October 25, 2009
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Rev. Joe McCloskey, S.J.
Behold, I will bring them back from the land of the north; I will gather them from the ends of the world, with the blind and the lame in their midst, The mothers and those with child; they shall return as an immense throng. They departed in tears, but I will console them and guide them; I will lead them to brooks of water, on a level road, so that none shall stumble. For I am a father to Israel, Ephraim is my first-born. Jeremiah 31:8-9
Jesus said to him in reply, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man replied to him, "Master, I want to see." Jesus told him, "Go your way; your faith has saved you." Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way. Mark 10:51-52
Piety
Bartimaeus prays the prayer that befits all of us. “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” How badly we need Jesus in our world today. Wars, crimes, hunger ravage the heart of goodness in all of us. We need to hear the cry for Jesus in the depths of our hearts. The Spirit in our hearts is forever crying out. The invitation of the Lord is loud and clear. “Come to me all you who labor and our burdened and I will refresh you.” We can never have too much of Jesus in our lives. He will always hear the cry of our heart and will come to us if we but ask. He is the true lover who is always looking out for his people. He never forces himself on us. We notice him most in our need for him. Our piety keeps us alive to his presence in our lives. The virtue of hope gives us confidence to call upon him. When we reach out to the needy of our lives we are the response of Christ to the hurt and the pain of the human race that is embodied in the little ones of life whose cry we hear. We are called by the realization that whatever we do for the least one of our lives, he considers as done for himself. He identifies with the depth of our needs and takes as done for himself whatever is done in answer to the cry of our hearts. Our piety is nourished on the ways we try to make a difference in what is wrong with our world. Every time we reach out to the hurt and the broken of life around us, we are reaching out to Jesus.
Study
We can only do so much with our lives. Our sacrifices seem insignificant. We forever doubt the efficacy of whatever we do. We study the life of Jesus to be able to see what God is asking of us. Our blindness is our ignorance of what we are capable of doing with the help of the Lord. If we only do what we think we are capable of doing without the help of the Lord we are shutting the Lord out of our lives We have to open our hearts to what our hearts tell us needs to be done. We study the pain and the hurt of each other to search out where we can make a difference with the help of the Lord. Christ is able to deal with our ignorance and our mistakes. God calls us to share the priesthood of his son. We must make sin offerings for ourselves and all who need our goodness. In seeing what is wrong with our world we can hear the voice of the Lord calling us to make a difference by our lives.
Action
If we help a single person, the example of what we do can influence the lives of our friends. Sharing our apostolic plans with others challenges them to reach out beyond what they plan to do on their own. When we join our efforts to one other, Christ works with us. The beauty of the people of God gathering together in the name of Christ is that the Mystical Body of Christ has a reality that God sees. Working in the name of Christ, makes Christ real in our world. Following Christ together makes us Christ to our world.
