before it happened, I was a calloused criminal. After it, I was completely healed."
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Recall a moment of insight in our own life. "Starr Daily is the best living proof I've ever seen that 'a new creation in Jesus Christ' is not just the old man patched up, but an altogether new person living in the same body." Peter Marshall
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Introduction
Reborn in baptism, we have become living stones of Christ as God’s temple and his holy people, who make God’s name known and offer God a sacrifice acceptable to God.
Jesus cures a blind man. Not only is his eyesight restored, but he also begins to see with faith who Jesus is. Note that the crowd first try to silence him but his faith is unstoppable and cannot be silenced.
Opening Prayer
Our living God, you are very near to us in our joys and pains. Give us eyes of faith and love to see the mission you have given us in life and the grace and courage to carry it out. Make us also clear-sighted enough to see the needs of people who cry out their misery or suffer in silence, that we may bring them your healing compassion and lead them to you. We ask this through Christ, our Lord.
Intercessions
– Lord, see the eyes of children open to life; see the eyes full of hope of those who believe in your future and fill them with your light, we pray:
– Lord, see the eyes of those who suffer; see the lifeless eyes of those who are physically blind, we pray:
– Lord, see the eyes of those who fail to see others; see the eyes full of tears of those who mourn for those they loved, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Our living and loving God, the whole world is a sign of you: your beauty is reflected in every flower and each ray of the sun shines with your light. Give each of us a grateful heart that rejoices in simple things. Give us new eyes to discover, in these signs of bread and wine, the love and the life of Jesus, your Son, and give us faith to see how good it is to be your people in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Prayer after Communion
God, our loving Father, we have heard and seen your Son and recognized him in the breaking of bread. Help us to see with his light what is right and what is wrong in us. Make us understand the deeper meaning of suffering and pain. And one day show us yourself as you are, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.
Blessing
May God give to all of us eyes of faith and may he bless you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Commentary
Today’s Gospel text tells us about the healing of the blind Bartimaeus. On the side of the road he cries out to Jesus who was passing by: "Son of David, have mercy on me."
The name Timaeus is derived from the Greek word meaning respect or fear. The blind man was named as the son of the fearful one. But he displays great courage in shouting for mercy even as the crowd were trying to silence him.
Deep down we are all blind, Bartimaeus' advantage over us is that he knew it, he was aware of his blindness and therefore capable of crying out to the Lord who is passing by. We are not so aware of our blindness; we have a false confidence that we see clearly. That is why we judge, denounce and condemn … God alone knows the human heart and the why of things.
Bartimaeus is the image of the disciple who finally opens his eyes to the light of the Master and decides to follow him along the way. Only those who realize that they are leading a meaningless, unacceptable life, decide to look for a way out. Bartimaeus is not resigned to the darkness in which he is immersed. One day “He hears about Jesus” and understands the chance of a lifetime is presented to him: He screams, asking for help; he no longer wants to stay in his state of life. But there are difficulties to overcome. He immediately feels thwarted in his effort to encounter the light of heaven. Yet he is not discouraged, is not ashamed of his condition, does not hide his anguish; he cries, asks for help from one who can open his eyes.
Jesus stops! It is an invitation to joy and hope: “Take heart! Get up, he is calling you” (v. 49). Bartimaeus “jumps up, throws off his cloak and runs” to Jesus. These gestures have a symbolic value. The mantle was considered the only asset owned by the poor. The act of abandoning it, along with a few coins that passers-by kindly placed there, indicates the complete detachment from his previous life. He is no longer interested in the life he has up to that moment.
Anyone who comes to Christ must not fancy for a comfortable and trouble-free life. The experience of Bartimaeus teaches that the journey that awaits those who have received the light is very difficult; it forces one to rethink habits, behavior and friendships. It demands that life, time, goods are managed in a radically new way. Who wants to be enlightened by Christ must choose between the old mantle and the new light.
Jesus is the light that illuminates everything, fills everything with life and meaning. That is why when Jesus opens our eyes we cannot but follow him along the way, because we have discovered the light.
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30 May 2024
Mark 10:46-52
Let us never despair
The Gospel passage recounts the cure of the blind man of Jericho, Bartimaeus. He heard that Jesus was passing by, understood that it was the opportunity of his life and acted swiftly.
Bartimaeus is not blind; he is only sightless. He sees better with his heart than many of those around him, because he has faith and cherishes hope. More than that, it is this interior vision of faith that also helps him to recover his external vision of things. “Your faith has made you well,” Jesus says to him.
There are some temptations for those who follow Jesus. The Gospel describes two of them in today’s passage. None of the disciples stopped at the cry of Bartimaeus on the road. They continued to walk and even tried to stop him from crying out. If Bartimaeus was blind, they were deaf: his problem was not their problem.
This is a temptation for us, too: when confronted with problems, we prefer to move away as if we did not know. Just like the disciples, although we are with Jesus, but we do not think like him and refuse to respond like him.
There is a second temptation, that of falling into a “scheduled faith”. We are able to walk with the People of God, but we already have our schedule for the journey, where everything is listed: we know where to go and how long it will take; we expect everyone to respect our rhythm. Thus, we run the risk of becoming those “many” of the Gospel who lose patience and rebuke Bartimaeus. Just a short time before, they scolded the children (cf. 10:13), and now the blind beggar: whoever disturbs our schedule is excluded.
Bartimaeus represents people who experience the miseries of life and feel sunken, depressed, and alone. But, he teaches us a lesson in perseverance. Let us never despair. God’scompassion will never fail us.
